Is Climate Change Creating A New Squirrel Species?

Is it possible that global warming could be causing the creation of new species of squirrels and other animals? According to a story on the Mother Nature Network website, climate change may be the cause for increasing numbers of hybrid flying squirrels being found in Canada.

These squirrels are hybrids of two species, the northern flying squirrel and the southern flying squirrel. As the names suggest, the northern flying squirrel is native to northern regions of the United States into Canada, while the southern flying squirrel is found further south in the United States. The northern flying squirrel is larger, and has a gray and white belly, while the smaller southern flying squirrel has an all-white belly. Hybrids between the two are the size of the southern flying squirrel, with mottled gray and white belly fur.

A northern flying squirrel visiting a
bird feeder

Recently, scientists in Ontario, Canada have discovered an increasing number of hybrids of the two species. Ontario is within the range of the northern flying squirrel, but is well to the north of the usual range for the southern flying squirrel. Researchers including Jeff Bowman theorize that warming temperatures are driving some species, including the southern flying squirrel, farther to the north, so that the ranges of these two species now overlap more than they did in the past. A recent survey found that around four percent of flying squirrels in Ontario are now hybrids.

A southern flying squirrel

This is certainly not the first example of hybridization between species. The story cites the example of cross-breeding between grizzly bears and polar bears, which may also increase with the effects of global warming. But Bowman and other scientists believe that the flying squirrels are the first documented case of a hybrid species specifically caused by human-generated climate change. It is not clear what the long-term impact of hybridization might be for the flying squirrels or other species. Might a new flying squirrel species created by cross-breeding be better adapted to deal with a warmer climate? It's too soon to tell.

Climate Change and The Belding's Ground Squirrel

Continuing on the topic of squirrels and global warming, a study just released by the University of California-Berkeley looks at how climate change is affecting the Belding's ground squirrel (note that this article discusses two studies; the study concerning the ground squirrels is covered in the second half of the article).

Hey, I think someone's talking about us!

The Belding's ground squirrel lives in mountainous areas of western North America. Its range covers parts of northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada. This medium-sized squirrel prefers high meadows and brushy areas with an ample supply of vegetation and water. Related female squirrels live and interact together in colonies, while the adult males are nomadic.

Like most ground squirrels, Belding's ground squirrels hibernate through the cold winter months. The timing of the hibernation depends both on the altitude of the colony and the sex of the individual. As one might expect, squirrels living at higher elevations enter hibernation sooner than those at lower elevations. Also, males usually enter hibernation earlier than females. Related females often hibernate together, while males hibernate alone.

The study that I linked to at the beginning of this post looked at the movements of populations of the Belding's ground squirrel in response to global climate change. The authors of the study found that the squirrels had disappeared from more than forty percent of the areas that they had been recorded in the early part of the twentieth century. The disappearances were most common in higher-elevation areas that have experienced pronounced increases in temperature and rainfall in the past century. This finding was a surprise to the researchers, as the species has not been considered to be threatened and was in fact thought to be quite common. On the other hand, the Belding's ground squirrel has increased in some areas that have been modified by humans.

Although the Belding's ground squirrel is still not considered to be under serious thread, the unexpected declines demonstrate clearly how serious and complex an issue climate change is.

Climate Change and the Columbian Ground Squirrel

The Columbian ground squirrel is found in high meadows and grasslands of eastern British Columbia and western Alberta in Canada, and parts of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana in the United States. These ground squirrels live in colonies, spending four to five months of the year eating grasses, leaves, bulbs, fruits and seeds, and raising their litters of three to five young.

The other seven or eight months they spend hibernating. Each squirrel's burrow has a hibernation chamber. Columbian ground squirrels may begin hibernation in some areas as early as July. During the warm months, each squirrel puts on sufficient fat to survive the winter, and gathers seeds and bulbs in its burrow to eat when it wakes up. When hibernation begins the squirrel will seal the chamber with a plug of dirt. It will not emerge until the following spring.

Is it spring yet?

Now research is suggesting that global climate change is altering the hibernation patterns of the Columbian ground squirrel, with troubling implications. A team of scientists followed a group of female squirrels in Alberta over a period of twenty years. They have found that by 2011, the squirrels were emerging from hibernation an average of ten days later than at the beginning of the study.

The researches believe that the reason for the later emergence is a trend toward wetter, snowier winters in the region. They believe that the squirrels can detect the presence of snow cover from inside their hibernation chambers. Global warming is creating favorable conditions for later snowfall, and as a result the squirrels hibernate longer and emerge later.

The troubling aspect of this research is that with the longer hibernation, fewer of the ground squirrels are surviving the winter sleep. At the beginning of the project, twenty years ago, 87 percent of the female squirrels survived the winter hibernation. By 2011, only 67 percent of the females that entered hibernation emerged the following spring. The scientists aren't sure of the reason, but speculate that the shorter period above ground means that there is less time for the squirrels to put on the body fat required to survive the winter.

Whatever the reason, the fact is that fewer of these ground squirrels are surviving their winter hibernation, and this trend is not likely to reverse any time soon. It is one more piece of evidence of the damage that human-created climate change is doing to our planet.

Addition: Here is another, more detailed article about the Columbian ground squirrel study. It gives more information on the relationship between emerging later from hibernation and the increased failure of the squirrels to survive. It also gives a more complete explanation of the relationship between climate change (global warming) and increased late-winter and early-spring snowfall.

Scary Dust Storm Video

I found this video of a dust storm that hit my hometown, Lubbock, TX last Monday, October 17. As I have said before on this blog, I grew up in Lubbock, and while dust storms are fairly common in that dry area of North America, I have never seen anything like this.




The buildings that you see in the video are on the campus of Texas Tech University, and I'm guessing that the video was shot from one of the high-rise dormitories.

Here is a news article from MSNBC about the dust storm, and the climate changes that have affected that part of the country and contribute to monster storms like this one. The sentence from the article that floored me is this one:

Lubbock has had just 3.16 inches of rain since Jan. 1.

For perspective, the average annual rainfall in Lubbock is 18.7 inches. The previous driest year has been 1917 with 8.73 inches. Of course, this year is not over yet, but I would say there is a good chance that the city will smash that record. And this year has not just been dry, but this summer was also the hottest on record, both for Lubbock and for the whole state of Texas.

It amazes me that there are still people, like Texas Governor Rick Perry, who still want to deny the reality that there are long-term climate changes taking place. Governor Perry's well-publicized response to the drought has been to ask everyone to pray for rain. Of course, I know that there is nothing the governor or anyone else can do in the short term to change the weather, and there is nothing wrong with prayer. But some long-term policies to try to reduce the use of fossil fuels and encourage cleaner energy technology might help too. Otherwise, we're going to be seeing a lot more storms like this one.

Once Again, Obama Caves In To the Right

President Obama ordered the EPA today to withdraw a proposal that would have tightened government smog standards. I can't say this comes as any surprise, as the Republicans in Congress had opposed the regulation, saying that it would have cost billions of dollars for businesses to comply. It was all but inevitable that Obama would bow down again to the right in the spirit of "compromise," as he has so many times before.

As a resident of one of the most polluted cities in the United States, I say, what about the cost to the people who are forced to breathe the polluted air, what about the medical costs that are incurred as a result, and the costs in lost productivity resulting from missed days at work? My wife suffers from asthma, and breathing the filthy summer air here in Charlotte causes her untold additional misery. Does her health and comfort rate so far below the monetary costs that would be paid by major corporations to clean up their acts?

Possibly the biggest irony is that if the smog regulations had been allowed to go forward, the money spent by the polluting corporations to comply with the rules would have been money spent on jobs... jobs producing the necessary equipment, doing the equipment upgrades and testing to make sure that the standards were being followed, researching and developing new clean air technologies. Isn't this what we really need right now?

Texas Tragedies

As I have noted before on this blog, I grew up in Texas, and after reaching adulthood I lived there on and off until I was 33 years old. I grew up in Lubbock, out on the flat high plains of West Texas, where if you drive just a few miles out of the city you can get an uninterrupted 360 degree view of the horizon. I spent my undergraduate years in San Antonio, in south Texas, where I enjoyed the Mexican culture and food, and trips with my friends to the border towns and the state parks of the central Texas hill country. It has been well over a decade since I last moved away from the state for the last time, it is extremely unlikely that I will ever live there again, and to be honest I have no desire to move back. However, I have very good memories of the part of my life that I spent there, and I know that Texas is and always will be a huge part of who I am, ultra-liberal politics and all.

This is why it is so hard to read the news that comes out of Texas these days. Governor Rick Perry, who could be our next President, is possibly the most loathsome political figure that I have seen in my lifetime. More so than his predecessor, in my opinion. More so than Bachmann or Palin, if only because more people seem to take him seriously. This is a governor of the second biggest state in the union who seemingly every day, with every utterance that he makes, spews contempt of science and learning, of anybody or anything that differs from his narrow fundamentalist view of the world, who surrounds himself with radical religious rightists who resemble more than anything the Taliban... just replace the word "Islam" with "Christian."

On another front, the state's environment, wildlife and agricultural industry is being decimated by the most severe drought in recorded history. I heard this story on NPR this morning while I was waiting for Starbucks to open. The bats that the article mentions are an iconic symbol of the city of Austin; the huge colony that nests under the Congress Avenue bridge can be seen every evening at dusk during the summer swarming out for their nighttime feeding. The loss of any wildlife population is a tragedy, but if this bat colony dies out it would also kill off part of the soul of an awesome city.

How To Talk To Climate Skeptics (and maybe get somewhere)

This is an outstanding interview by the British newspaper the Guardian, with Texas Tech University climate researcher Katharine Hayhoe. Dr. Hayhoe is not only a respected climate scientist who studies and frequently speaks out on global warming, but is also a member of the evangelical Christian community, a community that has unfortunately not been won over to the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Dr. Hayhoe has worked both to spread the word on the necessity of dealing with the causes of global warming, and to bridge the gap between the evangelical community and climate science. One notable quote from this interview:

The reason I do climate science is because it has a very practical application: We have a very narrow window of time to do something meaningful about this issue, and that window is closing. Every year we go without a binding climate policy to reduce our emissions shrinks the chance we have of hitting lower emissions targets. So we're taking away our choices. By not making a choice, we're forcing ourselves into the higher scenarios.

If there were more scientists like Dr. Hayhoe, who recognize the necessity of meeting with evangelicals on their terms and working to educate them on the reality of climate change, this could go a long way toward  building a real and necessary consensus on the issue.

The Latest From the Republican Competition To Determine Who Is the Least Informed

It's really getting scary when Mitt Romney is going out of his way to disavow his past, relatively moderate, statements on the need to address global warming, and convince voters that he is just as backwards and ignorant about global climate change as Rick Perry. Romney is, after all, the guy who not so long ago was being cast as the more sensible alternative to the pack of extremists that makes up most of the Republican field.

Among Romney's recent statements: "What I'm not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don't know the answer to." I can understand Mitt's reluctance to risk having any of his tax money spent to deal with such a mysterious issue, given the painful extended period of unemployment that he's going through. But if he is really struggling with doubts about the reality of climate change, maybe he should consult with some of the 97 to 98 percent of climate scientists who confirm that anthropogenic climate change is, in fact a reality.

Rick Perry, (Unintentional) Global Warming Advocate

According to Ezra Klein's blog post, with his recent statement questioning the validity of climate change research it appears that Governor Perry has unleashed a wave of fact-checking that has confirmed just how shaky the ground is that the global warming deniers stand on. Among other things, the resulting publicity seems to be helping environmental advocates move past the imaginary "climategate" scandal from a couple of years back, which deniers have harped on as supposed evidence that global warming is some kind of partisan fraud.

So I just want to say, thanks, Governor Perry.

Just because you are a Republican doesn't necessarily mean you are an unprincipled idiot

Some time back I noted CNN columnist David Frum's commentary on the debt "crisis" as evidence that there are some decent folks in the Republican party.

Now Republican presidential candidate and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman shows some real courage, setting himself apart from his colleagues with this tweet from yesterday:

To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.

No, Mr. Huntsman, you are not crazy. Misguided on most issues, maybe, but at least you call it as you see it. And you have a sense of humor too, judging from this follow-up tweet:

I wonder if a tweet where I admit how much I like Captain Beefheart will make the followers skyrocket even more!

Rick Perry, Man of Science

More on Governor Perry's anti-science biases, this time denying the overwhelming evidence of human-created global climate change, from the Texas Tribune.

Quote from Rick Perry: "I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects."

I have never understood the insistence of climate change deniers that scientists are manipulating data and falsifying evidence in favor of global warming for some sort of unspecified personal financial gain. It is clear that those who have the most to gain are the corporations that are the source of global warming pollutants, and their stockholders, whose interests lie in maintaining the status quo.

Here's What it Should Look Like

Oh, and here is what Clapp Park lake should look like...

Dust Bowl II?

I grew up in Lubbock, a city of about 200,000 in the southern part of the panhandle in west Texas. Like most of Texas, the area around Lubbock is experiencing the worst drought in decades. So far this year, Lubbock has received 1.10 inches of rain (as of July 4), compared with over eight inches in the first half of a normal year.

This recent picture shows a lake that is in a park about five blocks from the house where I grew up.

As a child I used to play and hang out in Clapp Park, and am very familiar with this lake. Although it is not unusual for water levels to rise and fall periodically in the small lakes that dot the landscape around Lubbock (the regional term is "playa lakes"), depending on rainfall patters, the water would typically extend close to the line of trees in the background of this picture, covering most of the area that is now covered with grass.

The area around Lubbock is one of the largest and most intensive cotton producing regions in the world. The ongoing drought will no doubt have severe and lasting impact on the local economy as the cotton crops are devastated. It is also causing severe stress with the local wildlife.

I understand that no single weather event, or even a series of events, can be taken as evidence for (or against) the reality of climate change. But when you look at the pattern of extreme weather that is occurring, fitting the models that scientists have been laying out for years, I don't see how anyone can question that major changes are taking place.

--Dan

You Can Deny the Truth, But It's Still the Truth

Here is an awesome summary of responses to the global warming deniers.

It floors me how so many people can be misled so easily into thinking that global warming is anything but established reality. I am sure that those who are responsible for the campaign against climate change science are well aware that global warming is real, but have a financial stake in fighting policies designed to reduce carbon output. What is most discouraging to me is that so many in this country have never been taught or encouraged to think critically, do not understand how to distinguish scientific evidence from myth, and are oblivious to the sources of the information that they accept as "fact".

This is the same situation that creates the all too familiar demands that creationism (or its proxy, "intelligent design") be taught alongside the "theory" of evolution in high school biology classrooms.

--Dan