Life After Warming Really even looking at the warmest predictions of climate change, 5 to 7 degrees centigrade, it should not be any warmer than it was in the Miocene Epoch 23.8 to 5.3 Million years ago. The Eocene Epoch, Paleocene Epoch, and Cretaceous Period were each respectively both older and warmer. It is nothing that has not been seen before. Global warming will certainly screw things up for people and our existing ecosystem distributions, but will not be the end of everything.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/tertiary/mio/miolife.html The overall pattern of biological change for the Miocene is one of expanding open vegetation systems (such as deserts, tundra, and grasslands) at the expense of diminishing closed vegetation (such as forests). This led to a rediversification of temperate ecosystems and many morphological changes in animals. Mammals and birds in particular developed new forms, whether as fast-running herbivores, large predatory mammals and birds, or small quick birds and rodents. Plant studies of the Miocene have focused primarily on spores and pollen. Such studies show that by the end of the Miocene 95% of modern seed plant families existed, and that no such families have gone extinct since the middle of the Miocene. A mid-Miocene warming, followed by a cooling is considered responsible for the retreat of tropical ecosystems, the expansion of northern coniferous forests, and increased seasonality. With this change came the diversification of modern graminoids, especially grasses and sedges. The climate change from global warming is likely to make the human influenced extinctions worse. There will be problems in that the change will be more rapid than many species can migrate, but likely (in my opinion) some populations of most of the major tree and plant species will survive and potentially spread out again once the climate stabilizes. The distribution of various ecosystems will change, and some new associations will develop. This type of change has happened many times in the geologic history, the only difference is that this change MAY be more rapid. There are many predictions, but honestly I don't think anyone really knows exactly what will happen. Ed Frank Check out my new Blog: http://nature-web-network.blogspot.com/ (and click on some of the ads) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
