Color Me Skeptical

Reuters reports scientists have found that a rise in temperature in the tropical rain forests of just 0.18 degrees per decade from 1975 to 2000 has caused the blooming of a fungus that has brought out the extinction of hundreds of species of frogs. That’s a temperature change of less than one half a degree over 25 years. (I assume they are talking degrees Centigrade, which makes this about one degree Fahrenheit.) I would really like to know how they came to those measurements over that time period.

Warmer temperatures increased cloud cover over the tropical mountain which the scientists believe promoted conditions to spur the growth of the chytrid fungus that kills frogs.

They are confident that global warming is a key factor in the disappearance of many amphibian populations in tropical forests.

"There is absolutely a linkage between global warming and this disease -- they go hand-in-hand," said Dr Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa, of Canada's University of Alberta and a co-author of the research published in the journal Nature.

"With this increase in temperature, the bacteria has been able to increase its niche and wipe out large populations of amphibians in the Americas," he added in a statement.

Earlier in the story they call it a fungus. Now Dr. Sanchez-Azofeifa calls it bacteria. I may have only an MS in Environmental Science, but I thought the two were different, eh?

Read the rest here.

Via Yahoo News