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International Team Call For Better Global Warming Forecasting

Date:
April 1, 2007
Source:
Case Western Reserve University
Summary:
Scientists call for better forecasting methods in predicting how climate changes will impact the earth's plant and animal species. They have reported eight ways to improve biodiversity forecasting in the BioScience article, "Forecasting the Effects of Global Warming on Biodiversity."
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Case Western Reserve University faculty member Matthew Sobel has joined a team of international scientists calling for better forecasting methods in predicting how climate changes will impact the earth's plant and animal species. They have reported eight ways to improve biodiversity forecasting in the BioScience article, "Forecasting the Effects of Global Warming on Biodiversity."

Sobel, the William E. Umstattd Professor at the Weatherhead School of Management, began consciously tithing a portion of his research time 40 years ago to critical environmental concerns at time when those issues were not fashionable in most of academia.

In addition to predictions about global changes, the researchers also want better forecasting to unravel "the Quaternary conundrum," which is evidence suggesting that many of the estimated 1.5 million species on earth are in danger of extinction from global warming, yet over the past 2.5 million years little extinction is documented in the fossil record.

"The simultaneous widespread and justified alarm over global warming and changes in biodiversity has induced both outstanding scientific research and deplorable pseudoscientific work," said Sobel.

Sobel raises concerns about the "blurring" of scientific fact with public advocacy and wants public discussions to center around sound environmental facts.

"Where the science has limitations that should be noted, too," added Sobel.

His concern is that misinformation or poorly constructed forecasts may divert and reduce resources that could be better spent in other areas.

Limits of scientific knowledge exist with current forecasting models, according to Sobel, and these need to be acknowledged when reporting global warming.

The concern for accurate information and reporting resulted in the article's lead authors--Daniel Botkin from the University of California at Santa Barbara and Henrik Saxe from the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute in Copenhagen--to convene a meeting of scientists from the United States, Spain, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Australia in 2004 in Denmark.

Instead of engaging in "a war of words" to set the record straight where misconceptions exist in the global warming discussion, Sobel said the group reached a consensus to come up with prediction tools that "do it right."

In the BioScience article, the researchers call for eight steps to better forecasting:

  • Select one of the many meanings associated with the complex concept of biodiversity and target that meaning as the parameters in a specific forecast
  • Evaluate and validate forecasting methods before applying them to general forecasts
  • Consider the various factors that might impact biodiversity from climate change to pressures from humans on the native habitat of a specie
  • Obtain adequate information before making predictions about future outcomes
  • Examine fossil records to aid in understanding how some plant and animal species have adapted to changes in their environment
  • Improve four widely used techniques in forecasting that model individuals, groups, integration of species and environmental factors and lastly groups or species based on theories
  • Embed ecological principles in the forecasts based on air, water and animal and plant life
  • Develop better models that improve upon modeling forecasts called species-area curves that are based on specific number of species in relation to their habitat and how climate changes can modify the environment

Sobel's interest in the environment stems from his work with the U. S. Public Health Service in the 1960s when he worked on a project that followed a proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers to close off the Delaware River when tidal surges from hurricanes threatened the water systems of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Practices developed from that project have since been adopted worldwide.

Other contributors to the BioScience article are: Miguel Arujo from the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Spain; Richard Betts, Met Office Hadley Center in Exeter, U.K.; Richard Bradshaw from the University of Liverpool (U.K.); Tomas Cedhagen, Aarhus University, Denmark; Peter Chesson, University of Arizona; Terry Dawson, University of Edinburgh, Scotland; Julie Etterson, University of Minnesota; Daniel Faith, Australian Museum, Australia; Simon Ferrier, New South Wales Department of Environment and Conservation, Australia; Antoine Guisan, University of Lausanne, Switzerland; Chris Margules, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia; David Hilbert, CSIRO Tropical Forest Research Centre, Australia; Craig Loehle, National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, Illinois; Mark New, Oxford University, U.K.; and David Stockwell, University of California, Santa Barbara.


Story Source:

Materials provided by Case Western Reserve University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Cite This Page:

Case Western Reserve University. "International Team Call For Better Global Warming Forecasting." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 April 2007. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070330111353.htm>.
Case Western Reserve University. (2007, April 1). International Team Call For Better Global Warming Forecasting. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070330111353.htm
Case Western Reserve University. "International Team Call For Better Global Warming Forecasting." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070330111353.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

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