And Now for Something Completely Diffuse

Climate change messing with ecology worldwide, study says

Posted at 9:06 AM on 15 May 2008

Climate change is messing with ecology worldwide right now, according to a comprehensive new study in the journal Nature. Researchers examined data on shifts in over 28,000 plant and animal systems and over 800 environmental changes across all the world's continents for the past 30 years. In 90 percent of the cases of change in wildlife behavior or populations, the shifts could only be explained by climate change, the study concluded. Also, 95 percent of the documented environmental changes, such as retreating glaciers and melting permafrost, were found to be consistent with warming temperatures. "When we look at all these impacts together, it is clear they are across continents and endemic. We're getting a sense that climate change is already changing the way the world works," said lead author Cynthia Rosenzweig of NASA. A separate study in Nature concluded that current carbon dioxide and methane levels are at their highest point in at least 800,000 years.

sources:  The Guardian, USA Today, Reuters