2
January 2003
Global warming: Fingerprint of climate change
One of the most divisive topics to face the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was that of the biological response to recent globalwarming. Two groups this week attempt to take the discussion a stage further by searching for a climate fingerprint in the overall patterns in studies of a wide range of plants and animals. Parmesan and Yohe present a meta-analysis of studies of more than 1,700 species, and find that that there have been significant range shifts averaging 6.1 km per decade towards the poles, and that spring has advanced by 2.3 days per decade. With 'very high confidence' (in the IPCC's terms), this means that climate change is already affecting living systems. Root et al. also detect a temperature-related 'fingerprint' in species from insects to mammals, and grasses to trees. The changes are most marked at high latitudes and high altitudes, where the largest temperature changes are predicted.
A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts
across natural systems
CAMILLE PARMESAN & GARY
YOHE
Nature 421, 37–42 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01286
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Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants
TERRY L. ROOT, JEFF T. PRICE, KIMBERLY R. HALL, STEPHEN H.
SCHNEIDER, CYNTHIA ROSENZWEIG & J. ALAN POUNDS
Nature 421,
57–60 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01333
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