"There Will Be No Trout East of the Mississippi in 90 years"

[pcray1231]

And if man-made global warming is real, atmospheric as well as surface temperatures should have increased steadily. But they haven't. There was merely that one-time increase, possibly caused by a solar anomaly. In addition, an "urban heat island effect" has been identified.@
A great indicator of year round average temps in certain areas of PA are our spring creeks as previously mentioned. They have been relatively stable for many years without much fluctuation more than a degree or two.

Wrong.

Well, I agree with the urban heat island effect, which made determining temperatures a little more difficult prior to the 1980's, when surface stations where the primary means to track temps. Lately satellites have kind of taken over.

But no, atmospheric and surface temperatures would not increase steadily. Because manmade global warming is not the only variable effecting the system. There are natural solar cycles, volcanoes, el nino's and la nina's and other climatic oscillations, a million positive and negative feedback loops with different lag times, etc. Climate data is incredibly noisy, and finding signals within the noise isn't an easy task. That's why using a year, or even decade of data is very dangerous. At least a 10 year moving average is generally used as a single data point, and graphs need to be 50+ years at minimum to determine overall trends.

Nonetheless, using such a system shows, well, rather steady warming. About 1 degree C since WWII. If you'd rather stick with solely satellite data, then about a half degree C since 1980.

Both sides of the argument tend to make the mistake of using too short a time periods. Alarmists blame every hurricane and severe weather event on it. That's wrong. Deniers do the same with a cold snap. And you tell them to look longer term and they show a graph with about a decade and say there's been no measurable warming in the last 10 years. True, there never is. For the difference to become large enough to be "measurable" with any statistical accuracy, you need to look at 40, 50, 60 years, preferably 100.

Weather and climate are two different things.

 

[greenghost]

pcray1231 wrote:

But to use a point zero whatever % increase in atmospheric CO2 to predict effectively more stream shading is missing the forest for the trees.

Don't necessarily agree, pc... but a nice use of the idiom!

 

[pcray1231]

Historical CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere were 290 ppm in the pre-industrial revolution days. That has since increased to about 320 ppm in 1970 to 390 ppm today. That's quite a % increase.

But, to put it in perspective, ppm = parts per million.

1840 - 0.029%
1970 - 0.032%
2015 - 0.039%

Most of the studies that have been done on this were from NASA with aims to see if we could grow plants on other planets with much larger portions of CO2 in their atmospheres. Stuff like 20% CO2 showed a slightly improved outlook over our 0.039%.

 

[dsmith1427]

First, I have to be critical of Field & Stream for publishing such a superficial article. It is more of an editorial with a link to an summary of research. If the writer really want to inform, I would expect him to provide more detail.

Second, the research neglects biology and assumes the biology of the current cold water fisheries will not adapt to the gradual change of its environment over a 90 year period. To me, the content of the research can be summed up in its following FAQ:

"What is the precision of the results?
While projecting decades into the future involves uncertainty, this report shows a substantial difference between a world with and without global climate action, making a clear case that acting now is worth it to the U.S. Using peer-reviewed and scientifically rigorous methods, the estimates in the report provide insights to the direction and magnitude of climate change impacts and the benefits (avoided impacts) to the U.S. of global GHG reductions. However, none of the estimates presented in this report should be interpreted as definitive predictions of future impacts at a particular place and time."

To me, the key phrase is "none of the estimates presented in this report should be interpreted as definitive predictions of future impacts at a particular place and time." Models evolve and for a writer to not know this and field and stream to publish such an article is nonsense. Nowhere in the EPA study did I see the definition of a cold water fishery. The closest I found was a graphic that showed the conversion of fisheries - cold, warm, rough - and defined the fishery by species. For cold water, it showed trout and salmon. In the graphic, several areas in the lower peninsula of Michigan were shown as warm water fisheries remaining warm water fisheries that currently hold wild trout and have annual salmon runs. the following is web address of that graphic:

http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents/freshwaterfish.pdf

The following are the web addresses that show wild trout streams in Michigan:

http://www.wildtroutstreams.com/streams/mi-wts
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/2014_LP_463810_7.pdf

To me, this appears to be wrong and leads to think what other items are inaccurate. The FAQs claim that the summary of the research went through a two layer peer review but it feel short by not providing a better description of a cold water fishery and missed a large area of Michigan, in my opinion.

Anyway, these are just my observations

Don.

 

[foxtrapper1972]

In the 1960's-70's if someone told you there would be no more wild pheasants or muskrats in Lancaster County by 1990 would you have believed them?

Pheasants are DONE....muskrats SERIOUSLY depleted. Many other less "glamorous" species probably gone as well. Bass and many other warmwater fish are not thriving in many places.

 

[FarmerDave]

foxtrapper1972 wrote:
In the 1960's-70's if someone told you there would be no more wild pheasants or muskrats in Lancaster County by 1990 would you have believed them?

Pheasants are DONE....muskrats SERIOUSLY depleted. Many other less "glamorous" species probably gone as well. Bass and many other warmwater fish are not thriving in many places.

Pheasant are an introduced species. Besides, climate change had nothing to so with there demise. It likely had more to do with more efficient farming practices and stocking programs than anything else. Int it progressive? ;-) Stocked pheasant are really stupid. In areas where they are still stocked heavily, one can usually get their limit with shovel digging them out of woodchuck holes.

Muskrat? Well, they are just muskrat. You want some, come get'm. Pick your own.;-) No idea why they are rare in Lancaster county, but likely not climate change. You can find then in abundance all the way from Canada to Louisiana.

The native grouse is still fairly plentiful in some areas, and wild turkey are more common now than 40 years ago.

Bobwhite quail? They are pretty much gone from many areas, and this is also likely due to farming practices.

On the other hand, quail are still quite plentiful in the south and even in Canada where habitat is managed for quail, so that isn't climate change, either.

I honestly don't know what the deal is with quail. Some species simply can't adapt well to changes in their environment. We have tons of doves around, but no quail. Then again, doves are migratory.

I'm wondering if overgrazing by deer could also be a factor.

 

[pcray1231]

Regarding the decline in wild pheasants, many blame clean farm practices. Meaning, farmers utilize every inch of their fields, instead of leaving brushy areas around small streams, fences, and the like.

Rabbits have faced a similar decline. There's still plenty around houses (as long as there are few cats around) but get away from them and they are far and few between compared to the old days.

I think farming practices are certainly part of it. But I think predators are just as big a factor. Mainly, hawks, but also other birds of prey, which have just exploded in population. It can be argued whether this is due to protection (ppl used to shoot em, but no more), or a ban on DDT, or most likely a combo of those factors. Cats and coyotes also play a roll I'm sure, though I'd guess the extent of their influence to be less. What happened to snowshoe hares? They used to be reasonably common as well. Predators again, though the maturation of the northern forests, and move towards selective timbering as opposed to clearcutting likely plays a significant roll.

Farming practices and predators aren't mutually exclusive, though. Less cover and more predators. Not a good combo.

Smallmouth bass are suffering in places, but it's clearly pollution and disease (which again, are interconnected). Largemouths, well, I didn't really know they were on the decline.

Mankind can, and does have extreme and fast acting influences on the populations of animals. The solutions are often just as extreme and fast acting. But climate change is a much slower developing threat, and solving it will be a slower process as well.

 

[bikerfish]

wow, just glad I've been going to the northeast corner of Vermont the past bunch of years to learn all the streams that will still hold fish!!!
and no, I'm not sharing!! haha!!

saying that, I'll take a certain part of Wyoming any day over PA, VT, or any other place in the east!

 

[FarmerDave]

RE Pcray's response.

Agree, predation is a major factor but IMO habitat is as well. Combine the two?

Time to hunt something else.

There has been an explosion in not only hawks and coyote populations, but also fox, and even skunks and raccoons which often devour the eggs.

I have seen the occasional wild pheasant, but then, I have been deliberately leaving some cover areas. Partially for the wildlife, partially for the bees (blooming shrubs and weeds).

I'm guessing the adults were holdovers, but on two occasions we had a hen with several babies.

By the time hunting season rolls around, I haven't seen any. But then, I haven't hunted them either. Probably not enough to bother with anyway.

Been seeing more rabbits than usual, but by the time hunting reason rolls around, they will probably be thinned out as well. No shortage of fox squirrels though.