How does climate change really affect life around us?
By Maya Falah, Angle, Science and Environment News Agency
The new president of the United States may claim that global warming is a "hoax" invented by the Chinese and is trying Stick sticks in the wheels of the global Paris agreement to slow down climate change, but climate change is less interesting - it continues on its own, regardless of the votes of the voters in Florida.
In a study recently published in the scientific journal Science, researchers showed that climate change Reshapes life around us at a higher rate than previously assumed, and in fact it has already had time to affect the absolute majority of the processes that occur in nature. According to the researchers, climate change affects the bodies and behavior of animals, changes the distribution and productivity of plants and harms many essential services we receive from nature.
In the study, the researchers examined many specific studies and case studies that show evidence of specific processes in nature that are affected by climate change. According to the main researcher - Dr. Brett Schafers from the University of Florida - there are thousands of studies conducted in different regions of the world and from different research fields that provide clear evidence to the effects that nature has undergone in the last hundred years. Combining the studies allowed the researchers to compile for the first time a comprehensive picture of the effects of climate change on nature, and to come to the conclusion that it is currently affecting almost every possible aspect of life on Earth.
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The researchers examined 94 processes defined by them as ecologically important to the ecosystems themselves, and those that affect their services to humans. They examined processes starting at the micro level - such as genetic processes that occur in the cells of plants and animals, up to processes at the macro level - those that occur at the level of the entire ecosystem. Of all the processes examined, 82 percent showed clear evidence of observed changes in these processes, showing the impact that climate change and a warming world are having on them.
Among the change processes can be found, among other things, an effect on the body size of animals: in warmer areas, animals tend to be smaller relative to their species that live in cold areas, this is because a smaller body means less surface area, which provides a more efficient ability to emit heat and thus maintain low body temperature. The studies the researchers looked at showed a contraction in the body size of reptiles and birds. Thus, for example, six species of salamanders in the Appalachian Mountains have shrunk by an average of about 8 percent in the last 50 years - a significant and very rapid change on an evolutionary scale.
Examining other animals also revealed changes in their mating patterns and frequency, during their migration seasons and in the living areas where they can be found. Animals from tropical areas, for example, find it difficult to adapt to rising temperatures and show a tendency to move away towards temperate areas where the temperature is more comfortable. The effect on processes is also seen in plants, when seasonal plants change their flowering times and agricultural plants change their harvest times and their yield amounts.
It is important to remember that all the recorded changes occurred after an average warming of the earth by only one degree Celsius since the industrial revolution, when the predicted warming until the end of the current century is about an additional 3-2 degrees (this is unless the Paris Agreement is implemented as it is and the warming is indeed limited to about 1.5 up to 2 degrees "only" until 2100). But even if the rate of warming does slow down, if such significant changes are taking place in the ecosystems and among the animals in the wild already - what will happen when the temperatures continue to climb?
"Evolutionary changes happen all the time, even today," says Prof. Shay Meiri from the Department of Zoology at Tel Aviv University. "Creatures change according to the changes in the ecosystems in which they live in order to succeed in surviving, and those who fail to change and adapt do not survive." Many examples of changes in the body size of animals have also been documented in Israel: Prof. Yoram Yom Tov, for example, found changes in the body size of several species of carnivores and species of birds: he attributes the former to increased food availability due to the presence of humans - from landfills and the like - and the latter to the rise in temperatures. "In my research and that of other Israeli researchers on carnivore populations, we discovered that changes in body size, although relatively rare, indeed occur in some populations quickly", says Meiri.
But is it climate change that is responsible for all the observed changes in nature? Meiri is not sure about that. "There is no doubt that humans have a significant impact on habitat change, but it is also an impact that is caused by direct actions we take and not only by the indirect effects of global warming or a change in the rainfall regime. We build everywhere, pollute everything, hunt, introduce invasive species, cut off habitats with roads and fences and do many other actions that affect the natural systems. In my opinion, it is difficult to link all the changes that are taking place in animals solely to climate change."
Sick and hungry?
All these changes in nature, of course, also have an effect on humans: the researchers warn that changes that are already being observed and that are expected to worsen as the earth warms, will affect the ability to supply food to the world's population and the spread of diseases and epidemics. "Reduced genetic diversity and instability in crop yield, poor productivity and reduced body size of fish as well as damage to fruit crops due to winter frosts threaten food security," the article states. "Changes in the distribution of diseases and the arrival of new disease-causing agents and pests pose a direct threat to human health as well as to the agricultural crops and farm animals on which it is based."
And what will happen to the animals and the plants? "Those who reproduce quickly, those who adapt to life alongside humans, those who know how to survive human-caused infections, cutting off natural areas, those who are not hunted or eaten by cats and dogs or by humans, are likely to survive. Anyone who matures slowly and reproduces little, is vulnerable to pollution, loves the cold, has been run over on the road, is hunted or preyed on and is severely affected by the aspects related to human activity - it is likely that he is in trouble," Meiri concludes.
And what is happening in Israel?
At least for the Mediterranean there is already evidence of a growing impact of climate change. The eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Israel, has warmed by about three degrees in the last 40 years. This warming encourages the spread of invasive species and leads to drastically change the marine system. Animals, such as the sea urchins for example, cannot withstand the extreme temperatures and are doomed to become extinct, to adapt themselves to the situation or to undergo a rapid evolution and only those suitable to the new conditions will survive.
It should be remembered that one global degree means several degrees in some areas and cooling in other areas. These changes on a regional scale will cause different effects in different places and on many species.
And while the nature around us continues to change, our question remains to be asked if we too will be the type of animals that adapt and survive, and even if so - in what world will we find ourselves with the gradual warming and rapid changes of everything we know?
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