Tag: Warming Effects

Global warming is setting the stage for an invasion of predators on the sea floor around Antarctica, the likes of which have not been there for more than 40 million years.Back in the late Eocene epoch, predatory animals such as sharks and crabs were driven away from Antarctic depths when the continent and its surrounding waters turned into an icebox, said researchers on Friday at a symposium at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.

The result was a virtually predator-free zone on the seafloor and a paradise for worms, sea lilies, clams, brittle stars and other bottom-dwelling animals.

All that is about to end, however. Global warming is now raising water temperatures to the point where, very soon, those long-exiled predators could return and wreak havoc on the ocean floor, say biologists.

Read the entire story here:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/15/antarctica-predators.html 

BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) — Champagne produced in southern England? Bordeaux in the Loire Valley?

Climate change is threatening to redraw the world’s wine-producing map, and the effects are already being seen in earlier harvests and coarser wines, experts told an international conference Friday.

“The consequences of global warming are already being felt. Harvests are already coming 10 days earlier than before in almost all wine-growing regions,” said Bernard Seguin, the head of climate studies at France’s INRA agricultural research institute.

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http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gDZNTcXc39AhLTDTzUUiUHs5RpmQ 

ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2008) — Climate change is rapidly transforming the world’s oceans by increasing the temperature and acidity of seawater, and altering atmospheric and oceanic circulation, reported a panel of scientists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston.

“The vastness of our oceans may have engendered a sense of complacency about potential impacts from global climate change,” said Jane Lubchenco, the Wayne and Gladys Valley Chair of Marine Biology at Oregon State University, who moderated the panel. “The world’s oceans are undergoing profound physical, chemical and biological changes whose impacts are just beginning to be felt.”

Read the entire story here:

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080217102140.htm