The Canberra Times (plus many other media too) reports on 4th December 2008 that this Lemuroid possum from the north Queensland wet tropic ranges near Daintree, has declined in numbers and quotes Professor Williams from James Cook University (JCU) who says,

“We cannot say they are extinct, but all the signs point to the species being in very serious trouble.”

Picture from Canberra Times
Climate change is mentioned as a root cause for the species decline.

The Canberra Times ran another more detailed story on the 6th and Professor Williams is quoted saying,

“…climate data shows the disappearance of the lemuroids coincides with record summer temperatures in 2005..”

Read the account of how this story was spread worldwide.

In his online 2006 paper, “Vertebrates of the Wet Tropics Rainforests of Australia Species Distributions and Biodiversity” I looked for the scientific basis for attributing climate change as the cause of the possum problems.
This is all I could find.

1.1 GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE WET TROPICS
There is no doubt that the global climate is changing due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Average temperatures have already risen approximately 0.6°C and are continuing to increase (Houghton et al. 2001). The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has announced that 2005 was the hottest year on record. Regional climate modeling in Australia suggests that during the remainder of this century we will experience an increase in average temperatures of 1.4 to 5.8°C, combined with increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

In 2006 I criticised the BoM (Bureau of Meteorology, Australian) statements that 2005 was our hottest year ever.

This BoM map of mean temperature anomaly, 1 Jan 05 to 31 Dec 05 shows with crystal clarity that the Cape York region is only a whisker above the average, with an anomaly of only zero to 0.5. If anybody has equivalent maps for max and min temperatures, please pass them on, it is daytime (maximum) temperatures which are the issue. For larger copy with coastal towns marked.

Both the Climate Research Centre, University of Norwich and the NASA satellite lower troposphere trends from the University of Alabama at Huntsville find that 1998 was hotter than 2005 over Australia and it is highly likely the RSS satellite data would find the same.

I have checked BoM station data and there is none from the range-top possum habitat but 31034 Kairi Research Station just east of Atherton, Jan 1965 to current looks the best sited with possum habitat to both east and west. Kairi is marked K on map below and Atherton marked A. From this map in Professor Williams online paper above, the range of the lemuroids extends both north and south of Atherton so Kairi is central to their range but for sure is a lower altitude than their habitat. Kairi data shows that December 2005 was only the 12th warmest month, see list below. This goes against the thrust of what the JCU Professor is claiming which is that he noticed the lemuroids almost absent after the “hottest year” of 2005.
See chart of Kairi mean monthly maximum temperature.
List of 12 warmest Kairi months.

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Searching further afield for relevant temperature trends, in 2006 I looked at the nearby fairly long-term coastal station Cooktown AMO and graphed it with Willis Island,

Clearly Cooktown had warm periods in the early 20th Century. Much of the rainy weather for the Daintree ranges blows in from the Coral Sea and note the Willis Island trend shows no warming.

In a nutshell, the lemuroid possums have evolved and survived for many millions of years and I can not see anything in a century of climate trends that should harm them.

In due course I am hoping to see details of temperature data from the possum habitat.

Bloomberg news service quoting the German Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences saying that, “Parts of North America and Europe may cool naturally over the next decade, as shifting ocean currents temporarily blunt the global-warming effect caused by mankind”. At the UK Met Office HQ for Global Warming Gurus, the Hadley Centre, Research scientist Richard Wood, says “Natural variations over the next 10 years might be heading in the cold direction,” Wood said. “If you run the model long enough, eventually global warming will win.”
Note: At the Leibniz site, follow link on right hand side to, “New Nature Paper: Will global warming take a short break ?”

Thanks to Harold from Seminole Florida for the lead to these articles. As he says, “UN is waffling and spinning on cooling ?”, exactly Harold.

NASA has just drawn our attention to their interesting map of the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) anomaly for April 14–21. As NASA says, “…while the La Niña was weakening, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation—a larger-scale, slower-cycling ocean pattern—had shifted to its cool phase.”

This issue is important to the “greenhouse” debate and arguments over the causes of “global warming” because the ~1976 PDO shift to more positive anomalies can be seen clearly as a warming jump in many long term temperature data. A warming jump that looks unlikely to be caused by small steady increases in the trace gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Much is written on the PDO and just 2 other pages include “The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)” with a long term graphic of monthly anomalies and, “A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on salmon production”

“Record hot start to December 2007”, trumpets the BoM Darwin Office on Monday 3 December 2007.

When you check to see daily max and mins for a range of Northern NT stations,
(scroll down past the green rainfall data to the pink and blue max and min temperature data). You find that this heat wave was pretty much a one day wonder in many places, a couple of days in some.
Further down the page I note how the BoM show bias towards reporting warming events by not putting out a media release about the stunning cold record day 20 June 2007 etc as recorded at Tennant Creek and many other places on 19th, 20th and 21st June 2007 across the continent from Halls creek to SW Qld, to NW NSW.
Continue reading Warming bias in media releases from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) →