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Another ‘field day’ for the press as a new research paper, entitled ‘A long-term association between global temperature and biodiversity, origination and extinction in the fossil record’, is published in the journal Proceedings of The Royal Society (Biological Sciences).

The abstract says:

The past relationship between global temperature and levels of biological diversity is of increasing concern
due to anthropogenic climate warming. However, no consistent link between these variables has yet been
demonstrated. We analysed the fossil record for the last 520 Myr against estimates of low latitude sea
surface temperature for the same period. We found that global biodiversity (the richness of families and
genera) is related to temperature and has been relatively low during warm ‘greenhouse’ phases, while
during the same phases extinction and origination rates of taxonomic lineages have been relatively high.
These findings are consistent for terrestrial and marine environments and are robust to a number of
alternative assumptions and potential biases. Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate
may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner. Our findings may
have implications for extinction and biodiversity change under future climate warming.

Of course, the press don’t have time to read it and the authors qualify the findings of the study in the text:

“A first qualification is that our results relate to the effects of residuals from the long-term trend. An increase in global temperature may therefore cause an increase in extinction rate but not necessarily an absolute decrease in biodiversity because the underlying trend is for biodiversity to increase over time.”

“A second qualification is that the coarse time scale of our data does not allow us to make short-term predictions,
although short-term effects also cannot be excluded.”

“Finally, although we have shown an association between temperature and both biodiversity and taxonomic rates, this association may not be causative. Deducing causation from correlation is, of course, difficult. The lags shown in some of our analyses suggest that temperature is affecting biodiversity and evolutionary rates, but well known links between organisms and geophysical processes suggest we should not yet rule out the opposite direction of causation (Rothman 2001).”

CO2 gets a mention:

“When atmospheric CO2 concentrations were included as an explanatory variable in our analyses, temperature
always remained significant, and CO2 was normally not significant. CO2 was significant for both marine genus origination and extinction rate, and in the latter case was a stronger predictor than temperature. Overall, temperature was the better predictor of diversity and taxonomic rates.”

The BBC News website goes with Climate threat to biodiversity

“Global temperatures predicted for the coming centuries could trigger a mass extinction, UK scientists have warned.”

Australia’s ABC News gets rather carried away and headlines with Global warming to cause mass extinction: report

“Researchers in Britain say in the long term, global warming could lead to a mass extinction of animals and plants.”

Whilst we are on the subject of climate warming and cooling, how has man fared specifically in the UK over the past 700,000 years?

If we turn the clock back 12 months, we have this report on the BBC News website with a nice graphic:

Britain’s human history revealed

Eight times humans came to try to live in Britain and on at least seven occasions they failed – beaten back by freezing conditions. Scientists think they can now write a reasonably comprehensive history of the occupation of these isles. It stretches from 700,000 years ago and the first known settlers at Pakefield in Suffolk, through to the most recent incomers just 12,000 years or so ago (the end of the last great ice age). The evidence comes from the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project.

“Australian aboriginals have been in Australia longer, continuously than the British people have been in Britain. There were probably people in the Americas before 12,000 years ago,” Professor Stringer explained.

So there you have it – in the cold we die, in warm intergalcials we thrive.

I’m referring to Queensland’s ‘Cool it by Degrees’ campaign.

“Polar bears are among the most threatened species as a result of changes in our temperature and changes in our climate,” Ms Bligh told reporters.

“If we had every Queenslander change the temperature of their fridge by one degree, it would be the equivalent of taking 11,000 cars off the road.

Several assumptions here including: people keep their fridges below 4C, Polar Bears need saving, and climate change is driven by CO2.

Story from The Sydney Morning Herald:

Qld has cool idea for climate change

MPs have asked the government to provide evidence that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is helping cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The Environmental Audit Committee has sought reassurances that the reduction in CO2 emissions are a result of the EU ETS and not “merely coincidental”.

MPs voiced concern over how the emission cuts were calculated

Read the rest of the article on the BBC News website:

MPs’ concerns over UK carbon plan

A new scientific paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), claims that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected. The study entitled ‘Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissions’ is co-authored by Josep G. Canadell of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).

The paper’s abstract says:

CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes have been accelerating at a global scale, with their growth rate increasing from 1.1% y–1 for 1990–1999 to >3% y–1 for 2000–2004. The emissions growth rate since 2000 was greater than for the most fossil-fuel intensive of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emissions scenarios developed in the late 1990s. Global emissions growth since 2000 was driven by a cessation or reversal of earlier declining trends in the energy intensity of gross domestic product (GDP) (energy/GDP) and the carbon intensity of energy (emissions/energy), coupled with continuing increases in population and per-capita GDP. Nearly constant or slightly increasing trends in the carbon intensity of energy have been recently observed in both developed and developing regions. No region is decarbonizing its energy supply. The growth rate in emissions is strongest in rapidly developing economies, particularly China. Together, the developing and least-developed economies (forming 80% of the world’s population) accounted for 73% of global emissions growth in 2004 but only 41% of global emissions and only 23% of global cumulative emissions since the mid-18th century. The results have implications for global equity.

‘Decline in uptake of carbon emissions confirmed’ was the headline for the CSIRO press release.

The award for the most hysterical reporting of the study’s findings goes to the Herald Sun with the headline ‘Air poison rise stuns analysts’

In the US, the Associated Press article had a more restrained headline: ‘Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere Increasing’

In the UK, the BBC News website went with ‘Unexpected growth’ in CO2 found

Comparing 1990 with 2006 could be described as cherry-picking. Scientists who are sceptical about a man-made CO2 driven climate catastrophe have pointed out that rising CO2 emissions are not being matched by rises in the global average temperature. El Nino driven 1998 remains the warmest year on record. Ocean warming has also flat-lined during the past 5 years. Furthermore, as pointed out on this blog yesterday, the airborne fraction of man-made CO2 remains at about 55 per cent, suggesting that uptake by CO2 sinks has not diminished. It is also worth noting that global Methane emissions have actually declined.

H. L. Mencken’s hobgoblins are alive and well in Australia:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Paul Biggs