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There seems to be a huge assumption that when a species is exposed to higher than usual temperatures they'll be a collapse of said species. Certainly this holds
by swsieber 7y ago
There seems to be a huge assumption that when a species is exposed to higher than usual temperatures they'll be a collapse of said species. Certainly this holds true for some species, but all species?
I'm a little skeptical. Basically the paper says that large groups of species will encounter higher temperatures than they have before (1850-2005, going by mean annual temperature, and higher defined by 5 years all above the previous high mean). And because of that, they'll be a huge ecological disaster.
I get the temperature part. That makes intuitive sense (the whole planet is getting hotter, duh), and doesn't seem like anything new.
What does seem new is the seemingly (I'm up for explanations about why they make sense) arbitrary threshold they use.
Is this a good paper, or just an appeal to fear? (That's a real question, but to me at first glance, it seems like an appeal to fear).
- dpau 7y agoIt's not whether or not individual members of a species can survive if it's a little hotter. The problem is that climate change is destroying entire ecosystems in which these individuals exist. A polar bear can do ok in a zoo in San Diego, but polar bears will go extinct once their habitat in the Arctic disappears.
- sebazzz 7y agoAnd don't forget the food chain. Everything at the top is dependent on below.
- surge 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22883616 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22883616 This comment does a good job of showing how the journalist is sensationalizing the conclusions of the paper.