Slashdot Mirror
1/3 of Amphibians Dying Out
Death Metal sends in a Scientific American article reporting that 2,000 of 6,000 amphibian species are endangered worldwide. A combination of environmental assaults, including global warming, seems to be responsible. "... national parks and other areas protected from pollution and development are providing no refuge. The frogs and salamanders of Yellowstone National Park have been declining since the 1980s, according to a Stanford University study, as global warming dries out seasonal ponds, leaving dried salamander corpses in their wake. Since the 1970s, nearly 75 percent of the frogs and other amphibians of La Selva Biological Station in Braulio Carrillo National Park in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica have died, perhaps due to global warming. But the really bad news is that amphibians may be just the first sign of other species in trouble. Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have shown that amphibians are the first to respond to environmental changes, thanks to their sensitivity to both air and water. What goes for amphibians may soon be true of other classes of animal, including mammals."
Expansion is what is causing the contraction of numbers in Yellowstone. Yellowstone itself is a super volcano and its magma has been pushing the surface up for a very long time, heating the ground, air and water around it. They have literally found fish cooked in the water around the park in recent years and not geyser water. Trees have died after having their roots cooked. The heat from the rising magma there far exceeds anything global warming could do in that vicinity. If it ever erupts again there will likely be widespread destruction from the eruption followed by some global cooling.
Yellowstone would not be a good example to use when blaming global warming for dried up pools there, though perhaps not totally unrelated. TFA used it for an example of a location with dead salamanders etc in dried out pools without mentioning the more likely cause being the super volcano heating everything above it, very poor form indeed.