Extrapolating the possible consequences of weather to climate.
The media release is below.
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Changing weather patterns threaten grassland sparrows
CENTRAL ORNITHOLOGY PUBLICATION OFFICE
Two of North America’s declining grassland songbirds may be particularly vulnerable to altered weather patterns caused by climate change, according to new research in The Condor: Ornithological Applications.
Extreme heat waves have been known to kill adult birds, and droughts can cause birds to abandon nests or skip breeding altogether. To learn what species might be at greatest risk, Jessica Gorzo of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her colleagues analyzed more than four decades of bird survey data from the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming, looking for patterns linking grassland bird abundance to temperature and precipitation.
Of the 14 bird species the researchers focused on, 5 showed significant associations with weather trends, their populations appearing to increase or decrease depending on whether a year had been particularly warm, cold, wet, or dry. Two, the closely related Grasshopper and Baird’s sparrows, are already declining enough to concern conservationists, and this study shows that they may be particularly vulnerable to the warmer, drier conditions that are likely becoming more frequent due to climate change.
“With climate change, there are bound to be winners and losers,” according to Gorzo. “Of the species we considered, Grasshopper and Baird’s Sparrows may be imminently at risk. These species responded similarly to our weather metrics, which made sense in light of their shared life history traits. Knowing that these species need tall, lush grassland vegetation, increasingly dry conditions could inhibit the growth they need to be successful.”
The data for the study came from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, a program for which skilled volunteer birders conduct annual bird counts along set routes. “It was really an honor to work with this dataset, because though I don’t run a route myself, I have many friends who have been visiting the same route year after year and take pride in what they contribute to our understanding of the continent’s birds,” says Gorzo. “It is a tremendous volunteer effort that takes skill, dedication and hard work. To be able to put it to good use to elucidate some patterns relevant to climate change felt really rewarding, and I can’t thank birders over the decades enough for working year in and year out to add to this dataset.”
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It’s revealing that there is no mention of the fact that millions upon millions of birds of all types are killed every year by deadly wind mill farms.
see:
http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought.html
Amusing- the anxiety (if it’s real, not just hype) of warmists. I assume they’re all evolutionists as well. Don’t they have any faith in their theory? A shame to lose any (whatever the cause), but species are constantly disappearing (and new ones found). In particular there have been numerous mass extinctions in the past.
Yet they don’t appear in the least bit concerned about the REAL bird victims as a direct result of climate change (mitigation efforts), that are killed each day, all over the world in their thousands, including many endangered species: by the rotating blades of those hideous looking and useless wind turbines! A bit ‘strange’. Where, or rather: what are their priorities?
These climate alarmist buffoons are amazingly stubborn and patently clueless.
AGW Alarmists – all naked emperors that we laugh at…
We are effectively saying:
“No, the earth is NOT warming Sire and yes it’s true: the polar ice is NOT melting, it is in fact increasing quite rapidly in Antarctica and, nor is the sea level rising sire. Floods, hurricanes and wild bush-fires are no more rampant than they’ve been over the past several million years either. Those tailors, or ‘scientists’? lied to you.”
“Oh and you should also know sire, that CO2 is an essential, non-toxic, life supporting molecule which is only about 0.4% of the total atmosphere anyway. It is essential to everyone’s survival… Even YOUR survival sire!”
“How do you know this?” asked the Emperor (AGW alarmists).
“Well sire, using our eyes, ears and scant traces of simple common sense found in our simple, unscientific minds: we have not seen any evidence of anthropogenic global warming, nor any of the catastrophic consequences Mr Al Gore’s hilarious sci-fi propaganda movie predicted should have happened ten years ago; since we first started listening to the loony propaganda you’ve been spouting over the past 40 years and reached the conclusion it’s simply not true.”
“It’s in fact a big hoax sire. The IPCC needs to stop paying those tailors, or scientists, or whatever they proclaim to be – they have been filling your mind with rubbish. They did NOT make you a nice new suit, you are in fact only wearing a pair of underpants, and likewise: nor did they find any empirical evidence of climate change, never mind any caused by humans burning those demonic, yet very efficient, fossil fuels, sire.”
“Tell Mr Hussein Adolf O’Bummer and his IPCC chums to stop giving them grants, then they will either tell you the truth or disappear into their own anthropogenic global hot air”…
“Oh and please, get dressed sire! you look almost as unsightly and unattractive in your undies, as one of those useless wind turbines you’ve been conned into believing could one day make a viable alternate clean energy source, when in reality only produce sufficient mechanical energy to eradicate the world’s entire bird population, whilst producing uselessly low levels of usable electrical energy and almost eradicating our modern, energy dependent, industrialized society.”