The Disappearing Clouds in a Costa Rican Cloud Forest

[Judi Lynn]

The Disappearing Clouds in a Costa Rican Cloud Forest

by Dana Driskill
 February 9, 2015 at 12:35



Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Evidence continues to grow everyday that global climate change is not only making the planet hotter, but it is also disrupting various ecosystems all over the world. In the U.S., Maine is grappling with the issues of ocean acidification and its effect on lobsters, which the state is so famous for. In the Tileran Mountains of northern Costa Rica, the Monteverde cloud forest’s clouds are disappearing.

Increasing temperatures, documented by bat biologist Richard LaVal, have caused clouds in the mountain forests to rise. LaVal’s study used data since the 1970s and found that the average temperature in Monteverde had jumped nearly 3 degrees Celsius in just a ten-year period, from 1990 to 2000. While temperatures have decreased in recent years, LaVal and researchers believe that the data indicates a long-term trend of increasing temperatures in the region.

Researchers are also concerned about the effects of the warming climate on the floral and fauna life in the cloud forest. Their data shows that species in the lowland, which are adapted to warmer temperatures, are moving into highland ecosystems where they are not traditionally found.

“We have at least 25 new bat species on the mountain from the tropical lowlands that are now here in Monteverde,” Vino De Backer, a Belgian zoologist who has worked with Laval, told Al Jazeera.

More:
http://magazine.good.is/articles/cloud-forest

[Judi Lynn]

1. Also in Central America: Man-Made Air Pollution Reduces Central America Rainfall

Man-Made Air Pollution Reduces Central America Rainfall

The findings derive from research in a cave in Belize but suggest that growing air pollution in China and India also may cause further disruption

February 9, 2015
By Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) - Air pollution tied to industrialization in the northern hemisphere almost certainly reduced rainfall over Central America in new evidence that human activity can disrupt the climate, a study suggested on Monday.

"We identify an unprecedented drying trend since 1850," the scientists wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience after studying the rate of growth since 1550 of a stalagmite found in a cave in the tiny nation of Belize.

Stalagmites are pointed rocks formed by mineral-rich water dripping from the cavern roof.

The experts, from Britain, the United States, Switzerland and Germany, said the drying in Belize "coincides with increasing aerosol emissions in the northern hemisphere" as the Industrial Revolution pushed up fossil fuel use.

More:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/man-made-air-pollution-reduces-central-america-rainfall/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+energy-and-sustainability+%28Topic%3A+Energy+%26+Sustainability%29