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-recently read a paper from researchers who found birds migrating thru Chicago (specimens were birds killed by hitting glass skyscrapers ) were getting smaller but heavier. If we feed this data into the GW computers, the logical consequence is that the geese will eventually (sooner than we thought, of course!) will be too heavy to fly on their migrations...(We all know geese fly south for the winter because it's too far to walk). This will greatly affect our morning commutes:
-recently read a paper from researchers who found birds migrating thru Chicago (specimens were birds killed by hitting glass skyscrapers ) were getting smaller but heavier.
I think you may be having a relapse of those reading comprehension problems so common among climate change deniers. The birds bodies are getting smaller but their wings are getting larger. Nothing about getting heavier which isn't surprising given that their body size is decreasing. Adding weight would be a maladaptation to global warming.
Increasing temperatures associated with climate change are predicted to cause reductions in body size, a key determinant of animal physiology and ecology. Using a four-decade specimen series of 70,716 individuals of 52 North American migratory bird species, we demonstrate that increasing annual summer temperature over the 40-year period drove consistent reductions in body size across these diverse taxa. Concurrently, wing length - which impacts nearly all aspects of avian ecology and behavior - has consistently increased across taxa. Our findings suggest that warming-induced body size reduction is a general response to climate change, and reveal a similarly consistent shift in an ecologically-important dimension of body shape. We hypothesize that increasing wing length represents a compensatory adaptation to maintain migration as reductions in body size have increased the metabolic cost of flight. An improved understanding of warming-induced morphological changes, and their limits, are important for predicting biotic responses to global change.
North American migratory birds have been getting smaller over the past four decades, and their wings have gotten a bit longer. Both changes appear to be responses to a warming climate.
Attempts at humor are often lost on many of the more obtuse.
Since you prefer to address the pseudo-science, keep this in mind-- "theory" suggests warming should lead to leaner bodies and longer, thinner limbs, not "smaller" bodies. This is seen commonly across the range of many species such as wolves. Compare body habitus of the lanky Mexican lobo to the squatter northern wolf….
These "scientists" blame only one thing for the changes they saw: GW, with no other evidence except some weak positive correlation between average temps and body changes. One might point out the correlation of the changes compared to the number of homes with cable TV or with the number of home runs hit in the National League over this 40 yr stretch is even higher than that for temps.
They fail to take into account the habitus changes seen in populations who are confined to smaller areas or with dwindling resources (cf- smaller bodies in populations confined to islands vs mainland counterparts.) Forty years ago, Chicago was separated from Milwaukee by 50 miles of farmland & forest. Today, that stretch of lakefront territory, the migratory flyway, is virtually one continuous megalopolis with almost no habitat for feeding or nesting.
But blaming "GW" may get you more research funds. It's a jungle out there in Academia.
I hope everybody else out there got a kick out of the video.
Attempts at humor are often lost on many of the more obtuse.
Since you prefer to address the pseudo-science, keep this in mind-- "theory" suggests warming should lead to leaner bodies and longer, thinner limbs, not "smaller" bodies. This is seen commonly across the range of many species such as wolves. Compare body habitus of the lanky Mexican lobo to the squatter northern wolf….
These "scientists" blame only one thing for the changes they saw: GW, with no other evidence except some weak positive correlation between average temps and body changes. One might point out the correlation of the changes compared to the number of homes with cable TV or with the number of home runs hit in the National League over this 40 yr stretch is even higher than that for temps.
They fail to take into account the habitus changes seen in populations who are confined to smaller areas or with dwindling resources (cf- smaller bodies in populations confined to islands vs mainland counterparts.) Forty years ago, Chicago was separated from Milwaukee by 50 miles of farmland & forest. Today, that stretch of lakefront territory, the migratory flyway, is virtually one continuous megalopolis with almost no habitat for feeding or nesting.
But blaming "GW" may get you more research funds. It's a jungle out there in Academia.
I hope everybody else out there got a kick out of the video.
The video is amusing. If you hadn't tried to piggy-back it onto your climate hoax agenda it probably would have been received with greater appreciation. But the science...
Nobody blamed anything, the researcher's abstract said precisely this: "Our findings suggest that warming‐induced body size reduction is a general response to climate change" and the Science Daily article said "changes appear to be responses to a warming climate."
"Suggesting" is not "blaming", and "appear to be" does not mean "are". It just means some science has been done, it isn't the be-all and end-all "right and true" conclusion. Its a hypothesis that is intriguing and needs more testing.
I agree that habitat loss in the Chicago-Milwaukee area over the last 40 years is appalling in its destruction, because I grew up there 40 years ago. Its sickening. But these were migratory birds, so only a tiny fraction of them resided in that depleted area. Smaller body size might be expected with habitat decline but I doubt that longer wings would result at the same time.
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) were getting smaller but heavier. If we feed this data into the GW computers, the logical consequence is that the geese will eventually (sooner than we thought, of course!) will be too heavy to fly on their migrations...(We all know geese fly south for the winter because it's too far to walk). This will greatly affect our morning commutes:
