Forests Can No Longer Be Considered Wilderness: Study

Deforestation: 70 percent of remaining forests less than 800m deep

Seventy percent of forests left on the planet are within 800 meters (0.5 mile) of a forest edge due to land use changes, especially encroaching urban, suburban developments and agriculture, which are causing global declines in biodiversity, according to a new study lead by North Carolina University.

The researchers discovered that very few forest lands are unaffected by some kind of human development.

“The loss of area, increase in isolation, and greater exposure to human land uses along fragment edges initiate long-term changes to the structure and function of the remaining fragments.”

They also conducted major experiments across five continents examining the effects of habitat fragmentation. They found that fragmented habitats reduce the diversity of plants and animals by up to 75 percent, with the smallest, most isolated patches causing the most impact.

“The initial negative effects were unsurprising,” said the corresponding author of the paper, a professor at NC State University. “But I was blown away by the fact that these negative effects became even more negative with time. Some results showed a 50 percent or higher decline in plant and animals species over an average of just 20 years, for example. And the trajectory is still spiraling downward.”

“Data from 76 different studies across the five longest-running experiments were drawn from published and unpublished sources (table S1). We synthesized results according to three fragmentation treatments: reduced fragment area [the focus of Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP), Wog Wog, and Kansas; see Fig. 2 for identifiers of experiments], increased fragment isolation [Savannah River Site (SRS) and Moss], and increased proportion of edge (all experiments). Fragmented treatments were compared directly to non- or less-fragmented habitats that were either larger or connected via structural corridors (table S1).”

“The results were astounding,” said the author. “Nearly 20 percent of the world’s remaining forest is the distance of a football field—or about 100 meters—away from a forest edge. Seventy percent of forest lands are within a half-mile of a forest edge. That means almost no forest can really be considered wilderness.”

Research Article: Habitat fragmentation and its lasting impact on Earth’s ecosystems http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/2/e1500052
Supplementary material for this article is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1/2/e1500052/DC1

December–February Warmest on Record

February 2015 second warmest February on record: NOAA

• December–February warmest on record
• February 2015 second warmest February on record
• February Arctic sea ice extent third smallest on record

Globally averaged temperatures were the highest on record for both the year-to-date (January–February) and seasonal (December–February) periods, said NOAA in its State of the Climate report.

Meantime, February’s average global temperature, land and ocean surfaces combined, was the second highest in the 1880-2015 record, according to the report.

Global highlights: February 2015

• February’s  average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was  0.82°C (1.48°F) above the 20th century average.
• The globally-averaged land surface temperature was 1.68°C (3.02°F) above the 20th century average. This was also the second highest for February in the 1880–2015 record. The highest temperature occurred in 2002, at 1.70°C (3.06°F) above average.
• February’s globally-averaged sea surface temperature (SST) was 0.51°C (0.92°F) above the 20th century average of 15.9°C (60.6°F). This was the third highest for February in the 136-year record period.
• The average Arctic sea ice extent was 600,000 square kilometers  (370,000 square miles), or 6.2 percent below the 1981–2010 average, or the third smallest February extent since records began in 1979.
• Antarctic sea ice during February was 400,000 square kilometers (250,000 square miles), or  21.4 percent above the 1981–2010 average. This was the sixth largest February Antarctic sea ice extent on record but smallest since 2012.

Global highlights: December–February 2015

• Average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 0.79°C (1.42°F) above the 20^th century average of 12.1°C (53.8°F) during December–February, the highest for that period in the 1880–2015 record ( previous record set in 2007, ).
• Globally-averaged land surface temperature was 1.46°C (2.63°F) above the 20^th century average of 8.1°C (46.4°F), tying with 2007 as the highest for the period.
• Globally-averaged SST was 0.54°C (0.97°F ) above the 20^th century average, or third highest for the period.

Global highlights: Year-to-date (January–February 2015)

• Average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was the highest for the first two months of 2015 at 0.79°C  (1.42°F) above the 20^th century average,  surpassing the previous records of 2002 and 2007 by 0.04°C  (0.07°F).
• The globally-averaged land surface temperature was 1.53°C  (2.75°F) above the 20^th century average, or the second highest for the period. The highest temperature occurred in 2002 (1.55°C or 2.79°F above average).
• SST global average was 0.52°C (0.94°F) above the 20^th century average, or the third highest for the two-month period in the 1880–2015 record.

Source: NOAA National Climatic Data Center, State of the Climate: Global Analysis for February 2015, published online March 2015, retrieved on March 21, 2015 from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2015/02