All Kinds Of Species Shifting Ranges As Climate Distorts - Reuters

[hatrack]

OSLO, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Salmon swim north into Arctic seas, locusts plague northern Italy and two heat-loving bee-eater birds nest in a hedge in Britain. Signs of global warming fed by greenhouse gases produced by human activity, or just summertime oddities?

In the United States, some warblers are flying north to Canada. In Costa Rica, toucans are moving higher up into the mountains, apparently because of rising temperatures. In July, a Norwegian man fishing in a fjord had a shock when he landed a John Dory, a fish more usually found in temperate waters off southern Europe or Africa. "There's a long list of migratory species ending up further north. It's certainly a sign of warmer temperatures," said Steve Sawyer, climate policy director at the Greenpeace environmental group.

He said salmon had been swimming through the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia into the Chukchi Sea, apparently because the frigid water had warmed up. Such shifts could have vast long-term implications for farmers and fishing fleets.

EDIT (Insert obligatory "But some experts argue that . . ." from noted industry whore Fred Singer)

However, U.N. data show that the warmest year since records began in the 1860s was 1998, followed by 2002, 2003 and 2004. Most scientists link the rise in temperatures to human emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, rather than natural change. The panel that advises the United Nations says that rising temperatures may drive thousands of species to extinction and cause more storms, floods and deserts while raising sea levels, perhaps by one metre (three feet) by 2100. Inuit peoples have noted southerly species of wildlife reaching the Arctic in summertime in recent years, including robins, hornets and barn owls. Anecdotal evidence from further south is piling up. Two yellow, green and brown bee-eater birds, usually found in southern Europe, have nested in a hedge in southern England -- the fourth time a bee-eater nest has been found in Britain.

EDIT

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29498448.htm

[H5N1]

1. and where it stops nobody knows!

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Bush and his clients won't admit to Global Warming ...

... until the Inuits start seeing 'gators in the springtime.

Which looks to be a definite posibility by 2008.

--p!