This just in from the Moscow Times via Mark Izeman of the National Resources Defense Counsel. Again, going back two posts to our comment on the inability of index makers and securitizers to adequately model and price things, here's another cautionary tale about the limits of scientific knowledge, or rather the fact that science is ever evolving, which urges caution and humility.
Catherine Santore/For MT
Lake Baikal is warming faster than the atmosphere, potentially endangering
some of its wildlife, scientists say.
Baikal Challanges Global Warming Idea
05 May 2008
BloombergNEW YORK -- Lake Baikal is warming faster than the atmosphere,
challenging the idea that large bodies of water can withstand global
warming, U.S. and Russian scientists said.
Baikal, which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, has warmed by
1.21 degrees Celsius since 1946, said Marianne Moore, assistant professor of
biological sciences at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Global
temperatures have risen 0.76 degrees Celsius since industrialization, a
United Nations panel on climate change said in March.
The Siberian lake holds more than 2,500 plant and animal species, including
the world's only exclusively freshwater seal, and some could become extinct
by continued warming, said Moore, co-author of a report on Lake Baikal to be
published this month in the journal Global Change Biology. The study
challenges the idea that thermal inertia of oceans, seas and large lakes
would make them more resistant to climate change, Moore said.
"The warming that we're seeing in this lake is of more concern than that of
any other lake because of the extraordinary biodiversity," Moore said. "You
could potentially lose the Baikal seal."
Beginning in the 1940s, data on Lake Baikal was collected by Mikhail Kozhov,
a professor at Irkutsk State University. The research was carried on by his
daughter and granddaughter, Lyubov Izmesteva, a co-author of the journal
article.
The family has taken samples of the lake every seven to 10 days since 1946,
amassing a history that Moore analyzed. The data revealed that the lake's
average summer temperature has increased by 2.4 degrees, Moore said.
"My jaw just dropped to the floor when I heard this," Moore said. "I was
extremely surprised that the data set even existed."
© Copyright 2007. The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.
2 comments:
well duh. my thesis work was on how arctic climates are more senstive to global climate change than average... I would have thought everyone knows this now 10 years after my ground-breaking papers. -Bob
It's really due to the run-off from human waste being dumped into the lake. All the enhancement cream waste has raised the lake temperature. And those seals are sporting some big meat.
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