Posted on: Monday, December 27, 2004

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer

As the year ends, scientists keep reporting new findings about how Earth is changing — for the warmer.

Yet, there continue to be voices of science that deny global warming, or deny human complicity in it.

Some folks argue that the warming isn't that big a deal — that it might improve living conditions in colder areas and expand growing seasons in temperate regions. Residents of low-lying coastal and island environments challenge those assumptions, and argue that the results of rising seas are catastrophic to them.

The U.N. weather agency reported that 2004 has been the fourth-warmest year in recorded history. The 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1990, according to the agency's World Meteorological Organization.

Increasingly, nature seems to be backing up the temperature statistics.

The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network reported this month that vast coral reef areas around the globe are threatened by warming seas.

In the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, researchers in 2002 reported significant cases of coral weakness and death from bleaching associated with warm ocean conditions. Bleaching is a sign of severe stress for corals. During the mid-1990s, there were cases of bleaching on reefs in the main Hawaiian Islands.

This month, scientists at Cornell and the University of Wisconsin reported that lilacs planted four decades ago in various locations across the Northeast are now blooming nearly four days earlier in the year than they used to. The genetically identical lilacs had been planted in the 1960s and '70s to see if they could be used as a natural starting gun for spring, a bellwether to tell farmers when it was safe to plant crops.

Smithsonian Institution researchers reported that the cherry blossom trees in Washington, D.C., are blooming a week earlier than they once did.

The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment suggests that continued warming will deny polar bears the ice they need to get to feeding grounds. In Antarctica, the British Antarctic Survey is blaming warming for reduced populations of krill, crustaceans that are food for whales and fishes.

There are reports of Mainland songbirds moving their habitats north as climate warms, where they compete with previous avian residents.

The times, in Bob Dylan's words, are a-changing.

If you have a question or concern about the Hawaiian environment, drop a note to Jan TenBruggencate at P.O. Box 524, Lihu'e, HI 96766, e-mail jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or call (808) 245-3074.