Climate refugees fleeing the tropics and disruption of food supplies. New concerns. (Page 1/1)
rinselberg FEB 17, 05:00 AM
Climate change could cause an exodus of crucially needed plankton from the tropics, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Austin published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Researchers examined microfossils of zooplankton known as Foraminifera, to establish that 8 million years ago, the last time the Earth was so warm, plankton lived in areas that are more than 2,000 miles from where they are typically found today. . . .

The study suggests that current plankton populations could move far from the tropical waters, where they currently make up a crucial part of the ecosystem.

"By suddenly switching to an Earth of 8 million years ago, we're not just killing off a few species, we're changing the entire chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, and nothing is ready for that," said lead author Adam Woodhouse, a postdoctoral fellow at the university's Institute for Geophysics,

Researchers said they are afraid that potential plankton migration could disrupt the food chain in tropical waters.

"The important thing now is to determine how the effect of climate change on those species will cascade across food webs," said Anshuman Swain, a Harvard University network scientist and one of the co-authors of the study.

"The fact that we've already begun seeing an appreciable difference in the diversity of many marine groups like fish and the plankton means we might be closer to certain temperature tipping points than we thought," said Tracy Axe, an associate professor of marine micropaleontology at the University of Leeds, who helped create the database of plankton samples for the study, but was not one of its authors.

All the above is duplicated text.

"Climate change could cause plankton migration, researchers say"
Patrick Hilsman for UPI; February 15, 2023.
https://www.upi.com/Science...ssils/6961676494047/

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 02-17-2023).]

IMSA GT FEB 17, 10:45 AM
These scientists and marine biologists have such high concern yet in reality, there's nothing that anyone can do. It's nature and it will take it's course. The rest of us will need to adapt to the changes whether they be positive or negative and the marine life will either adapt or die off.
rinselberg FEB 23, 10:55 AM
Climate concerns bringing a day of reckoning for Germany's famed autobahn?

quote
For decades, German drivers (overwhelmingly male ones) have relished this ostensible perk of limitless speed, many in precision-engineered automobiles with such storied names as Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes Benz.

Now, the climate crisis is prompting Germans to rethink their relationship with the autobahn, long feted as the crème de la crème of highway systems. (Adolf Hitler did not start the project, as often cited, but rather embellished it—to propaganda-rich fanfare.)

Germany’s transportation sector’s carbon emissions, say experts, are attributable overwhelmingly to cars and trucks—and the higher the speed of a car, the greater the emissions.

What’s the purpose of four or five-lane thoroughfares in an epoch when new gas-and-diesel burners will, if the EU parliament has its way, be banned by 2035 anyway?


Paul Hockenos for CNN; February 23, 2023.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02...-hockenos/index.html

This is a "rinse-approved read".