Global warming and its consequences.

Scientists and politicians have continued to vigorously discuss the first part of the report on global climate change of the Earth, which is a special Council of the United Nations, presented in early February in Paris,and in the meantime has already been completed on the second part of the report. Its approval and presentation took place in Brussels on Good Friday, and a feeling that this sad day was chosen by chance - just a grim picture of the future of our planet have drawn experts from 124 countries of the world. If the first part of the report dealt with the general trends in changing Earth's climate and their causes, the second part examines the implications of these changes for the population of the planet and its entire ecosystem. Planned and the third part - it will be given specific advice to politicians and heads of states. If you try to briefly summarize the meaning of the second part of the report, it is that while gaining speed global warming one way or another affect all the countries and continents, there are four regions in which climate change will hit hardest. This is a densely populated coast of Asia in the mouths of large rivers, where the expected catastrophic floods, and this arid regions of Africa, where the heat and water shortages will make life almost impossible, it is the Arctic, and it's many small islands in the Pacific Ocean, which can simply disappear into the depths of the sea due to the increase global sea level. According to the forecasts of leading experts, after 70 years, more than 3 billion people on Earth will experience a shortage of drinking water, 600 million - an acute shortage of food. The global average temperature increase of only 2.5 degrees by the end of the century to supply to the brink of extinction a third of all existing species of animals and plants. To prevent climate change, humanity can not all that it can still take a try, first, to reduce its magnitude, and secondly, as much as possible to adapt to the inevitable.However, the chairman of the UN Climate Change - an Indian engineer and environmentalist Rajendra Pachauri (Rajendra Pachauri) - pointed to this aspect of the problem:The poorest of the poor of the world, including even the poor in rich countries - that is to whom the global climate change will hit hardest. This should not be forgotten, because poor people are most vulnerable, they virtually have no opportunity to adapt or prepare for the impending dramatic changes in the environment.But the industrialized countries of the West in general, will not pass this cup. For example, experts predict more hot and dry summer in the U.S. major metropolitan areas like Chicago, the shortage of fresh water on the west coast is much more frequent and more devastating than the notorious Katrina, hurricanes in the southeastern United States, forest fires in the U.S. and Mexico.Do not look so clear forecasts for Europe. North of the continent global warming may even give some advantages, bearing in mind the agriculture and forestry, and hydropower. But the central and especially southern Europe suffer from climate change. In the Mediterranean region - France, Italy, Spain, - aggravated already perceived shortage of fresh water to intensify droughts and forest fires.However, to speak about the consequences of climate change in the future tense is not true: they are, at least for now and not in such dramatic form, being felt today. In particular, the visual evidence of global warming from one year to watch - though perhaps not aware of this report - European mushroom pickers. They are increasingly faced with the fact that the usual, well familiar types of mushrooms they suddenly appear in the woods, seemingly quite an inopportune time. British ecologists have published recently in the journal «Science» article in which he summed up by these random observations of everyday sound scientific basis.However, this has laid the most invaluable database, which now took advantage of the scientists, too mushroom-lover, a mason by trade, Edward Genji (Edward Gange). Since 1950 a regular gathering mushrooms in the same woods near the town of Salisbury, he meticulously recorded on the cards when the first time what kind of mushroom this season appeared and how long it could still be found here. These recordings became the basis for the analysis performed by his son, Alan (Alan) Genji, an ecologist at the Royal College of Holloway University of London. Alan says:His father retired 12 years ago, bought a computer and transferred to it his entire roster. This data set was 52,000 cards. When he told me about it, I immediately realized what a fantastic, truly an invaluable source of information was at my disposal. After all, these data allow us to judge how global climate change affects the nature of the fall. So far, all observations and studies of this kind have focused on the spring, when birds start which build their nests, when some plants begin to bloom.Most of the life cycle of fungi is underground and hidden from human eyes. Mushrooms are there in the form of a wide network of long, thin branching filaments - the so-called hyphae - mycelium form - the so-called mycelium. Upon occurrence of warm and wet weather aerial mycelium forms a spore-bearing fruiting bodies, which are, in fact, accepted in common parlance called mushrooms. And the onset of cold weather ends the growing season. It is clear that climate change can not affect this cycle. Indeed, the data Alan Genji, based on the file cabinet, and his father on his own observations, suggest that more than 70 percent of the most common fungi in the UK behave today is not the case, as 10, 20, and those over 30 or 40 years ago :First of all, the duration of the mushroom season in 1950 more than doubled. In the 50's mushroom season lasted an average of 32 days. It began in early September and ended in early October. Today, the mushroom season starts much earlier and lasted an average of 75 days.In other words, many species of fungi, which are in the middle of last century, appeared in the woods until September, can now be found as early as August or even July. A species in the 50 years disappearing in October, today often hold out until Christmas - such as fly agaric.Genji Alan continues:The second phenomenon is more unusual: Many mushrooms are now fruit twice a year.Species that typically occur in October, we are now often found in April and May. Nothing like this had never been observed.This applies to edible mushrooms - such as chanterelles and mushrooms - and of inedible - so, for example, svinushka Valuoja or false. Today in the UK mushroom season has two break - summer and winter. In the summer is too dry, too cold in winter. But if in the process of global climate change, average temperatures in January and February will continue to rise, then the time will come when the mushrooms in the forests of Britain can be collected nearly year-round. This, in turn, will cause far-reaching consequences. Genji Alan says:If today fungi form fruiting bodies twice a year, it can not but affect the entire ecosystem of the forest. Mushrooms contain no chlorophyll, can not absorb carbon dioxide from the air and ready to eat from the organic matter contained in the soil or other substrate. That is, they either live on the decomposition of dead plant debris - leaves, pine needles, twigs, etc. - or enter into a symbiosis with trees and get the nutrients not only from the forest floor, but also from the roots of trees. Thus, if the mushrooms fruit twice a year now, they need to double the nutrients to form fruiting bodies. That is, in our days, two fungi decompose more biomass than even 50 years ago.While this factor for the forest ecosystem rather positive. Because fungi saprotroph provide some kind of recycling of waste wood, fungi, symbionts supply nutrients to the trees:This means that now the trees are getting more nutrients than before, and this contributes to their growth. However, after 50 or 100 years if warming continues to accelerate, and processes of vegetation, it can give in the end, the negative effect, since the whole ecosystem goes out of balance.Meanwhile, Alan Genji gives mushroom collectors - if not all, then at least the British, - practical advice:If you are going into the woods to pick mushrooms, go there in July, and not wait until September.Another consequence of global warming that is observed today, but has, in contrast to the acceleration of the mushroom developmental cycle is definitely negative - is widely distributed ticks, and hence they have borne infectious diseases - the so-called spring-summer meningoencephalitis and tick-borne borreliosis , also called Lyme disease. This issue was dedicated to the past, even recently in Jena, a special symposium. Presented at the symposium facts can not but cause concern. It seems that the spring-summer meningoencephalitis, as referred to the tick-borne form of inflammation of the brain and its membranes, is not fully compatible with this its name because it is now increasingly common long before the onset of spring calendar. Dr. Jochen Zyus (Jochen Süß), Fellow of the Federal Veterinary Research Institute in Jena, said:Czech colleagues documented in 2006, more than a thousand cases of tick-borne meningoencephalitis. What is surprising is that almost half of this amount came in the last third of the year. But these are the months when we would normally only a few isolated cases.At least it was until now.Now, apparently, the situation has changed - and how easy to guess, not for the better. This year, in the vicinity of Berlin, mites remained active even from October to January, although in these months, they certainly supposed to be in the winter torpor. The most common mite species in Germany - the dog tick (Ixodes ricinus) - comes out of hibernation, when the soil temperature reaches 7 degrees Celsius and the humidity exceeds 85 percent. After this he goes on the hunt - or rather, to find a suitable host. In recent decades, the tick habitat has steadily expanded to the north, covering new areas. Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Gerstengarbe (Friedrich Wilhelm Gerstengarbe), researcher at the Institute for the Study of the effects of climate change in Potsdam, explains:Active dissemination of ticks began about 30 years ago, and at the same time during the past 30 years, we have seen a significant increase in average temperatures. These processes are strictly synchronous, that is there to talk about a very high degree of correlation.At a symposium in Jena, climatologists, meteorologists, physicians, epidemiologists and Arachnology, that is, specialists who study arachnids, which include and ticks, and discussed opportunities for closer cooperation in order to find ways to reliably predicting the spread of tick-borne, and their diseases. Professor Gerstengarbe explains:So if, say, in Brandenburg this summer would have occurred very dry weather, then the probability of a tick bite would be very small. But it would have been much higher in the spring, when there is a lot of precipitation falls. In the south-west Germany for the past 50 years, annual precipitation has increased by 300-400 millimeters. Naturally, this affects the behavior of the mites. There's humidity is consistently over 85 percent, so that the temperature begins to rise almost immediately and sharply increases the incidence of spring-summer meningoencephalitis. And now I have described this situation is typical of the south-western regions of the country, begins under the influence of global climate change, shifting to the north. And we are faced with the question: how will the mites? Increase the number of its population, or not? There will be a tick to migrate north, or will not, and if so, how fast?In Germany, the relevant statistics are not maintained. But the sad experience of other countries does not give reason to doubt: the tick migrates. In Sweden, he had already penetrated to the southern coast of the central regions of the country, in Norway, he recently did not exist, but today it is already there, and the Finnish researchers have even discovered the first instance, only 200 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. It is unlikely that the tick will behave differently in Germany. Therefore, doctors are sounding the alarm today: the very populations from south-western parts of the country, which, according to forecasts of climatologists, can capture almost the entire territory of Germany, is a carrier of both diseases. However, not every tick bite mean automatically infected. According to epidemiologists - the truth is quite rough - a carrier of the virus of spring-summer meningoencephalitis are the only one to five percent of the ticks. Percentage of ticks infected with spirochetes that cause Lyme disease in humans is much higher: it varies from 5 to 50 percent, but between the tick bite and penetration of bacteria into the blood is not less than 12 hours, which makes it possible to take the necessary measures. Yet borreliosis in Germany suffer from about 50 thousand people, and the incidence of spring-summer meningoencephalitis in the last two years has doubled to over 500 cases a year. Dr. Zyus explains:When we know which regions are most at risk, then, observing the weather in the winter, you can advance to give a fairly accurate prediction and apply to the population of those areas where the expected invasion of mites, with an appeal to be vaccinated against the spring-summer meningoencephalitis. Something like this done today, vaccination against influenza.The same campaign, we should pursue with regard to diseases transmitted by ticks.However, vaccination is only against menigoentsefalita, but then a lot. And given the unprecedentedly mild weather last winter and has a hot spring called for vigilance against ticks would sound this year could not be more helpful.