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34-670 PDF 2007

WILDLIFE AND OCEANS IN

A CHANGING CLIMATE

OVERSIGHT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES, WILDLIFE 

AND OCEANS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Serial No. 110-12

Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

or 

Committee address: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Ranking Republican Member

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan 

Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Samoa 

Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii 

Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas 

Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey 

Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Islands 

Grace F. Napolitano, California 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam 

Jim Costa, California 

Dan Boren, Oklahoma 

John P. Sarbanes, Maryland 

George Miller, California 

Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts 

Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon 

Maurice D. Hinchey, New York 

Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

Lois Capps, California 

Jay Inslee, Washington 

Mark Udall, Colorado 

Joe Baca, California 

Hilda L. Solis, California 

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, South Dakota 

Heath Shuler, North Carolina 

Jim Saxton, New Jersey 

Elton Gallegly, California 

John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee 

Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland 

Ken Calvert, California 

Chris Cannon, Utah 

Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado 

Jeff Flake, Arizona 

Stevan Pearce, New Mexico 

Henry E. Brown, Jr., South Carolina 

Luis G. Fortun ̃ o, Puerto Rico 

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington 

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana 

Louie Gohmert, Texas 

Tom Cole, Oklahoma 

Rob Bishop, Utah 

Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania 

Dean Heller, Nevada 

Bill Sali, Idaho 

Doug Lamborn, Colorado 

Vacancy

James H. Zoia, Chief of Staff 

Jeffrey P. Petrich, Chief Counsel 

Lloyd Jones, Republican Staff Director 

Lisa Pittman, Republican Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam, Chairwoman 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina, Ranking Republican Member

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan 

Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Samoa 

Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii 

Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas 

Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey 

Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

Lois Capps, California 

Nick J. Rahall II, West Virginia, ex officio 

Jim Saxton, New Jersey 

Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland 

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington 

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana 

Tom Cole, Oklahoma 

Bill Sali, Idaho 

Don Young, Alaska, ex officio 

(III)

CONTENTS 

Page

Hearing held on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 .............................................................. 1

Statement of Members: 

Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z., a Delegate in Congress from Guam ............... 1

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 2 

Brown, Hon. Henry E., Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of South Carolina .......................................................................................... 3

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4 

Gilchrest, Hon. Wayne T., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Maryland, Statement submitted for the record ...................................... 158

Statement of Witnesses: 

Caldeira, Ken, Ph.D., Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution 

of Washington ............................................................................................... 89

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 91

Eakin, C. Mark, Ph.D., Coordinator, Coral Reef Watch, National 

Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of 

Commerce ...................................................................................................... 79

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 80

Everett, John T., Ph.D., Ocean Associates, Inc. ............................................. 137

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 138

Response to questions submitted for the record ..................................... 148

Haney, J. Christopher, Ph.D., Chief Scientist, Defenders of Wildlife .......... 45

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 47

Response to questions submitted for the record ..................................... 52

Kleypas, Joan A., Ph.D., Scientist, Institute for the Study of Society 

and Environment, National Center for Atmospheric Research ................ 96

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 98

Response to questions submitted for the record ..................................... 102

Lawler, Joshua J., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, College of Forest 

Resources, University of Washington .......................................................... 13

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 14

Response to questions submitted for the record ..................................... 21

McKibben, William, Author and Scholar in Residence, Middlebury 

College ............................................................................................................ 6

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Response to questions submitted for the record ..................................... 9

Medina, Monica, U.S. Deputy Director, International Fund for Animal 

Welfare ........................................................................................................... 36

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 38

Root, Terry L., Ph.D., Senior Fellow University Faculty, Stanford 

University ...................................................................................................... 29

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 30

Sharp, Dr. Gary D., Ph.D., Scientific Director, Center for Climate/Ocean 

Resources Study ............................................................................................ 116

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 118

Response to questions submitted for the record ..................................... 131

Additional materials supplied: 

The Nature Conservancy, Statement submitted for the record .................... 160

(1)

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON WILDLIFE AND 

OCEANS IN A CHANGING CLIMATE 

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans 

Committee on Natural Resources 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in Room 

1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Madeleine Z. 

Bordallo, [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Bordallo, Brown, Kildee, Kennedy, 

Capps, Gilchrest and Sali. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, 

A DELEGATE IN CONGRESS FROM THE REPUBLIC OF GUAM 

Ms. BORDALLO. The oversight hearing by the Subcommittee on 

Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans will now come to order. The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on the effects of climate change on wildlife and on our oceans. Under Committee Rule 

4(g), the Chairman and the Ranking Minority Member can make 

opening statements. If any other Members have statements, they 

can be included in the hearing record under unanimous consent. 

This morning’s hearing will focus on the effects of climate change 

on wildlife and oceans. Once a phenomenon discussed almost exclusively by scientists, climate change has moved front and center in 

the discussion amongst policymakers, businesses, and citizens all 

over the world. 

We are no longer dealing with the question of if climate change 

is occurring; we are now addressing what we can do. 

The warming of the climate system is unequivocal and is now 

evident worldwide, according to a report issued earlier this year by 

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We are seeing increases in global air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting 

of snow and ice, rising global average sea level, and changes in 

ocean salinity, precipitation, heat waves, and the increased intensity of tropical storms. 

On April 6th, a second IPCC report concluded that observational 

evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases. Climate change will negatively affect our coasts, our wetlands, and mangroves through increased 

2

erosion and sea level rise. Global warming is affecting corals 

through increases in sea surface temperatures and acidification 

and affecting wildlife through the loss of preferred habitat and 

changes in seasonal migration patterns. 

I am personally concerned with the report’s specific predictions 

of the detrimental effects of climate change on small island communities. While coral reefs are prized for their beauty and diversity 

worldwide, they are invaluable to those of us in small island communities who depend on them as a valuable resource and as a protection from severe storms such as typhoons. 

As we will hear today, scientists are observing and predicting 

detrimental effects of climate change not only on our oceans and 

corals but also on a great number of other animals, such as migratory birds, tigers, trout, polar bears, and sea turtles. 

The purpose of this hearing is to shed light on the impacts of climate change and additional factors which can have global warming 

impacts, including habitat degradation and loss, invasive species, 

disease, pollution, poaching, and overfishing. We are looking at 

what we can do to address the effects of climate change on our 

oceans and wildlife. 

As Peter Ewins, the Executive Director of the British Meteorological Office said in a letter to the world’s press in 1999, ‘‘Ignoring 

climate change will be the most costly of all possible choices for us 

and for our children.’’

As Chairwoman, I now recognize Mr. Brown, the Ranking Republican Member, for any statement he may have. 

[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Bordallo follows:]

Statement of The Honorable Madeleine Z. Bordallo,

Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans 

This morning’s hearing will focus on the effects of climate change on wildlife and 

oceans. Once a phenomenon discussed almost exclusively by scientists, climate 

change has moved front and center in the discussion amongst policymakers, businesses, and citizens all over the word. We are no longer dealing with the question 

of if climate change is occurring; we are now addressing what we can do. 

The ‘‘warming of the climate system is unequivocal,’’ and is now evident worldwide, according to a report issued earlier this year by the Intergovernmental Panel 

on Climate Change. We are seeing increases in global air and ocean temperatures, 

widespread melting of snow and ice, rising global average sea level, and changes in 

ocean salinity, precipitation, heat waves and the increased intensity of tropical 

storms. 

On April 6th, a second IPCC report concluded that ‘‘observational evidence from 

all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected 

by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.’’ Climate change 

will negatively affect our coasts, wetlands, and mangroves through increased erosion 

and sea level rise. Global warming is affecting corals through increases in sea surface temperature and acidification; and affecting wildlife through the loss of preferred habitat and changes in seasonal migration patterns. 

I am personally concerned with the report’s specific predictions for the detrimental effects of climate change on small island communities. While coral reefs are 

prized for their beauty and diversity worldwide, they are invaluable to those of us 

from small island communities who depend on them as a valuable resource and as 

protection from severe storms such as typhoons. As we will hear today, scientists 

are observing and predicting detrimental effects of climate change not only on our 

oceans and coral, but also on a great number of other animals, such as migratory 

birds, tigers, trout, polar bears, and sea turtles. 

The purpose of this hearing is to shed light on the impacts of climate change and 

additional factors which can exacerbate global warming impacts, including habitat 

degradation and loss, invasive species, disease, pollution, poaching, and overfishing. 

3

We are looking at what we can do to address the effects of climate change on our 

oceans and wildlife. 

As Peter Ewins, the Executive Director of the British Meteorological Office said 

in a letter to the world’s press in 1999, ‘‘ignoring climate change will be the most 

costly of all possible choices, for us and our children.’’

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HENRY E. BROWN, JR., A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF 

SOUTH CAROLINA 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, I want to compliment you for holding this oversight hearing on the impact of a 

change in climate on our wildlife and oceans. 

This is an issue that is generating tremendous debate and controversy. There are those people who believe that our changing climate is the greatest crisis facing mankind today. Conversely, there 

are others who believe this is a great hoax on the American people 

and a less than subtle way of radically changing our way of life. 

I come to this hearing with an open mind, and I intend to carefully listen to the testimony of each of our witnesses. I am looking 

for facts and solutions and not unproven theories. I also reject the 

politics of fear and believe it is shameful that any citizen would 

have their life threatened because they dare to articulate a different point of view. 

While there is significant evidence that the earth is now getting 

warmer, there is no consensus how long this period may last, 

whether increased temperatures are permanent and what longterm impact carbon emissions may have on fish and wildlife species. 

What we do know is that radical shifts in temperature patterns 

is not a new phenomenon. Climatologists have been studying 

weather trends for the past 15,000 years. During this time, this 

planet has experienced many warming and cooling periods, including the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. 

In fact, as recently as 30 years ago the scientific consensus was 

that we were entering a new ice age and that a drop of only one 

degree Celsius would result in a world famine. The January 31, 

1977, cover Time magazine was entitled The Big Freeze. The scientists were wrong in 1977, they were wrong about last year’s summer hurricane season, and they may well be wrong about the socalled catastrophic events of the current warming trend. 

Having just experienced the coldest Easter Sunday in Charleston 

in over 50 years, a few of my constituents would have enjoyed a 

little global warming. It is also a fact that this month in snowed 

in Dallas, Texas, for the first time in 70 years. There were record 

low temperatures in Charlotte, North Carolina; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Jacksonville, Florida, and the recently completed Masters 

Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, was the coldest ever. Could 

this be the beginning of a new ice age? 

We will hear today from our witnesses that carbon dioxide emissions should be reduced by 80 percent by the year 2050. We will 

also hear that in order to stop the ill-effects of global climate 

change we will need to return to preindustrial emission levels of 

carbon dioxide. How realistic are these requests? 

4

I read in the written testimony that manmade levels of carbon 

dioxide in the atmosphere are three percent of the overall total. Am 

I to understand that we need to reduce this amount by 80 percent 

in order to stop or reverse global climate change? 

It is my firm belief that before we as a nation commit to spend $100 to $400 billion dollars a year in taxpayer money to reduce 

emissions to Kyoto Treaty levels, we must understand the consequences of global warming and the urgency of our actions. 

As the former chairman of the South Carolina Ways and Means 

Committee, I can tell you that a carbon tax could have a devastating impact on our economy. It would literally be a Federal tax 

on breathing. As an alterative, we should consider tax credits and 

incentives to reduce carbon emissions. 

Finally, in the next five years China and India will build 800 

new coal-fired power plants. These plants are expected to emit 2.5 

billion tons of carbon dioxide each year into the atmosphere. This 

is more than five times the amount of reductions mandated by the 

Kyoto Accords. How is the international community going to address this amount of emissions which is nearly twice what we now 

produce in the United States? 

Nevertheless, it is important to hear how potential climate conditions may affect our wildlife within the National Wildlife Refuge 

System and our ocean fishery resources. Since the United Nations 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has recently concluded that over the next century sea levels will rise between seven 

and 23 inches, it is important to examine the potential consequences of this development. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Brown follows:]

Statement of The Honorable Henry E. Brown, Jr., Ranking Republican 

Member, Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans 

Madam Chairwoman, I want to compliment you for holding this oversight hearing 

on the impact of a changing climate on our wildlife and oceans. 

This is an issue that is generating tremendous debate and controversy. There are 

those people who believe that our changing climate is the greatest crisis facing mankind today. Conversely, there are others who believe this is a great hoax on the 

American people and a less than subtle way of radically changing our way of life. 

I come to this hearing with an open mind and I intend to carefully listen to the 

testimony of each of our witnesses. I am looking for facts and solutions and not 

unproven theories. I also reject the politics of fear and believe it is shameful that 

any citizen would have their life threatened because they dare to articulate a different point of view. 

While there is significant evidence that the earth is now getting warmer, there 

is no consensus how long this period may last, whether increased temperatures are 

permanent and what long term impact carbon emissions may have on fish and wildlife species. 

What we do know is that radical shifts in temperature patterns is not a new phenomena. Climatologists have been studying weather trends for the past 15,000 

years. During this time, this planet has experienced many warming and cooling periods including the Medieval Warm Period and the ‘‘Little Ice Age’’. In fact, as recently as 30 years ago, the scientific consensus was that we were entering a new 

ice age and that a drop of only 1 degree Celsius would result in world famine. The 

January 31, 1977 cover of Time magazine was entitled ‘‘The Big Freeze’’. The scientists were wrong in 1977, they were wrong about last year’s summer hurricane 

season and they may well be wrong about the so-called catastrophic effects of the 

current warming trend. 

Having just experienced the coldest Easter Sunday in Charleston in over 50 years, 

a few of my constituents would have enjoyed a little global warming. It is also a 

fact that this month it snowed in Dallas, Texas for the first time in 70 years, there 

5

were record low temperatures in: Charlotte, North Carolina; Little Rock, Arkansas; 

and Jacksonville, Florida and the recently completed Masters Golf Tournament in 

Augusta, Georgia was the coldest ever. Could this be the beginning of a new ‘‘ice 

age’’? 

We will hear today from our witnesses that carbon dioxide emissions should be 

reduced by 80 percent by the year 2050. We will also hear that in order to stop the 

ill-effects of global climate change we will need to return to pre-industrial emission 

levels of carbon dioxide. How realistic are these requests? 

I read in the written testimony that man-made levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are 3 percent of the overall total. Am I to understand that we need to 

reduce this amount by 80 percent in order to stop or reverse global climate change. It is my firm belief that before we, as a nation, commit to spend $100 to $400 

billion dollars a year in taxpayer money to reduce emissions to Kyoto Treaty levels, 

we must understand the consequences of global warming and the urgency of our actions. 

As the former Chairman of the South Carolina Ways and Means Committee, I can 

tell you that a carbon tax could have a devastating impact on our economy. It would 

literally be a federal tax on breathing. As an alternative, we should consider tax 

credits and incentives to reduce carbon emissions. 

Finally, in the next five years, China and India will build 800 new coal-fired 

power plants. These plants are expected to emit 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide 

each year into the atmosphere. This is more than 5 times the amount of reductions 

mandated by the Kyoto Accords. How is the international community going to address this amount of emissions which is nearly twice what we now produce in the 

United States? 

Nevertheless, it is important to hear how potential climate conditions may affect 

our wildlife within the National Wildlife Refuge System and our ocean fishery resources. Since the United Nations Intergovernmenal Panel on Climate Change has 

recently concluded that over the next century sea levels will rise between 7 to 23 

inches, it is important to examine the potential consequences of this development. 

Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. BORDALLO. I want to thank the Ranking Member, Mr. 

Brown. 

I understand from the staff that we are having technical problems. We will take a short recess. 

[Recess.] 

Ms. BORDALLO. I understand from committee staff that there has 

only been one other technical problem with our recorders, and that 

was 15 years ago, so I guess we are doing very well. 

I would now like to recognize our witnesses. The witnesses will 

testify in two panels. The first panel will address the effects of climate change on wildlife, and this panel will include Mr. William 

McKibben, an author and scholar in residence in the Department 

of Environmental Studies at Middlebury College; Dr. Joshua 

Lawler from the College of Forest Resources at the University of 

Washington; Dr. Terry Root from the Center for Environmental 

Science and Policy at Stanford University; Monica Medina, who is 

the Acting Director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare 

in the United States; and Dr. Christopher Haney, who is the Chief 

Scientist for the Defenders of Wildlife here in Washington, D.C. 

I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today, and the 

Chairwoman would now recognize Mr. McKibben to testify for five 

minutes. 

I would note for all witnesses that the timing lights on the table 

will indicate when your time has concluded, and we would appreciate your cooperation in complying with the limits that have been 

set as we have many witnesses to hear from today. Be assured that 

your full written statement will be submitted for the hearing 

record. 

6

And now I would like to introduce Mr. McKibben. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM McKIBBEN, AUTHOR AND SCHOLAR 

IN RESIDENCE, MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this committee and for the chance to share 

with you not in my case new science, but some very fresh evidence 

of Americans’ passion for taking strong action on global warming. 

I am a writer, an environmentalist. My first book, The End of 

Nature, in 1989 was also generally acknowledged as the first book 

for a general audience about global warming. In the years since, I 

have watched with some dismay as Congress has failed to respond 

in a serious way to that challenge and am very glad to see from 

your interest here today that that situation may be changing. 

It is because of that failure that I helped to organize 

Stepitup07.org. Last summer, in my home State of Vermont, a few 

of us organized a five-day, 50-mile walk to ask for Federal action 

on climate change. It was a successful venture, drawing 1,000 

walkers by its finish in Burlington. In Vermont, 1,000 people is a 

lot of people. 

We were chagrined to read in the newspaper the next day that 

those 1,000 people may have represented one of the largest numbers of Americans yet to gather in one place in this country to protest climate change. That seemed to some of us a situation that 

needed to change. 

In January of this year, we launched a website, Stepitup07.org, 

asking people to organize rallies in their communities on April 14 

to demand that Congress pledge to cut carbon emissions 80 percent 

by 2050. By we, I mean myself and six students who had graduated 

from Middlebury College where I teach in the preceding six 

months. 

We had no money and no organization and so there was no reason other than our own willingness to work hard to think we would 

be able to organize a significant number of protests. Our secret 

hope was that we might convince people in 100 locations around 

the country to schedule demonstrations that day. 

Instead, three days ago there were rallies in more than 1,400 

communities in every state in the union. This is due to the fact 

that Americans are very eager for real and dramatic action on this 

issue. For many years it had seemed too large and daunting an 

issue for most of us to get our hands around, especially since any 

action in Washington was blocked by committee chairs who refused 

to take the issue seriously. 

Even as we performed the necessary individual steps—screwing 

in compact fluorescent lightbulbs say—many of us were left thinking that those steps had a token quality and that they needed 

strong Federal action to make them real. 

The geographic and demographic diversity of these protests was 

astonishing. From the day we opened our website, we were heartened to see the participation of a wide variety of Americans from 

the founders of the Evangelical Environmental Network to sorority 

chapters to League of Women Voters clubs, all of them rallying behind the standard cut carbon 80 percent by 2050. 

7

People participated with great creativity. In Florida they organized underwater demonstrations off the endangered coral reefs of 

the Keys, one of the nation’s most glorious wildlife habitats which 

cannot survive the anticipated temperature rises of this century. 

Others in the Sunshine State rallied in the parking lot of the 

Jacksonville Jaguars football stadium, hoisting a boat with a crane 

20 feet in the air to show where sea levels might fall should the 

melt of the great ice sheets proceed unabated. 

In lower Manhattan, people in blue shirts thronged into the 

streets of lower Manhattan to form a human sea along the line 

where the tide may someday rise. In Seattle, they hoisted giant 

salmon puppets to the new tideline. In the Rockies, Sierras and 

Cascades, skiers descended down many of the fast-dwindling glaciers in formation. 

Everywhere in the country, people used the backdrop of their 

every day lives to try and show what some of the effects of climate 

change would be on their lives. Children and pregnant women were 

at the front of many marches, symbolizing the stake that our 

youngest have in the changes that will play out over their lifetimes. 

Elsewhere people paid tribute to the many parts of creation put 

at risk by our carelessness from reef fish to maple trees, from those 

animals that need the snow of winter to those plants who will not 

survive a hotter and more arid world. 

Though this was an entirely citizen organized day of action 

which depended on neither political nor entertainment celebrities 

to draw its crowds, I am happy to say that many of your colleagues 

in both chambers and from both parties attended rallies in their 

local areas. 

I believe that there were demonstrations in almost all your districts, and we have distributed some of the first pictures to come 

back in from your districts today to you in your packets. It was an 

impressive sight and one I urge you to see, the largest grassroots 

environmental gathering since Earth Day 1970, widely covered in 

the media. There are archived photos of all actions at 

Stepitup07.org. 

Our hope is that just as Earth Day 1970 helped usher in bold 

policy making, this day of action will do so as well. Our definition 

of bold action is cuts of at least 80 percent in American carbon 

emissions. They need to begin right away and be sustained for 

many years, a process that should begin with a moratorium on new 

coal-fired generating stations. 

Young people in particular are impatient to see this transition 

underway, and I would like to as I finish introduce my colleagues 

who made this happen, the eight young people who served as core 

organizers to this national effort and are here today: Julia Proctor, 

Jeremy Osborn, Robbie Adler, John Warnow, Jamie Henn, Phil 

Aroneanu, May Boeve and Will Bates. 

They are outstanding examples of the reasons that we must address this problem and also of the reasons that we can. Thank you 

for joining them and me in this task. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKibben follows:]

8

Statement of Bill McKibben, Author and Scholar in Residence,

Middlebury College 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify before this committee, and for 

the chance to share with you some very fresh evidence of Americans’ passion for 

taking strong action on global warming. 

I am a writer and environmentalist. My first book, The End of Nature in 1989, 

was also generally acknowledged as the first book for a general audience about global warming. In the years since, I have watched with some dismay as Congress has 

failed to respond in a serious way to that challenge, and am very glad to see from 

your interest here today that that situation may be changing. 

It is because of that failure that I helped to organize Stepitup07.org. Last summer, in my home state of Vermont, a few of uanized a five-day, 50-mile walk to ask 

for federal action on climate change. It was a successful venture, drawing a thousand walkers by its finish in Burlington. (In Vermont, a thousand people is a lot). 

But we were chagrined to read in the newspaper the next day that those thousand 

people may have represented one of the largest numbers of Americans yet to gather 

in one place in this country to protest climate change. That seemed to some of us 

a situation that needed to change. 

On January 10 of this year, we launched a website, stepitup07.org, asking people 

to organize rallies in their communities on April 14 to demand that Congress pledge 

to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050. By ‘‘we’’ I mean myself and six students who 

had graduated from Middlebury College, where I teach, in the proceeding six 

months. We had no money and no organization, and so there was no reason other 

than our own willingness to work hard to think that we would be able to organize 

a significant number of protests. Our secret hope was that we might convince people 

in a hundred locations around the country to schedule demonstrations that day. 

Instead, three days ago, there were rallies in more than 1,350 communities in 

every state of the Union. This is not due to our skill as organizers—it is due to the 

fact that Americans are very eager for real and dramatic action on this issue. For 

many years it has seemed too large and daunting an issue for most of us to get our 

hands around, especially since any action in Washington was blocked by committee 

chairs who refused to take the issue seriously. Even as we performed the necessary 

individuals steps—screwing in compact fluorescent light bulbs, say—many of us 

were left thinking that those steps had a token quality, and that they needed strong 

federal action to make them real. 

The geographic and demographic diversity of these protests was astonishing. 

From the day we opened our website, we were heartened to see the participation 

of a wide variety of Americans. One of the founders of the Evangelical Environmental Network, Calvin DeWitt, wrote one of the first blog posts. One of the first 

evidences of support from campus came from the Alpha Phi sorority chapter at the 

University of Texas at Austin, where more than a hundred women posed behind our 

banner: Step It Up Congress, Cut Carbon 80% by 2050. (‘‘We wanted to show it 

wasn’t just hippies who cared,’’ they wrote). League of Women Voters chapters, senior citizens homes, local congregations, bike clubs, garden societies, and many, many 

others participated. And participated with great creativity: in Florida, people organized an underwater demonstration off the endangered coral reefs of the Keys, one 

of the nation’s most glorious wildlife habitats which cannot survive the anticipated 

temperature rises of this century. Others in the Sunshine State rallied in the parking lot of the Jacksonville Jaguars demonstration, hoisting a boat via crane 20 feet 

in the air to show where sea levels might fall should melt of the great ice sheets 

proceed unabated. In lower Manhattan, people in blue shirts thronged into the 

streets of lower Manhattan to form a human sea along the line where the tide may 

someday rise. In Seattle, they hoisted giant salmon puppets to the new tideline, and 

in the Rockies, Sierras, and Cascades, skiers descended down many of the fast-dwindling glaciers in formation. Everywhere in the country, people used the backdrop 

of their everyday lives to try and show what some of the effects of climate change 

would be on their lives. Children and pregnant women were the front of many 

marches, symbolizing the stake that our youngest have in the changes that will play 

out over their lifetimes. Elsewhere, people paid tribute to the many parts of Creation put at risk by our carelessness, from reef fish to maple trees, from those animals that need the snow of winter to those plants who won’t survive a hotter and 

more arid world. Though this was an entirely citizen-organized day of action, which 

depended on neither political nor entertainment celebrities to draw its crowds, I am 

happy to say that many of your colleagues in both chambers and from both parties 

attended rallies in their local areas. I believe that there were demonstrations in almost all your districts, and you will receive pictures and descriptions of those gatherings at your district offices in the days to come. It was an impressive sight, and 

9

one I urge you to see—the largest grassroots environmental gathering since Earth 

Day 1970, widely covered in the media. Archived photos of all the actions are available at stepitup07.org. 

Our hope is that, just as Earth Day 1970 helped usher in bold policy making like 

the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, this day of action will be one of the catalysts 

for bold action in this legislative session. Our definition of bold action is cuts of at 

least 80% in American carbon emissions by 2050. There is no study that says 81% 

would be too much and 79% too little. Instead, it is a target broadly in line with 

the message the scientific community has been sending with increasing urgency: we 

need to begin deep cuts right away and sustain them for many years, transforming 

the American energy economy in the process, a process that should begin with a 

moratorium on new coal-fired utilities. That transition will be painful for some interests, but beneficial to many more—a green economy is clearly the economy of the 

future, and clinging to the bulwarks of last century’s economy simply because they 

are familiar implies a timidity both unbecoming and un-American. Young people in 

particular are impatient to see this transition underway. Starting soon is imperative, especially to send a strong signal to those anticipating capital investments in 

coming years, a signal that it would be folly to continue calculating carbon emissions as a free good with no economic cost. Starting soon is imperative, as well, because America needs very badly to re-engage in the international negotiations 

around climate change. Our neglect of our international responsibilities in this regard has been a dangerous failure. 

As you know, our record on containing our carbon emissions is poor. Every year 

since I wrote The End of Nature in 1989, carbon emissions have grown about one 

percent annually. The administration recently predicted that rate would hold at 

least through 2020. That flies in the face of efforts by every other developed nation, 

and it flies in the face of science and chemistry. Had we started twenty years ago 

to make the necessary changes, we could have proceeded gradually. Sadly, your 

predecessors in Congress neglected to do so, meaning that you will have to take 

more uncomfortable steps to address the problem. We are confident that changes in 

both technology and daily habit make the goals of our demonstrations achievable—

after all, citizens of western Europe enjoy similar quality of life on half the per capita energy use—but we do not imagine they will be simple. You will be under much 

pressure from special interests to go slowly, and it’s possible that even minimal 

progress will be cheered in some quarters. But if our rallies, and the many other 

efforts organized by others in months past and to come, have any meaning, it is 

this: the bar has been raised. Americans who know and care about this issue—and 

their number grows daily—want nothing less than action on a scale that actually 

addresses the problem. The phrase ‘‘Step It Up’’ that we chose for our actions was 

aimed squarely at you and your colleagues. We hope very much that you are 

listening. 

In closing let me thank the six young people who served as the core organizers 

of this national effort: Jeremy Osborn, Jon Warnow, Jamie Henn, Phil Aroneanu, 

May Boeve, and Will Bates are outstanding examples of the reasons we must 

address this problem, and of the reasons that we can. Thank you for joining them 

and me in this task. 

Response to questions submitted for the record

by William McKibben 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE PATRICK KENNEDY 

Regardless of whether or not we take actions to control and reduce green 

house gas emissions, wildlife and wildlife habitat and the ocean environment are going to change and adapt, often unpredictably, to a 

warming climate. Consequently, we should take steps now to develop 

strategies to allow for the future conservation of biodiversity and the 

maintenance of a healthy and resilient environment. 

1. Keeping in mind that any transition to a new ‘‘Green Economy’’ will 

take decades to achieve and that most Members of Congress will want 

to limit unnecessary disruptions of social and economic systems, can 

you be more specific on what practical types of adaptive management 

strategies we should consider to mitigate the negative effects of climate 

change on our collective wildlife and ocean resources? 

Think North-south corridors: Adirondacks to Algonquin, Yellowstone to Yukon, 

etc. 

10

2. Should we be doing more to re-evaluate our current policies for land use 

planning and public acquisition of land for wildlife habitat? Should we 

be adopting a broader landscape and ecosystem-based approach for protecting wildlife? 

The Nature Conservancy is doing extremely valuable work along these lines—

landscape-scale planning. 

3. Finally, how might such ideas be applied to the ocean and coastal environment and the wildlife therein? 

The more severe these problems get, the bigger the boundaries of our refuges and 

wildernesses need to be. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE HENRY BROWN, MINORITY 

RANKING MEMBER 

1. Mr. McKibben, while I understand you have written several books on 

the environment, do you have any advanced scientific degrees? What is 

the source of your data? 

All my advanced degrees are honorary. My data comes from many sources, reflected in the voluminous footnotes of my books; if you have particular questions 

about particular data, I’d be happy to help you track down the sources. 

2. If in fact you are correct that ‘‘Climate change is the greatest threat 

civilization now faces’’, why are you suggesting we wait 45 years to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent? Why not mandate those cuts in 

carbon emissions now? 

I think you’d be very wise to do them faster, and am very glad you are thinking 

along those lines. We have perhaps erred on the side of being too politically realistic. 

3. What is the cost and who will pay the price for reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent? 

The cost will depend on how it’s done, of course. The transition away from fossil 

fuel should provide the next great technological project for America, and hence will 

yield economic benefits. At the same time, fossil fuel has been so extraordinarily 

cheap that we will notice the change. As the Stern report for the UK government 

pointed out last year, however, the cost of not making this change will be orders 

of magnitude higher. 

4. What is the cost to the United States to comply with the Kyoto Treaty? 

There’s been no cost because the United States hasn’t ratified the treaty. The cost 

of not doing so has been very high in terms of damage to the environment, damage 

that will be playing out for a long time to come. 

5. Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream is produced in your state. A single gallon of 

their ice cream requires massive amounts of electricity to make and refrigerate and four gallons of milk produced by cows that generate gallons of manure and methane gas. This does not include the hay they 

eat, the tractor fuel, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides 

and the fuel used by planes, trains and trucks to transport Ben and 

Jerry’s Ice Cream to local supermarkets throughout the country. Isn’t 

Ben and Jerry’s a major contributor to green house gas emissions? It 

has been reported that the typical breakdown of carbon dioxide in the 

atmosphere is 57 percent from the ocean, 19 percent from decaying 

vegetation, and 19 percent from plant and animal respiration. Do you 

agree with this breakdown? If not, what is it? 

Though, like Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, I come from Vermont, I am not privy to 

their precise accounting system. Your breakdown seems reasonable, and underscores the point that every item on the store shelf has substantial embedded energy 

in it; I can’t think of any reason why Ben and Jerry’s would be any more culpable 

than anyone else, and their efforts on a wide range of environmental and social 

issues should be applauded. In my new book, Deep Economy, I advocate trying to 

foster more localized economies for precisely this purpose; if we can bring more food 

processing closer to home we’ll be able to stabilize the rural communities where I’ve 

spent my life and at the same time reduce carbon emissions. 

6. Is the statement by the current issue of Newsweek accurate that ‘‘Coal 

is the cheapest and dirtiest source of energy around. If we cannot get 

a handle on the coal problem, nothing else matters’’? 

It is. 

11

7. What are your thoughts on the ‘‘urban heat island effect’’ where heat 

is trapped in cities during the day and released into the atmosphere at 

night? Is this a valid theory for global warming? 

All climate models that I know of account for the urban heat island effect, which 

is well known and easily modeled. 

8. Should the Congress consider enacting a carbon tax? What would be 

the rate of the tax, who would pay them and what happens to the proceeds collected by the Internal Revenue Service? 

It would be a very straightforward way to address the problem. Many who have 

studied it have concluded that Congress won’t enact a tax because political leaders 

fear the very word tax—I’m glad to see this attitude may be changing. If you do 

enact a tax, you should do so in such a way that the revenue gained is offset by 

tax reductions elsewhere. For instance, it might well make sense to eliminate the 

payroll tax (a tax, after all, on something we would like to encourage, employment) 

and replace it with a tax on carbon, something we wish to avoid. As an alternative, 

you might wish to consider the excellent plans put forward by people like Peter 

Barnes for a ’skytrust,’ that would rebate money through a formula not unlike the 

Alaska Permanent Fund. 

9. By the year 2012, China and India will build 800 new coal-fired power 

plants that will emit 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. How should the international community respond to this issue? 

Not by trying to scapegoat China and India. Even in 2012, per capita the Chinese 

will be using a quarter as much energy as Americans, and India considerably less 

than that. And of course they are new to the game of burning carbon—recent estimates suggest that it will be 40 years before their contribution to global warming, 

even with their very large populations, will approach ours. We have no moral leg 

to stand on to demand their participation in any international regime on climate 

controls, but we can work hard—through technology transfer especially—to encourage them to shift the trajectory of their individual development. That we did not 

do so six years ago when their energy takeoff was beginning will be considered by 

historians an episode of epic folly on our part. 

10. Do you or have you (or your organization) received any funding from 

the Pew Charitable Trust or the David and Lucille Packard Foundation? If so, please elaborate. 

No 

11. Are you currently a party to any law suit against the Department of the 

Interior or the Department of Commerce (or any of the agencies within 

these departments)? If so, please describe. 

No. I’ve never sued anyone in my life. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE WAYNE GILCHREST 

1. If paleo-records show that corals existed in the past under high atmospheric CO2 concentrations, why is it a problem now? 

2. Among the various effects of climate change to wildlife and the oceans, 

are there issues that are more pressing than the others? Why? 

3. In the U.S., as plant and animal species migrate north and to higher 

elevations, what does that mean for the regions they leave behind? For 

instance, it has been said that some U.S. states that border Canada 

might actually benefit from the next few decades of climate change, but 

what will it mean for the states further to the South, and especially 

those on the coast? 

Any benefit from climate change will be transient at best, and even then unlikely. 

I live in a state that borders Canada—our ’benefit’ would, I guess, be warmer winters, but most Vermonters cherish the winter season. And we will lose, or so the 

computer models indicate, our birch-beech-maple forest with its fall climax of color, 

and our spring syrup season. No wonder Vermonters are so outspoken in their demand for federal action on global warming. 

12

4. How do shifts in habitat range of plants and animals affect human interests such as agriculture or the spread of invasive species and diseases? How can we adaptively plan for such changes? 

5. The IPCC reports with 80% certainty that the changes in water temperatures, ice cover, salinity and ocean circulation are impacting the 

ranges and migration patterns of aquatic organisms. How will this affect management and use of these resources, and how can we prepare 

for any changes? 

6. In the Chesapeake Bay, we are losing marshland to rising sea levels. 

Can you talk about what is happening to coastal wetland areas in other 

areas of the country and what that is doing to their ecosystems and the 

local economies that depend upon these natural resources? 

7. What role do marshlands play in sequestering carbon? Is marsh restoration a viable alternative in carbon sequestration? 

8. The latest IPCC report warns that ocean acidification poses a threat to 

coral reefs and shell-forming organisms that form the base of the aquatic food chain. But the report says more study is needed to determine 

the full scope of the threat. What do we know about the potential impacts to U.S. coastal ecosystems today and how quickly is our understanding of acidification improving? What can Congress do to improve 

upon this understanding? Do we know enough to act? 

9. What additional resources or tools will the Fish and Wildlife Service 

and National Marine Fisheries Service need to adequately prepare and 

address the impacts of global warming on wildlife over the next decade? 

10. We’ve heard a lot about the polar bear and the petition to list the species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Opponents of listing 

claim that the effects of global warming are in fact unclear. What evidence is there that global warming is already having a dramatic effect 

on the species across its range? How will an ESA listing help polar 

bears? 

11. Dr. Sharp’s testimony stated that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are approximately 3% within the global CO2 cycle. How does this translate to such 

large effects on the planet? Please also clarify how this number relates to the 80% 

carbon emissions cut by 2050 proposed by stepitup07.org. 

The global carbon cycle was well balanced before anthropogenic emissions began 

with the Industrial Revolution. Our additional increment has upset that balance—

imagine a person who has maintained the same weight for decades and then begins 

eating an additional slice of pie every night at dinner. It adds up quickly. 

Recent scientific assessments indicate that an 80% reduction in our carbon emissions—if it began rapidly and was coupled with strong attempts to help developing 

countries work in the same direction—might be enough not to head off global warming but to limit it below truly catastrophic levels. I should stress the need for rapid 

change. James Hansen of NASA, our foremost climatologist, has given us a window 

of one decade (now nine years) to reverse the flows of carbon into the atmosphere 

or else face a situation of almost certain melt of the great ice sheets above Greenland and the West Antarctic. Such a melt would raise sea levels dramatically, endangering much of human civilization. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. McKibben. 

Would the students please stand that were mentioned? 

[Applause.] 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much. 

Before I introduce the next witness, I would also like to recognize 

the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Kennedy, who has joined us. 

Now I recognize Dr. Lawler to testify for five minutes. 

13

STATEMENT OF JOSHUA J. LAWLER, Ph.D., COLLEGE OF 

FOREST RESOURCES, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 

Dr. LAWLER. Madam Chairwoman, I would like to thank you and 

the committee for inviting me to speak on this important issue. 

If we could have the first slide? I am going to show some images 

with my testimony. 

[Slide.] 

Dr. LAWLER. I am going to present research that my colleagues 

and I have done to look at the potential effect of 30 different future 

climate change projections on roughly 3,000 species of amphibians, 

mammals and birds in the western hemisphere. These are climate 

projections from the latest IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Initiative. 

We chose 30 projections from 10 different general circulations 

models and three different emissions scenarios. The emissions scenarios are a higher A2, an intermediate A1B scenario, and a lower 

B1 scenario. The projections I am going to show you are for roughly 

80 years from today for a 30-year period. 

This is what these climate change projections look like. These are 

shifts in species ranges. This is a shift in the range of the northern 

flying squirrel. The light green area you see is where the range is 

predicted to be stable. The dark green area is where the range is 

predicted to expand. The pink area is where the range is expected 

to contract. 

This is one of 30 projections we made for this species. We made 

30 projections for each of those 3,000 species. There are roughly 

90,000 maps like this that go into the next image that I am going 

to show you. 

These are images of what I am calling species turnover or species 

change, and it is a percent change in the animals across the western hemisphere. The change is measured as potential loss in species due to a range contraction plus potential gain in species due 

to a range expansion expressed as a percentage of the current species, so it is a percent change. They take into account the 30 different climate change projections. 

These maps represent 80 percent of the climate change projections predict at least this much change. For example, 80 percent 

of the climate change projections predict between 20 and 30 percent change in the animal communities in the wildlife across the 

United States under the lower scenario. Eighty percent of the climate change projections result in at least 30 to 40 percent change 

in the wildlife at the higher A2 scenario. 

In the higher A2 scenario there are changes in areas such as 

Texas and parts of the southwest that are as large as 50 to 60 percent. These are large changes, and these maps represent in many 

cases a wholesale change in the wildlife in many areas in the western hemisphere for the next 80 years. 

These are conservative estimates for a number of reasons, and I 

will give you three of those reasons. First of all, we didn’t model 

all the species in the western hemisphere. We couldn’t model some. 

The ones we couldn’t model are the ones that are likely to be most 

sensitive to change, so the maps I just showed you, if we could 

model those other species, would be a lot redder. The numbers 

would be a lot higher. 

14

They are conservative because species interact. If you take one 

species out of a system or you put one species into a system, there 

can be a cascade of ecological events that can be much greater than 

just adding or subtracting a species. 

They are also conservative because we didn’t take into account 

the effect of climate change on fire regimes, hydrological regimes 

and other disturbance regimes which will further change habitat. 

I have three conclusions. First of all, despite the variability in climate change projections, and you know there is a great amount of 

variability in projected future climate. Despite that variability, 

these analyses show a clear effect of climate change on wildlife. 

The second conclusion is that even moderate changes in climate, 

even the lower climate change projections, produce significant 

changes for wildlife. Finally, larger changes in CO2 emissions result in larger changes for wildlife. 

These conclusions lead to three recommendations that I have. 

The first of these is that reducing CO2 emissions and greenhouse 

gas emissions will reduce the effect on wildlife. 

The second is that we need to manage these wildlife species if 

we want to preserve these wildlife species. We need to manage 

them and the systems in which they live for change. We need to 

manage them as dynamic changing systems. 

The third recommendation is that because these species are 

going to move and because they are going to move quite a bit, we 

are going to need to coordinate our efforts to manage them across 

Federal agencies and across the lands at large spacial scales on 

which they exist. 

That is all I have. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Lawler follows:]

Statement of Joshua J. Lawler, Assistant Professor,

College of Forest Resources, University of Washington 

Summary 

Recent shifts in species ranges have been linked to recent changes in climate. Projected future climatic changes are likely to result in even more drastic shifts in species ranges in the coming century. Research I have conducted in conjunction with 

colleagues at three other universities and two federal agencies indicates that in 

many regions of the western hemisphere, climate change will likely result in a 

wholesale reorganization of vertebrate communities. We modeled the potential effects of 30 different climate-change projections on the geographic ranges of 2,954 

vertebrate species. We then identified areas in which the majority (80%) of the climate projections resulted in large predicted changes in animal assemblages. Large 

portions of both North and South America are projected to experience at least 20-

30% species turnover under even the lower B1 greenhouse-gas emissions scenario 

and at least 30-40% species turnover under the mid-high A2 scenario. Parts of the 

Andes, Central America, and the far northern boreal forests and tundra are predicted to experience greater than 80% species turnover. Thus, our results indicate 

that in the coming century, vertebrate communities in many parts of North and 

South America will likely bear little resemblance to today’s fauna. 

Background 

Recent shifts in the distribution of plants and animals have been clearly linked 

to recent changes in climate (Parmesan and Yohe 2003, Root et al. 2003, Parmesan 

2006). Most notably, species have shifted their ranges either poleward in latitude 

or upward in elevation (Parmesan 1996, Parmesan et al. 1999, Thomas and Lennon 

1999). These movements have generally occurred at rates that are consistent with 

rates of recent global warming (Parmesan and Yohe 2003, Root et al. 2003). 

Climatic changes for the coming century are projected to exceed those of the past 

100 years. For example, global average temperatures have risen approximately 

0.7°C in the past century and are projected to increase between 1.1 and 6.4°C in 

15

the next 100 years (Alley et al. 2007). Given the projected magnitude of future climatic change, we can logically expect even greater shifts in species distributions in 

the coming century. 

Several studies have made projections of potential future shifts in the distribution 

of both plants and animals (e.g., Peterson et al. 2002, e.g., Thuiller et al. 2005, 

Arau ́jo et al. 2006). In general, these studies have predicted relatively large changes 

in local plant or animal assemblages as a consequence of projected changes in climate. For example, Peterson et al. (2002) estimated that changes in some assemblages of animals in Mexico will potentially be as high as 40% by 2055. Thuiller 

et al. (2005) estimated average changes in plant assemblages across Europe will 

range from 27-63% by 2080. 

Changes in the distribution of species have profound implications for the management of fish and wildlife. Areas that currently provide habitat for a given species 

may no longer provide habitat in the future. Conversely, areas that are unsuitable 

today may eventually provide habitat as the climate changes. In addition, the loss 

of a key species or the addition of a specific species to a community may have profound effects on the other species in the system. Thus, shifts in even small numbers 

of species have the ability to dramatically alter ecological systems. For example, the 

climate-induced spread of the mountain pine beetle has increased whitebark pine 

mortality in parts of the Rocky Mountains resulting in the reduced availability of 

whitebark pine seed, a primary winter food source for the grizzly bear (Logan and 

Powell 2001). 

Projected climate-induced impacts on animal distributions in the western 

hemisphere 

Here, I present research that my colleagues and I have done to assess the potential effects of climate change on the distribution of animals in the western hemisphere. We explored the potential effects of 30 coupled atmosphere-ocean general 

circulation model (AOGCM) future-climate simulations on the distribution of 2,954 

species of birds, mammals, and amphibians for the period of 2071-2100. We then 

identified areas where animal assemblages are consistently predicted to experience 

changes. 

Study approach 

We built individual models for each species in the study based on the relationships between observed species ranges and current climate. This general modeling 

approach is often called ‘‘climate envelope’’ or ‘‘species niche modeling’’ (Pearson and 

Dawson 2004). More specifically, we used random forest classifiers (Breiman 2001) 

a consensus-based ensemble modeling approach that involved building 100 individual models for each of the species in the study and then averaging the predictions from those models to produce one prediction. Random forest classifiers have 

been shown to outperform other similar modeling approaches (Lawler et al. 2006). 

We used only highly accurate models in our analyses. We tested the models on a 

reserved set of data that was not used in the model-building process. We then removed any species from the study for which the models were unable to predict at 

least 90% of the presence data points and at least 80% of the absence data points 

correctly. This provided us with a set of models that is more accurate than most 

of those used in previous range-shift studies. After building and selecting the models, we then used the 30 future climate projections as input into the models to generate 30 potential future geographic ranges for each species. 

The 30 climate simulations used in the study consisted of projections from 10 

AOGCMs (Table 1) run under three different greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios 

(B1, A1B, and A2) representing the lower, mid, and mid-high range of the scenarios 

developed for the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) (Nakicenovic 

et al. 2000). All 30 simulations have been produced for the IPCC Fourth Assessment 

Report initiative. For North and South America, these 30 distinct climate simulations produced increases in mean annual temperature ranging from 1.2 to 5.2°C and 

changes in mean annual precipitation ranging from -122.5 to 131.9 mm for the 30-

year time period relative to 1961-1990. These climate simulations thus represent the 

uncertainty in both future greenhouse-gas emissions and in the simulated response 

of the climate system (Cubasch and Meehl 2001). 

To summarize the projected range shifts across all species and climate-change scenarios, we used each of the 30 climate-change projections to estimate potential 

changes in animal assemblages for each of 15,323 50x50-km grid cells in the western hemisphere. As climate changes, species will differ in their ability to track the 

change and to move into newly created suitable habitat. We calculated potential 

changes on a cell-by-cell basis assuming no dispersal to new areas with suitable climatic conditions and conversely, assuming unlimited dispersal into new suitable 

16

areas. The actual responses of species will likely fall between these two extremes. 

For the assumption of no dispersal, we calculated ‘‘species loss’’ for a cell as the percentage of all modeled species currently occurring in the cell whose predicted future 

range did not include the cell. Under the assumption of unlimited dispersal, we calculated ‘‘species gains’’ and ‘‘species turnover’’. Species gains were calculated as the 

number of species not in the cell whose future range did include the cell. Like 

losses, gains were expressed as a percentage of the number of species currently in 

a cell. Species turnover is a composite measure of both potential species losses and 

potential species gains and was calculated as 100*((number of species lost from a 

cell + number of species gained by a cell) / current number of species). 

We summarized the 10 predictions of species loss, gain, and turnover for each 

greenhouse-gas emissions scenario by taking the 20th percentile (80% of the models 

predicted at least that much change) of the distribution of loss, gain, and turnover 

values for each grid cell. These values were used to identify areas in which 80% or 

more (at least 8 out of 10) of the climate projections for each greenhouse-gas emissions scenario predicted high species loss, gain, and turnover. 

Findings 

Under all three greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios, most of the United States is 

predicted to experience significant changes in animal communities. Eighty percent 

of the analyzed climate-change projections predict at least 10-20% species loss over 

roughly half of the United States under the lower B1 emissions scenario and at 

least 10-20% loss over most of the United States under the mid-high A2 scenario 

(Figure 1). Under the A2 scenario, eighty percent of the climate projections result 

in at least 20-30% species loss for many areas in the central and southwestern 

United States. In addition, several areas in Central and South America are consistently projected to experience large losses. Eighty percent of the analyzed climatechange projections predict at least 20-30% species loss under the lower B1 emissions 

scenarios, and at least 50-60% loss under the mid-high A2 scenario in parts of Vera 

Cruz, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Andes Mountains. 

Several areas are predicted to gain substantial numbers of species as a result of 

range shifts and expansions (Figure 2). Percentage wise, the largest gains in species 

are predicted for the northern latitudes and the Andes mountains, where even 

under the lower B1 emissions scenario, eighty percent of the climate simulations result in at least 60-70% species gains. When losses and gains are both taken into 

account, the models predict relatively large changes across much of the western 

hemisphere (Figure 3). Large portions of both North and South America are projected to experience at least 20-30% species turnover for eighty percent of the climate projections under all three greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios and at least 30-

40% species turnover under the mid-high A2 scenario. Parts of the Andes, Central 

America, and the far northern boreal forests and tundra are predicted to experience 

greater than 80% species turnover, which would mean that the vertebrate communities in those regions would bear almost no resemblance to today’s fauna. Due to 

latitudinal trends in species richness, the largest changes in the absolute number 

of species are predicted for the tropics. For the tropics, the maximum projected 

changes in the numbers of species across scenarios are 352 and 465 species, for nodispersal and full-dispersal scenarios, respectively. 

There are several reasons why these analyses provide a conservative estimate of 

the future climate-driven changes in biodiversity. First, because the approach we 

used does not directly model interactions between species, it is likely that shifts in 

the ranges of other species and particularly in the distribution of diseases and 

pathogens (Pounds et al. 2006) will further alter ecological communities. Second, our 

models also do not account for land-use change, which could cause many species to 

disappear from a region or prevent them from occupying newly created suitable climates. Third, we only include in our analyses those species for which we were able 

to build models that accurately predicted current ranges. Although this restriction 

improved the accuracy of our analyses over those in previous studies, it generally 

biased us towards including species with larger, more contiguous ranges. Many of 

the species that were not modeled had small or highly fragmented ranges. These 

species are likely to be more susceptible to climate-induced range loss and range 

contraction due to their restrictive habitat requirements. Thus, our estimates of potential faunal change would likely be much greater if these species could have been 

modeled. Finally, we have modeled changes in species ranges as defined strictly by 

changes in climate. Climate change is also likely to alter habitat by changing sea 

level (Meehl et al. 2005, Alley et al. 2007), fire regimes (Westerling et al. 2006), as 

well as hydrological and other disturbance regimes. 

17

Conclusions 

The results of our study indicate that large portions of North and South America 

are likely to experience major climate-induced changes in animal assemblages in the 

coming century. Eighty percent of the climate-change scenarios we investigated resulted in species turnover rates of at least 20-30% for much of North and South 

America under even the lower B1 greenhouse-gas emission scenario and at least 30-

40% under the mid-high A2 scenario. These are likely to be conservative estimates 

of change because 1) they do not include many vertebrate species with small or fragmented ranges, 2) they do not account for interactions between species, and 3) they 

do not take into account many of the other climate-induced factors such as changing 

disturbance regimes and disease frequency and prevalence that will alter species 

distributions and animal communities. 

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Response to questions submitted for the record

by Dr. Josh Lawler 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE MADELEINE BORDALLO, CHAIRWOMAN 

Your research predicting that most of the United States will experience serious changes in animal communities is alarming. I was particularly 

impressed by your prediction that in parts of the Andes Mountains, 

Central America and the far northern boreal forest and tundra regions 

future wildlife communities will bear almost no resemblance to wildlife 

there today? 

1. Is there any scientific evidence indicating that similar kinds of changes 

in species distribution have occurred within the same time frame predicted by the different scenarios in your research? Has the earth ever 

experienced something like this before? 

Our models predict changes in wildlife communities over a 100-year period. Although the plants and animals of specific locations have changed dramatically in the 

past, these major changes generally have occurred over much longer time periods. 

However, it is impossible to know for certain because rapid changes cannot be detected by studying the fossil record. Rapid historic changes are known, but these 

can be clearly linked to human activities such hunting, land-use change, or the introduction of non-native predators. Examples of these changes include the extinction 

of the Australian and the North American megafauna. Regardless of whether similar changes have occurred in the past, the fish and wildlife of today will have more 

trouble responding to climate change. Because we have so dramatically altered the 

landscape and native habitats, species will have trouble moving in response to climate change and in many cases, there will be little undisturbed habitat into which 

to move. 

2. You note that a shifting climate will alter the spread of diseases and 

pathogens which will further disrupt ecological communities, and additionally, that human land-use changes will further stress wildlife. Does 

this argue for the need to develop a more holistic land planning strategy 

that up front accounts for the needs of wildlife? 

Yes, the ecological changes set in motion by climate change will require new ways 

of approaching conservation and land management. To protect wildlife, it will be 

necessary to make management decisions at much larger spatial scales. It will require close cooperation across federal lands and federal agencies to organize both 

management strategies and land acquisitions. I have provided some more specific 

recommendations in my responses to Representative Kennedy s comments below. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE DALE KILDEE 

The recent IPCC report concludes that rising sea levels will have negative 

consequences for wildlife and that essential wildlife habitats in lowlying coastal areas may be at serious risk. Yet, I am concerned about 

an opposite effect that reduced precipitation and longer droughts 

brought about by a warming climate might cause the water levels of 

the Great Lakes to drop dramatically. This would have disastrous effects on the Great Lakes themselves and on the economies and communities that depend on, or lay along, the lakefronts. 

1. Under the various climate change models used to make predictions 

about future conditions, can you tell me what is projected for the Great 

Lakes? Will lake levels rise or fall? What can we expect to see in changes 

to the composition, distribution and abundance of wildlife and aquatic 

species? 

The Great Lakes are already changing in response to climate change and are expected to change more dramatically in the coming century (UCS and ESA 2005). 

The levels of the Great Lakes are predicted to decrease in response to evaporation 

from increasing temperatures and the concurrent lack of significant increase in precipitation. Reduced ice cover and increased frequency of heavy precipitation events 

and droughts are also predicted. Predicted increases in lake temperatures and loss 

of ice cover will likely result in reduced whitefish production in the lakes. In the 

Great Lakes region as a whole, increased water temperatures will mean reductions 

in lake trout, brook trout, walleye, and northern pike populations and potential increases in bluegill and smallmouth bass populations. Aquatic communities will be 

further changed as exotic species such as the common carp and native species to 

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the south move into the Great Lakes region. Finally, longer periods of summer 

stratification may lead to increased oxygen depletion resulting in the formation of 

deep-water dead zones in some areas. 

Union of Concerned Scientists and Ecological Society of America. 2005. 

Confronting Climate change in the Great Lakes Region. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE PATRICK KENNEDY 

Regardless of whether or not we take actions to control and reduce green 

house gas emissions, wildlife and wildlife habitat and the ocean environment are going to change and adapt, often unpredictably, to a 

warming climate. Consequently, we should take steps now to develop 

strategies to allow for the future conservation of biodiversity and the 

maintenance of a healthy and resilient environment. 

2. Keeping in mind that any transition to a new Green Economy will take 

decades to achieve and that most Members of Congress will want to 

limit unnecessary disruptions of social and economic systems, can you 

be more specific on what practical types of adaptive management strategies we should consider to mitigate the negative effects of climate 

change on our collective wildlife and ocean resources? 

There are several strategies that agencies can begin to adopt to address climate 

change. Below I list some of the more general strategies and a small sample of some 

of the more specific strategies that can be undertaken in specific ecological systems. 

General strategies: 

1. Increase connectivity between protected lands (national parks, wildlife refuges, 

national forests, etc.) to allow species to move more easily in response to climate change. 

2. Better coordinate management across protected lands within and between 

agencies. 

3. Adopt adaptive management practices. The term adaptive management has a 

specific meaning in the ecological literature. The concept has been around quite 

a while and is not necessarily specific to addressing climate change. Adaptive 

management involves conducting management experiments and then altering 

management strategies based on the outcome of those experiments. It requires 

closely monitoring a system and potentially changing management approaches 

several times. 

4. Monitor species and systems that are likely to be most sensitive to climate 

change. Some of the agencies (e.g., NPS) currently have monitoring programs 

in place, but others do not. These programs need to be expanded and they 

should target specific climate-sensitive species or systems. 

5. Augment the current system of protected lands with additional lands that will 

protect species as systems change and species move. In some cases we have 

a good idea of where these lands will need to be, but in other cases, we do not. 

For example, as sea level rises, many estuaries and tidal marshes will be inundated. Entire wildlife refuges along the southeastern coast of the U.S. may be 

lost to rising sea levels. One strategy to provide habitat for the species in these 

refuges will be to secure land that is inland and adjacent to these refuges. 

6. Educate land managers about the potential effects of climate change and distribute tools and techniques for addressing the changes they are likely to see. 

7. Closely monitor for new invasive species that may move on to protected lands 

in response to climate change. Also, develop strategies for removing or containing new invasive species when they arrive. 

Examples of specific management practices: 

1. Translocations may be necessary to preserve some plant and animal species 

that will lose substantial amounts of habitat as the climate changes. 

2. Stream bank stabilization may be useful in areas that will see changes in flow 

regimes. 

3. Restoring riparian vegetation for some streams may help reduce stream temperatures by shading. 

4. In some cases, it may be most efficient to stop managing for the habitat of a 

species at the trailing edge of its current range and to transfer those management efforts to another area that is more likely to still provide suitable habitat 

or suitable climatic conditions in the future. 

5. Dam removal may be necessary to allow cold-water fish to move upstream to 

cooler waters in response to increasing stream temperatures. 

23

2. Should we be doing more to re-evaluate our current policies for land use 

planning and public acquisition of land for wildlife habitat? Should we 

be adopting a broader landscape and ecosystem-based approach for protecting wildlife? 

Yes, land-use planning and land acquisition for wildlife should be done with the 

potential effects of climate change in mind. It may be possible to acquire lands that 

will provide needed habitat for a species that is forced to move out of a current protected area. New land acquisitions may also be used to help connect current lands 

to allow species to move more successfully from one protected area to another as 

the climate changes. 

3. Finally, how might such ideas be applied to the ocean and coastal environment and the wildlife therein? 

There are several things that can be done to begin to implement management 

strategies aimed at addressing climate change. First, I suggest establishing an 

interagency council that advises all federal agencies on climate change issues. The 

council would disseminate information, and coordinate research, monitoring, and 

land acquisition. Second, I suggest establishing a central data repository where federal scientists and managers can access the latest climate-change related data and 

studies. Finally, the agencies charged with managing wildlife or wildlife habitat will 

need substantial increases in their budgets to 1) design and implement adaptive 

management experiments (see my definition of adaptive management above), 2) develop and implement extensive, targeted monitoring programs, 3) hire new staff 

with new skills and knowledge, 4) run models to assess the potential impacts of climate change (e.g., hydrological models, fire models, vegetation models, species distribution models), and 5) conduct regional training and planning workshops. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE HENRY BROWN, MINORITY 

RANKING MEMBER 

1. When you reference your research you are mainly referring to modeling 

various scenarios to project different outcomes on animals, correct? 

While computer models have become more sophisticated over the years 

they are not perfect predictors, correct? 

The projected changes in animal distributions I have discussed are the results of 

modeling studies. No model is ever a perfect representation of reality, nor do models 

always produce perfect predictions. Nonetheless, models are incredibly useful tools. 

The general type of model used in our study is also used in medical research. For 

example, we rely on such models to predict disease risks. 

2. You make reference to using models that have accurately predicted current ranges. My understanding is that this type of model could lead to 

more accurate models of projected changes for the future. However, we 

are still talking about predictions and projections. Do you agree that 

there could be variables that are not accounted for that could change 

the projected outcome? 

There is no guarantee that a prediction or projection from a model or an expert 

will come to fruition. This is true for any field, whether it be military strategy, economics, medicine, meteorology, or biology. Without predictions and projections, however, we would be extremely limited in our ability to plan for the future. The models 

used in our study use a comprehensive set of bioclimatic variables. Nonetheless, 

there are certain ecological relationships that are not directly modeled in our analyses. If these processes were directly modeled, it might change our projections for 

individual species and potentially our overall projections of local species loss and 

turnover. However, our models produce conservative estimates because they don t 

account for many of these other factors. If we were to take some of these other ecological factors were taken into account, it is likely that our estimates of turnover 

would be higher. 

3. What do you mean when you say species turnover? Is this code for species extinction or does it refer more to species movement? 

In the context of my analyses, species turnover refers to the change in local species composition, not to extinctions. There is more uncertainty involved with predicting extinctions and thus I have chosen to predict changes due to predicted range 

contractions and expansions instead. Many of the species predicted to be lost from 

one area are predicted to potentially be able to inhabit other, new areas. The ability 

of species to move into these areas will, however, be limited by their dispersal abilities and by the types of landscapes they have to move through. 

24

4. A key to models accurately predicting future climate changes or species 

movement is for the model to accurately predict past changes. Have any 

of your models accurately produced past range-shifts in species? 

I have not tested my models using historic distribution data, largely because these 

data do not exist for most of the species in mystudy. There are several ways to test 

a model. The best way is to use a completely independent data set. These data generally have to be from a different location or from a different time period. Unfortunately even data from the past are not completely independent as they are temporally correlated. Nonetheless, testing a model by predicting past distributions is 

likely to provide a better assessment of model accuracy than testing a model using 

less independent data sources. It is important to note, however, that accurately predicting past trends does not assure that a model will accurately predict future 

trends. 

5. In your written testimony you discuss species niche modeling. A recent 

article in the scientific journal of Bioscience (March 2007 Vol. 57 No. 3) 

states that niche-theory models are difficult to validate. The article references one of your works of species niche modeling, specifically 

Lawler, et al. 2006, stating that six approaches to modeling the effects 

of global warming on fauna were compared; however, the models were 

not independently validated. It goes on to say that the inherent variability of niche modeling can overestimate the probability of extinction. 

How can we trust your modeling techniques over other model predictions if they were not independently validated? 

Validating predictions of future conditions provides a unique challenge. Ideally, 

bioclimatic models should be tested with completely independent datasets. One option is to use data that is from outside the study region. When modelling large spatial extents, these independent datasets are difficult to obtain. Many species are 

limited to a single continent or a single hemisphere, and those that are more widely 

distributed often occur as invasive or exotic species and hence their new ranges are 

rarely fully realized. An alternative approach is to use historic data to test model 

projections. Historic data are likewise only available for a few species in specific locations. 

Our models have been validated with a semi-independent dataset. In this study, 

we used a method of model validation that has been called data splitting (Arau ́jo 

et al. 2005). It is a semi-independent form of validation in which a portion of the 

dataset is reserved before model building and set aside for model testing. Due to 

spatial autocorrelation, this approach does not provide truly independent model validation. Fortunately, there is evidence that model assessments based on semi-independent data-splitting approaches can provide results that are similar to those attained using more independent data sources. Arau ́jo et al. (2005) found that model 

assessments using a data-splitting approach provided more optimistic estimates of 

model performance than did assessments using more independent, historic data 

sets. However, for the best performing niche-modelling approaches, the differences 

in performance based on the two assessments were relatively small. Furthermore, 

for the 116 bird species used in the study performed by Arau ́jo et al., there were 

moderate to strong correlations between the accuracy values produced by the more 

and less independent assessments, particularly for the more accurate modelling approaches. Thus, the models that performed best when tested with the semi-independent reserved data set were also generally the models that performed best when 

tested on the more independent historic data set. 

It is true that the uncertainty in niche modeling can lead to over estimates of 

extinctions. It can likewise lead to underestimates of extinctions. We, however, did 

not attempt to estimate extinction rates precisely because there are more uncertainties involved with such estimates than with the estimates of future local loss and 

turnover that we have produced. 

Arau ́jo, M. B., Pearson, R. G., Thuiller, W. & Erhard, M. Validation of species climate impact models under climate change. Global Change Biol. 11, 1504-1513 

(2005). 

6. How accurate is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change statement that 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species are at risk of extinction? 

The IPCC (2007) report cited published research from Thomas et al. (2004). Although we cannot test these predictions and thus cannot provide an estimate of 

their accuracy, we have already begun to see extinctions that can be attributed to 

recent climate change. For example, climate change has caused the extinction of 75 

amphibian species in Costa Rica (Pounds et al. 2006). Because the predicted future 

25

changes in climate are far great than the changes we have witnessed in the past 

100 years, we can expect even more climate-driven extinctions in the future. 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2007. Climate Change 2007: 

Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 

UK. 

Pounds, J.A., M.R. Bustamante, L.A. Coloma, J.A. Consuegra, M.P.L. Fogden, 

P.N. Foster, E. La Marca, K.L. Masters, A. Merino-Viteri, R. Puschendorf, S.R. Ron, 

G.A. Sanchez-Azofeifa, C.J. Still, and B.E. Young. 2006. Widespread amphibian 

extinctions from epidemic disease driven by global warming. Nature 439: 161-167. 

Thomas C.D., A. Cameron, R.E. Green, M. Bakkenes, L.J. Beaumont, Y.C. 

Collingham, B.F. Erasmus, M.F. De Siqueira, A. Grainger, L. Hannah, L. Hughes, 

B. Huntley, A.S. Van Jaarsveld, G.F. Midgley, L. Miles, M.A. Ortega-Huerta, A.T. 

Peterson, O.L. Phillips, and S.E. Williams. 2004. Extinction risk from climate 

change. Nature 427: 145-148. 

7. One could say we are experiencing an extended drought with a number 

of related impacts; increased insect and disease levels, higher tree mortality, more and larger fires, etc. Perhaps that drought is the result of 

global warming or perhaps not. Can you, Dr. Lawler, tell the difference? 

It is not possible to tell whether any one weather event is the result of climate 

change. However, it is possible to link trends with predicted changes in climate. We 

are starting to see trends in fire size and severity, the variability in precipitation 

and temperature, and extreme temperature events, that are consistent with predicted changes in climate. 

8. Also, over the millennium, climate change has affected forests dramatically—-tropical forest fossil exist under glaciers today. What is different 

now from those previous climate changes in regards to plant succession 

(long before human influence)—-were those changes good or bad?—-and 

why are they considered good or bad today? 

The main difference between past climate-driven vegetation shifts and those that 

are likely to result from predicted future climatic changes is that the changes in the 

past have occurred over much longer time periods. We are expecting to see dramatic 

changes in plant and animal distributions in the coming century as opposed to 

changes over thousands to millions of years. Another difference is that landscapes 

of today are fragmented by agriculture and development. In the past, species could 

much more freely move across continents in response to climate change. Because we 

have so dramatically altered landscapes and native habitats, species will have trouble moving in response to climate change and, in many cases, there will be little 

undisturbed habitat into which to move. 

Changes in climate or species distributions are, of course, only good or bad from 

a particular perspective. There will be negative economic effects from lost coastal 

property, increased storm and flood damage, drought impacts, insect infestations, 

and new weeds and other crop pests. There may be economic benefits in some areas 

in which agricultural production benefits from increased temperatures or increased 

precipitation. With respect to wildlife, those that value biological diversity, ecosystem services (such as clean water, hunting, seafood), and wildlife in general, will 

see the predicted impacts on ecological systems as negative. 

9. What has happened to plant species mix in previous warming cycles? 

And what happens to species mix and plant succession? What do fossil 

records show? 

Pollen records indicate that warm periods and glacial periods caused vegetation 

to shift latitudinally across vast parts of the globe. For North America, see Davis 

and Shaw (2001). 

Davis, M.B. and R.G. Shaw. 2001. Range shifts and adaptive responses to Quaternary climate change. Science 292: 673-679. 

10. Is the statement by the current issue of Newsweek accurate that Coal 

is the cheapest and dirtiest source of energy around. If we cannot get 

a handle on the coal problem, nothing else matters? 

This question is outside the realm of my expertise. 

11. How accurate are the computer modeling techniques used to by the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to predict the 

earth s climate change? What specific climate changes were accurately 

predicted by the IPCC models or other climate computer models? 

There is a high level of confidence in the projections of the general circulation 

models used in the IPCC reports. These models are based on accepted physical prinVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
26

ciples and the models have been well refined over time. The models do a good job 

of correctly predicting past climatic events. For example, they simulated the warming of the mid-Holocene and the last glacial maximum. The also correctly capture 

more recent events such as cooling resulting from four major volcanic eruptions in 

the 20th century (Satna Maria, Agung, El Chichon, and Pinatubo). For a more comprehensive review please see Randall et al. (2007). 

Randall, D.A., R.A. Wood, S. Bony, R. Colman, T. Fichefet, J. Fyfe, V. Kattsov, 

A. Pitman, J. Shukla, J. Srinivasan, R.J. Stouffer, A. Sumi, and K.E. Taylor. 2007. 

Climate Models and Their Evaluation. In Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change (IPCC). 2007a. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 

12. Some scientists believe that changing land use practices have actually 

increased the carbon absorption of Northern Hemisphere forests. Can 

additional actions be taken to increase terrestrial carbon sequestration? 

This question is somewhat outside of my realm of expertise, I refer you to the 

IPCC report on mitigation (IPCC 2007). 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2007. Climate Change 2007: 

Mitigation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 

13. How promising are the artificial carbon sequestration techniques 

which would capture carbon dioxide and inject it deep into the ocean 

or in declining oil fields, saline aquifers, or unminable coal seams? 

This question is outside the realm of my expertise. 

14. Do you or have you (or your organization) received any funding from 

the Pew Charitable Trust or the David and Lucille Packard Foundation? If so, please elaborate. 

I have not received any funding from either the Pew Charitable Trust or the 

David and Lucille Packard Foundation. 

15. Are you currently a party to any law suit against the Department of the 

Interior or the Department of Commerce (or any of the agencies within 

these departments)? If so, please describe. 

I am not currently involved in any lawsuits. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE WAYNE GILCHREST 

1. If paleo-records show that corals existed in the past under high atmospheric CO2 concentrations, why is it a problem now? 

This question is outside my realm of expertise. 

2. Among the various effects of climate change to wildlife and the oceans, 

are there issues that are more pressing than the others? Why? 

There are definitely some systems and some species that are at higher risk of 

being adversely affected by climate change than are others. For example, low-lying 

coastal areas, particularly coastal marshes will be highly susceptible to loss and 

change driven by rising sea levels. High elevation, alpine habitats will be lost as 

temperatures rise and tree lines continue to move upward. Precipitation-fed wetlands will be particularly vulnerable to increased evaporation driven by increased 

temperatures. Wetlands and ponds in Alaska are already drying and draining due 

to melting permafrost. The fish and wildlife species in these and other highly sensitive habitats will often be the first to be affected by climate change. To protect 

these species, it may be necessary to first concentrate our efforts on the most sensitive systems, keeping in mind that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to address 

change in some systems. 

3. In the U.S., as plant and animal species migrate north and to higher elevations, what does that mean for the regions they leave behind? For instance, it has been said that some U.S. states that border Canada might 

actually benefit from the next few decades of climate change, but what 

will it mean for the states further to the South, and especially those on 

the coast? 

Some areas will likely see an influx of species as species move in response to climate change. High elevations and the high latitudes will likely be colonized by new 

species. These new additions have the potential to greatly change the systems into 

which they move. The southern states are particularly vulnerable to invasion by 

species that have not yet been seen in the U.S. that will move north from Central 

and South America. Some of these species will potentially be crop pests or weeds. 

27

Because we have not had them in the U.S. before, we will not have established 

methods for dealing with them. At the northern border with Canada, climate change 

will likely drive some species over the boarder meaning that some of our natural 

heritage and wildlife resources will be lost to the north. 

4. How do shifts in habitat range of plants and animals affect human interests such as agriculture or the spread of invasive species and diseases? 

How can we adaptively plan for such changes? 

As species move in response to climate change, there will be new invasive species, 

new crop pests and pathogens, and new disease introduced both locally and nationally as species move to new states and into the U.S. from Central and South America. We have already seen shifts in the distributions of some forest pests such as 

the mountain pine beetle (Logan et al. 2001). Continued increases in winter temperatures may allow the beetle to spread across northern Canada and down into the 

eastern U.S. If this spread occurs, pine forests in the east that have not historically 

been exposed to this beetle will be vulnerable to attack. 

The best way to reduce new invasions is to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. 

However, given that we are already committed to significant future changes in climate, it will be necessary to develop other methods for addressing moving pests, 

pathogens, and diseases. Because it is often most feasible to address pests and diseases when they are in low abundance, it is necessary to detect invasive species and 

new diseases as early as possible. Early detection will require predictive modeling 

and targeted monitoring. The modeling can be used to determine which areas of the 

country will be most susceptible to which pests and diseases and the monitoring can 

be used to detect when and if those organisms arrive in an area. Modeling can also 

help predict which new diseases and pathogens might move into the U.S. from 

South and Central America. We can then begin to adopt and develop eradication or 

control measures for these species before they arrive. 

Logan, J. A., and J. A. Powell. 2001. Ghost forests, global warming, and the 

mountain pine beetle (Coleoptera: Scolytidae). American Entomologist 47:160-167. 

5. The IPCC reports with 80% certainty that the changes in water temperatures, ice cover, salinity and ocean circulation are impacting the ranges 

and migration patterns of aquatic organisms. How will this affect management and use of these resources, and how can we prepare for any 

changes? 

This question is outside the realm of my expertise. 

6. In the Chesapeake Bay, we are losing marshland to rising sea levels. Can 

you talk about what is happening to coastal wetland areas in other 

areas of the country and what that is doing to their ecosystems and the 

local economies that depend upon these natural resources? 

Along the mid-Atlantic coast, the highest rate of wetland loss is indeed in the center of the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland. The Blackwater National Wildlife 

Refuge has lost 7,907 acres of marsh over the past 60 years (approximately 130 

acres per year). Models predict that in 50 years continued sea-level rise in conjunction with global climate change will completely inundate existing marshes (Larsen 

et al., 2004). Substantial loss of wetlands and marshes is also occurring along the 

Gulf Coast. In Louisiana, sea-level rise in conjunction with high rates of subsidence, 

economic growth, and hurricanes has contributed to an annual loss of nearly 25,000 

acres of wetlands, even prior to Hurricane Katrina (Erwin et al., 2004). The southeast coast is another region that is particularly susceptible to the loss of wetlands 

and marshes due to sea-level rise. 

The National Wildlife Refuge System is particularly threatened by sea-level rise 

as many of the refuges are on low-lying coastal marshes, estuaries, or wetlands. 

Some of the most vulnerable refuges include the Chincoteague National Wildlife 

Refuge, on the Delmarva Peninsula, the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge on 

the Albemarle Peninsula of North Carolina, and the Merritt Island National Wildlife 

Refuge in Florida. In fact, many of the refuges in New England, the Middle Atlantic 

states, North Carolina, and Florida are coastal and susceptible to sea-level rise. For 

many of these refuges, seal-level rise will drastically alter habitat by inundating estuaries and marshes and converting forests to marshes. Beach-nesting birds such 

as the Piping Plover, migratory birds using the refuges as stopovers, and species 

using low-lying habitats such as the red wolf and Florida panther will likely lose 

habitat to sea-level rise (Schyler 2006). 

Loss of coastal marshes and wetlands will have substantial impacts on fishing 

and particularly shellfish harvesting economies. These wetlands act as nurseries for 

many marine species, not just those that are harvested from the marshes themVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
28

selves. These impacts will likely affect coastal communities in the Mid-Atlantic 

states, the southeastern U.S., and the gulf states the hardest. 

Erwin, R. M., G. M. Sanders, and D. J. Prosser, 2004: Changes in lagoonal marsh 

morphology at selected northeastern Atlantic coast sites of significance to migratory 

waterbirds. Wetlands, 24(4), 891-903. 

Larsen, C., I. Clark, G. Guntenspergen, D. Cahoon, V. Caruso, C. Hupp, and T. 

Yanosky, 2004: The Blackwater NWR Inundation Model. Rising Sea Level on a Lowlying Coast: Land Use Planning for Wetlands. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA. 

Schlyer, K., 2006: Refuges at Risk, the Threat of Global Warming. Defenders of 

Wildlife, Washington, D.C. 

7. What role do marshlands play in sequestering carbon? Is marsh restoration a viable alternative in carbon sequestration? 

Although this is not my area of expertise, I can provide a quick answer. Wetlands 

contain 10% of the carbon contained in all the plants and soil of the world (IPCC 

2001), mainly in soil. However, wetlands also emit approximately 20% of all methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide, from human and natural 

sources (IPCC 2007). Thus, they also contribute to greenhouse-gas emissions. In 

some areas (temperate and tropical areas) the effect of carbon sequestration is predicted to be larger than the effect of methane emissions. Thus, the conservation and 

restoration of marshes can sequester globally significant amount of carbon and help 

attenuate climate change in the much of the U.S. 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2001. Climate Change 2001: 

The Scientific Basis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2007. Climate Change 2007: 

The Physical Science Basis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 

8. The latest IPCC report warns that ocean acidification poses a threat to 

coral reefs and shell-forming organisms that form the base of the aquatic food chain. But the report says more study is needed to determine the 

full scope of the threat. What do we know about the potential impacts 

to U.S. coastal ecosystems today and how quickly is our understanding 

of acidification improving? What can Congress do to improve upon this 

understanding? Do we know enough to act? 

This question is outside my realm of expertise. 

9. What additional resources or tools will the Fish and Wildlife Service and 

National Marine Fisheries Service need to adequately prepare and address the impacts of global warming on wildlife over the next decade? 

Both the FWS and NMFS will need additional resources to address the impacts 

of climate change. I have provided a list of some of the general and more specific 

tools and strategies that will be needed in my responses to Representative Kennedy 

above. 

10. We ve heard a lot about the polar bear and the petition to list the species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Opponents of listing 

claim that the effects of global warming are in fact unclear. What evidence is there that global warming is already having a dramatic effect 

on the species across its range? How will an ESA listing help polar 

bears? 

The major threat to the polar bear is the loss of sea-ice habitat due to increasing 

temperatures. Loss of sea ice means that the bears spend more time on land and 

are unable to hunt seals and other high quality prey items. There have been clear 

losses in sea-ice cover and these losses can be linked to changes in polar bear distributions, reductions in polar bear body condition, reproductive rates, and cub survival. The loss of sea ice means that some bears have been stranded on flows and 

are unable to get back to their primary habitat. Others have been seen swimming 

long distances to reach sea ice. More information on the listing can be found at: 

http://alaska.fws.gov/fisheries/mmm/polarbear/pdf/Polarbearlproposedlrule.pdf 

The listing of the polar will reduce some of the other stresses, such as harvest, 

on polar bear populations. The fact that polar bears will be spending more time on 

land will likely mean there will be more interactions with humans. An ESA listing 

will help protect the bears in these cases. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Dr. Lawler. 

I now recognize Dr. Terry Root to testify for five minutes. 

29

STATEMENT OF TERRY ROOT, Ph.D., CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLICY, STANFORD UNIVERSITY 

Dr. ROOT. Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Terry Root from Stanford University, and I also 

am a lead author in previous IPCC works, the Intergovernmental 

Panel for Climate Change, and the one that was just released on 

April 6. 

Now, the globe is warming at an escalating rate. Plants and animals on all continents are already exhibiting four different types 

of changes. These include, first, species extending their range 

boundaries north in the U.S. and up in elevation; second, species 

shifting the timing of various spring events; the third is a lot of different kind of small studies that have been done, so it is kind of 

a catchall group; and fourth is local or global extinction. 

Now what I would like to do is go through three of these changes 

in more detail. First is the change in ranges. The movement of species forced by rapidly rising temperatures are frequently slowed 

and often blocked by other human-made stresses like land use 

change. This means individuals moving north or up in elevation 

have to navigate around, over or across freeways, agricultural area, 

industries parks and cities. 

Additionally, species have been found to move at different rates 

and directions. Such independent shifting will most likely result in 

a tearing apart of communities, natural communities, thereby disturbing biotic interactions such as predator/prey relationships. 

The second type of change is a change in timing. Species are already shifting the timing of various events occurring in the spring, 

such as frogs breeding earlier or the cherry blossoms that are 

blooming here in Washington, D.C. 

Over the last 30 to 40 years, around 115 species that I was able 

to find in the literature, and this is plants and animals together; 

these are from locations around the globe, were found to be changing the timing of a spring event earlier by about five days per decade, so that is 15 days over the 30 years that they have already 

changed. 

I would like to talk about the last, which is the local and global 

extinctions. This can occur when species cannot move as the temperature increases due to either lack of available habitat or the inability to access it. These species are called functionally extinct because without human assistance the probability of extinction is 

quite high. 

The money, land, personnel and political will are just not available right now for such endeavors. Consequently, many scientists 

predict that we are standing at the brink of a mass extinction that 

would be caused by one very careless species. 

Roughly 20 to 30 percent of species assessed thus far are likely 

to be at an increasingly high risk of extinction if the global mean 

temperature exceeds two to three degrees C above preindustrial, 

and that is just 1.3 to 2.3 degrees C above what we are right now. 

Given that there are around 1.7 million identified species on the 

globe, somewhere between 340,000 and 570,000 species could actually go extinct primarily due to our negligence. 

The need for species to move as temperatures increase could 

cause wildlife managers to face a number of novel challenges over 

30

the next several decades. An adaptation strategy for managers is 

to reduce and manage other stresses such as habitat fragmentation 

and pollution and the like. 

To date, preservation practices infrequently address rapid climate change. Effective adaptive responses are likely to be costly to 

implement, but nonimplementation could easily cost more through 

both dollars and in species. 

Species currently protected on national lands could easily move 

to less protected lands that may not be conducive to protecting the 

species anymore. Reliable forecasting of possible responses of species can be invaluable to managers because then appropriate management practices may be designed proactively. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Root follows:]

Statement of Terry L. Root, Senior Fellow—University Faculty,

Stanford University 

Over the last 100 years, the average global surface temperature has warmed approximately 0.7oC (1.4oF) and is projected to rise at an increasing rate over the next 

century. This rate of warming is significantly larger than the rate of sustained global warming over the 6,000 years or so that it took for the globe to warm about 6oC 

from the last ice age to our current warm interglacial period. That temperature 

transition, which occurred about 12,000 to 18,000 years ago, represented a warming 

rate of about 1oC (1.8oF) per thousand years. Extrapolating out the more recent 

warming trend to a comparable 1000 years, we see that a 7oC/1000 years raise in 

temperature is some 7 times faster than in the last 18,000 years. As the planet continues to warm, the rate will continue to escalate. 

A primary concern about wild species and their ecosystems is currently they are 

not only having to adapt to warm temperatures, but they are also having to cope 

with the most rapid rate of temperature increase in the last 18,000 years. Additionally, in the pre-historic past, plants and animals were not under stressed due to 

other human-caused problems: pollution, land-use change, invasive species, and others. Today the synergistic effects of these stresses combined with rapid warming are 

greatly influencing the resilience (ability to return to the same condition after a 

stress) of many species, communities and ecosystems. What is concerning is that 

very noticeable changes have been measured in species over the last 30 to 40 years 

during which the global temperature increased around 0.5oC. Yet, the Summary for 

Policy Makers of Working Group I of the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC 

explained that the global temperature could rise as much as 6.4oC and even beyond 

if we stay on the energy path we are currently traveling. It is highly likely that all 

but a few species and ecosystems will be able to adapt to that amount of temperature change. 

By 2100 the resilience of many ecosystems is likely to be exceeded by an unprecedented combination of change in climate, associated disturbances (e.g., wildfire, insects), and other changes happening globally, such as land-use change, over exploitation of resources, invasive species, pollution (high confidence). Key ecosystem 

properties, (e.g. biodiversity), or regulating services, (e.g. carbon sequestration), are 

very likely to become impaired. When ecosystem resilience is exceeded, the response 

will very likely be characterized by threshold-type responses, some irreversible on 

time-scales relevant to human society (e.g., such as disruption of species’ ecological 

interactions and major changes in ecosystem structure and disturbance regimes—

especially wildfire and insects), and the loss of biodiversity through extinction being 

irreversible on any time scale. 

With rapid warming, ecosystems and species are very likely to show a wide range 

of vulnerabilities that depend on imminence of exposure to ecosystem-specific, critical thresholds (very high confidence). The most vulnerable ecosystems include coral 

reefs, the sea ice biome and other high latitude ecosystems (e.g. boreal forests), 

mountain ecosystems and Mediterranean-climate ecosystems (high confidence). The 

least vulnerable ecosystems include savannas and species-poor deserts, but this assessment is especially subject to uncertainty relating to the CO2 fertilization effect 

and disturbance regimes such as fire (low confidence). 

Since the Third Assessment Report we have many more studies analyzing the 

changes in the flora and fauna over longer time series. A notable number of wild 

animals and plants on all continents are already exhibiting discernible changes in 

31

response to regional climatic changes. This is as we expected, because temperature 

is central to the lives of all living organisms. Many plants and animals have and 

will probably continue to adjust in several ways, including: 1) shifts in the densities 

of populations of species either by extending their range boundaries both toward the 

poles (e.g., North in the US) and up in elevation, or populations numbers shifting 

from one portion of their range to another (e.g., the center of the abundance pattern 

moving up in elevation), 2), shifting in the timing (i.e., phenology) of various events 

occurring in spring, which is quit common, or autumn, which is less common, 3) 

changes in the genetic, behavioral, morphometrics (e.g., body size or egg size), or 

other biological parameters, and 4) local extinction or global extinction, the latter 

of which is irreversible at any time scale. 

Changes In Ranges And Shifting Densities 

As the globe warms we find that species in North America are extending their 

ranges north and up in elevation, because habitats in these areas have now warmed 

sufficiently to allow colonization. The movements (dispersal) of species forced by 

rapidly rising temperatures, however, are frequently slowed and often blocked by 

numerous other human-made stresses, such as land-use changes, invasive species 

and pollution. Consequently, individuals that are moving north or up in elevation 

have to navigate around, over or across freeways, agricultural areas, industrial 

parks, and cities. 

Species near the poleward side of continents (e. g., South Africa’s fynbos) will 

have no habitats into which they can disperse as their habitat warms. The same 

is true for species living near the tops of mountains. Additionally, species living in 

these areas will be further stressed by species from farther inland or farther down 

the mountain moving into their habitats. Because of the heat stress and the new 

species with which they must interact, many species currently on islands, on the 

poleward side of continents and near the tops of mountains could go extinct unless 

humans move them to another location and make sure they survive there. 

The need for species to track certain temperatures could cause wildlife managers 

to face a number of novel challenges over the next several decades. To date, preservation practices are generally ill prepared to deal with the challenges of rapid climate change and effective adaptation responses are likely to be costly to implement. 

For example, at least some managed species or species of concern will need to move 

as the globe warms. This could easily mean that many species currently protected 

in wildlife refuges or national parks could easily need to disperse to new habitats 

on less protected lands. These new habitats occupied by these previously managed 

species and species of concern may not be conducive to protecting species. This is 

certainly a very likely problem that needs some advance thought and planning. 

Throughout pre-historic and more recent times, species have been found to move 

independently from other species in their community or ecosystem; species move at 

different rates and directions, depending on their unique metabolic, physiological 

and other requirements. This independent movement, will probably become increasingly evident the higher the temperature becomes. Such differential movement could 

result in a disruption of the connectedness among many species in current communities. This could cause a tearing apart of communities, which could disrupt biotic 

interactions such as predator-prey relationships. For example, if the range of a 

predator shifts and the range of its prey does not, a population balance becomes 

disrupted—a perceived benefit if the prey is an endangered species. If, however, the 

prey is a food-crop pest, then humans could certainly see the increase in its population as detrimental. 

Disruption of biotic interactions could jeopardize the sustainability of ecosystem 

services on which we rely and could also lead to numerous extinctions. Substantial 

changes in the structure and functioning of terrestrial and marine ecosystems are 

very likely to occur with warming of 2 to 3°C above pre-industrial levels and associated increased atmospheric CO2 (high confidence). Major biome changes, such as 

emergence of novel biomes, and changes in species’ ecological interactions, with predominantly negative consequences for goods and services, are very likely by, and 

virtually certain beyond those temperature increases. 

Progressive acidification of oceans due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide 

is expected to have negative impacts on marine shell-forming organisms (e.g., corals) 

and their dependent species. Indeed, by 2100 ocean pH is very likely to be lower 

than during the last 20 million years. 

Changes in Timing 

Another change that has been already seen occurring in species on every continent is shifting in the timing (i.e., phenology) of various events primarily occurring 

in spring but also to some extent in the autumn, such as frogs breeding earlier, 

32

cherry blossoms blooming earlier and leaves turning color later. Over the last 30 

years, around 115 species (plants and animals together) from locations around the 

globe were found to be changing the timing of a spring event earlier by around 5 

days per decade. Only 6 out of the 115 species (5%) showed a later change in timing 

of their spring events (Fig 1).

Rapid phenological changes of species could be problematic. For example, farmers 

may need to respond to warming by changing the timing of their planting and even 

the type of crop grown. Either of these changes could allow an insect, which was 

previously limited by the availability of food, the ability to grow in population size. 

If the insect feeds on the nectar from the flowers of the crop, then the farmer could 

benefit from the crops being pollinated. If, however, the insect feeds on the tissue 

of the crop plant, then the larger insect population could be a detriment. 

Changes in Genetics, Behavior, and Other Traits 

Studies investigating how rapidly warming temperatures are affecting genetics, 

behavior and other species’ traits are relatively uncommon thus far, but the findings 

are significant. For example, a behavioral change associated with global warming 

is the foraging habits of polar bears. As the globe has warmed, these bears are increasingly foraging by necessity in garbage dumps. Bears normally hunt seals, but 

capturing seals requires bears to be standing on sea ice. With global warming the 

ice is thinning and melting earlier in the spring and freezing later in the fall. Both 

the type of food and quantity are no longer sufficient to sustain the previous number 

of bears. Hence, the population size of these bears has dropped. Additionally, other 

animals that depend on the polar bear as a keystone species (e.g., arctic fox and 

ivory gull) may also be in significant trouble as the bears catch fewer seals, leaving 

fewer carcasses on the ice for these other scavengers. 

Another example is a North American mosquito. When the days become a certain 

length, it goes into dormancy. But what determines the length of the day that triggers the dormancy is genetically controlled. With global warming the habitats where 

this mosquito is found are staying warmer longer in the fall, which means shorter 

day are warmer. Now the genetic control of the day-length trigger has changed to 

a shorter day length. 

Extirpation and Extinction 

The escalating rise in average global temperatures over the past century has put 

numerous species in danger of extinction. ‘‘Functionally extinct’’ species, or species 

we can anticipate to be very highly likely to go extinct, include those that cannot 

move to a different location as the temperature increases due to either lack of available habitat or the inability to access it. Without human assistance the probability 

of extinction is quite high. For example, pikas are currently living in the Rocky 


34670.005.eps
33

Mountains where the ambient temperature is quite close to the maximum this small 

mammal can endure. Moving up in elevation to cooler regions is not possible because the stony habitat needed by pikas is generally not available higher up on 

mountains. Another example is a subspecies of a checkerspot butterfly in Baja California. It will probably go extinct in the near future because it too has a low tolerance to hot temperatures, but cannot shift in to cooler regions because Tijuana and 

San Diego are blocking its way. 

Money, land, personnel, or political will are not available for such endeavors to 

occur, and also absent is the long-term commitment to translocate even half of the 

functionally extinct species we know of today. Consequently, many scientists predict 

that we are standing at the brink of a mass extinction that would be caused by one 

very careless species. 

Roughly 20-30% (varying among regional biotas from 1% to 80%) of species assessed so far (in an unbiased sample) are likely to be at increasingly high risk of 

extinction if global mean temperatures exceed 2-3°C above pre-industrial temperatures (1.3-2.3o C above current) (medium confidence). For example, with warming 

of 2.8°C above pre-industrial, sea ice declines according to some projections causing 

polar bears to face a high risk of extinction in the wild, which could increase the 

risk extinction of species relying on polar bears (e.g., Ross gull eating seal-kill leftovers). Other ice-dependent species, not only in the Arctic but also in the Antarctic, 

are facing similar situations. Given that there are around 1.7 million identified species on the globe, somewhere between 340,000 and 570,000 species could go extinct 

primarily due to our negligence. Extinctions are virtually certain to reduce societal 

options for adaptation responses. 

Future Projection for Wild Plants and Animals 

A primary adaptation strategy to climate change and even current climate variability available to managers is to reduce and manage other stresses on species and 

ecosystems, such as habitat fragmentation and destruction, overexploitation, eutrophication, desertification and acidification. Significant disturbances to wild habitats, including extractive use and fragmentation, are very likely to impair species’ 

adaptation. 

Given our observations of what has happened to species under different external 

pressures, whether they are natural or human caused, we are able to predict what 

might happen to species under a variety of changes. Indeed, predicting the ecological 

consequences of species based on pressures that actually happened may validate 

these forecasts. Reliable forecasting of responses of species can be invaluable to 

managers and policy makers, because it could help prevent negative surprises in one 

of two main ways. The first is by indicating which change is most likely to occur, 

thereby indicating what management practice(s) are needed to help avert negative 

surprises. The second is for those changes that cannot be managed effectively be 

well understood, making us better prepared for the incipient changes. 

The Cause of the Rapid Warming 

Species can be used to help understand what may be causing the climate to 

change so dramatically. Many studies have been done showing that several species 

are shifting the timing of various spring events. These trends have been associated 

with the trend in observed temperatures around the location where the species were 

studied. These two trends can be correlated with each other to quantify the strength 

of the relationship. 

To determine if humans are having a measurable influence in the increasing temperatures, models need to be used. For the same locations and the same time periods that the species data were collected, temperatures were modeled (using 

HADGM3) in three different ways. First, only natural factors that cause the climate 

to change (e.g., sunspots, volcanic eruptions) are included in the model. Second only 

human factors that influence the climate are included (e.g., greenhouse gases, particulates). Finally, the model is run with both of these types of factors combined. 

These three different types of modeled temperatures are determined for all the species recorded at various locations around the northern hemisphere (southern hemisphere studies of species trends are rare) for the same years of each of the particular studies. 

The trends for each species at each location are compared separately to the trends 

of the observed temperatures, the trends of modeled temperatures with only natural 

forcings, the trends of modeled temperatures with only human forcings, and the 

trends of modeled temperatures with the combined forcings. With each comparison 

a correlation coefficient may be calculated. There are 145 correlation coefficients derived for the species data compared to each of the three modeled temperatures. Only 

86 correlation coefficients were calculated for the observed temperatures and species 

34

trends (observed temperature data were only available for 86 species). The number 

of similar correlation coefficients is counted and the counts plotted. 

Figure 2 shows the plots of these sums. The purpose is to compare the associations of the different modeled data with that of the observed data. Consequently, 

the plot or histogram of the observed data is plotted in all three panels. The top 

panel shows the comparison between the observed histogram and the natural-forced 

histogram. The agreement is not very good. The next panel shows the comparison 

between the observed histogram and the human-forced histogram. The agreement 

is better. The bottom panel shows the comparison between the observed histogram 

and the combined histogram. The agreement is quite good and statistical analyses 

show that the last agreement is statistically significant. Certainly a study such as 

this one needs to be done using more than one model, but certainly these results 

suggest that species are changing in response to regional temperature changes, and 

the regional temperature changes are being measurably influenced by human 

forcings (e.g., greenhouse gases). This indicates that humans, directly through emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, are causing significant ecological consequences that could be detrimental in the future, not only to other species but also 

to us. 

Figure 2. Plotted are the frequencies of the correlation coefficients between the 

timing of changes in traits (e.g., earlier egg-laying) of 145 species and modeled 

(HADCM3) spring temperatures for the grid-boxes in which each species was examined. At each location, all of which are in the Northern Hemisphere, the changing 

species’ trait is compared with modeled temperatures driven by: (a) Natural forcings 

(maroon bars), (b) anthropogenic (i.e., human) forcings (orange bars), and (c) combined natural and anthropogenic forcings (yellow bars). In addition, on each panel 

the frequencies of the correlation coefficients between the actual temperatures recorded during each study and changes in the traits of 83 species, the only ones of 

the 145 with reported local-temperature trends, are shown (blue bars). On average 

the number of years species were examined is about 28 with average starting and 

endings years of 1960 to 1998. Note that the correspondence: a) between the natural 

and actual plots is weaker (K=60.16; p>0.05) than b) between the anthropogenic and 

actual (K=35.15; p>0.05), which in turn is weaker than c) the agreement between 

combined and actual (K=3.65; p<0.01). Taken together, these plots show that a 

measurable portion of the warming regional temperatures to which species are reacting can be attributed to humans, therefore showing joint attribution (After Root 

et al. 2005).

35

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Dr. Root. 

I now recognize Ms. Medina to testify for five minutes. 


34670.006.eps
36

STATEMENT OF MONICA MEDINA, ACTING DIRECTOR OF THE 

INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE, UNITED 

STATES OFFICE 

Ms. MEDINA. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman and Members 

of the Subcommittee. I am Monica Medina of the International 

Fund for Animal Welfare or IFAW. IFAW is a nonprofit organization with offices in 16 countries around the world. We work to improve the welfare of wild and domestic animals throughout the 

world. 

Thank you for the opportunity testify before you this morning 

with this distinguished panel on this most important subject, the 

impact the changing climate is having on marine mammals in 

Alaska. 

In fact, this hearing is quite timely. This morning a group of over 

20 environmental and animal welfare groups is announcing the formation of a coalition to end commercial whaling and announcing 

new poll results that show overwhelming public support for whale 

conservation. 

The testimony I give today is derived from a report that IFAW 

will soon publish entitled On Thin Ice: The Precarious State of Arctic Marine Mammals in the U.S. Due to Global Warming. The report is based on a 2006 white paper written by Stacey Marz of The 

Ocean Foundation in which she undertook a comprehensive survey 

of all the recent scientific literature on the subject. Stacey and I 

then collaborated to create the report from her original white 

paper. The report has been jointly funded by The Ocean Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and IFAW. 

The Alaskan North Pacific and Arctic Oceans, their seas, bays, 

fjords and ice pack, are home to a dazzling array of marine mammals. This region contains some of the most pristine habitat and 

largest assemblages of ice dependent marine mammals in the 

world. 

These animals—ice seals, polar bears, walruses and bowhead 

whales—are uniquely adapted to exist in one of the most extreme 

environments on the earth, the frozen Arctic, yet despite the fact 

that their habitat is remote and relatively pristine, these marine 

mammals are facing very serious threats from global warming, the 

sources of which originate far from the Arctic. 

For animals adapted to a frozen world, the loss of sea ice will be 

catastrophic. Every ice dependent marine mammal species in the 

United States is either already showing adverse impacts from climate change or is projected to be affected in the near future. 

Here are just a few examples: Polar bears are drowning when 

the melting ice recedes, leaving vast stretches of open water for 

them to navigate. Reduced food availability has resulted in decreased body condition and starvation of polar bears and even cannibalism off the north coast of Alaska and Canada. 

Ring seals cannot make layers between sparse snow to protect 

their newborn pups from cold and predators. Ribbon seals, which 

lack the wariness of seals that live farther into the polar bear territory, are likely to be heavily preyed upon if they move north with 

the receding ice. 

Ice seals and walruses, which haul out on ice flows to rest, give 

birth and raise their pups, are forced farther north and into deeper 

37

waters because the area that freezes each year is shrinking. Mother walruses are abandoning their dependent young in deep, ice free 

waters where foraging is impossible and haul outs are nonexistent. 

The bowhead whale’s prey-rich waters may change in productivity as open water increases and other species move into their 

habitat competing for food and space. 

Ice habitat is so integral to the existence of Arctic marine mammals that the rapid loss of sea ice and the cumulative effects of 

other climate impacts appear to set the stage for drastic reductions 

in populations and ultimately the extinction of these species. Current mitigation measures are few and at best can only address the 

symptoms of climate change. 

Worse than what we know is that there is much, much more that 

we do not yet understand about the profound changes occurring in 

the Arctic. Evidence linking decline in Arctic marine mammals to 

climate change is limited by inadequate historical population estimates. For example, we simply do not know what bear populations 

might have been 50 years ago. 

Moreover, increased understanding of the ecology of individual 

species is needed as a basis for determining what else should be 

examined or done to conserve these species, as my co-panelist so 

eloquently just explained. 

In short, there is much more study of the Arctic region and marine mammals that live there urgently needed to better comprehend the effects of the decreased extent of the ice, as well as 

the more subtle changes in the distribution of ice and snow that 

affect the ecology of individual species. 

Global warming also creates winners and losers among humans 

in areas that have historically been off limits to most human uses. 

The loss of ice opens up areas of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort 

Seas and the Arctic Ocean for transportation and for the new development of oil and gas deposits, fishing grounds and shipping 

routes, which will degrade this pristine environment and further 

jeopardize the animals that live there. 

In my view, the Federal government must aggressively employ 

all of its authorities under law and via international agreements 

and engage the relevant management authorities to create systemic protections for ice dependent marine mammals. Specifically, 

the government must use the Marine Mammal Protection Act and 

the Endangered Species Act to begin to take actions that will conserve these animals and their habitat. 

Immediate actions are needed, and I urge Congress to act now 

to increase funding for research and stock assessments of ice dependent marine mammals and to close the loophole in the Marine 

Mammal Protection Act that permits the importation of polar 

bears—trophies—hunted in Canada. Taking these steps will set the 

stage for providing relief to ice dependent marine mammals in the 

U.S. 

It is also clear that Congress must take a leadership role in establishing mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Absent 

such action, we can expect mass extinction of these amazing animals within this century. Such a tragic loss of species and biodiversity will have far reaching and irrevocable effects throughout the 

38

entire vast Arctic ecosystem, including the subsistence and cultural 

uses of these animals by Alaska Native peoples. 

I want to close by thanking my son, my 10-year-old son, Daniel, 

for inspiring me to do this work to save the polar bears. It is a 

grave concern to him. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. I would be 

pleased to answer any questions you may have at the end of the 

panel’s opening statements. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Medina follows:]

Statement of Monica Medina, U.S. Deputy Director,

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) 

Good morning. I am Monica Medina, the Acting Director of the U.S. office of the 

International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). IFAW is a non-profit organization 

with offices in fifteen countries around the world. We work to improve the welfare 

of wild and domestic animals throughout the world by reducing the commercial exploitation of animals, protecting wildlife habitats, and assisting animals in distress. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on the devastating impacts 

that the changing climate is having on marine mammals in Alaska. 

The testimony I give today is based on a report that IFAW will publish soon entitled ‘‘On Thin Ice: The Precarious State of Arctic Marine Mammals in the U.S. Due 

to Global Warming.’’ The report is based on a 2006 white paper written by Stacey 

Marz of The Ocean Foundation. Her research was originally funded by the Alaska 

Oceans Program of the Alaska Conservation Foundation and the George H. and 

Jane A. Mifflin Memorial Fund. IFAW agreed to assist in the editing of the white 

paper into a condensed report for public release. Stacey and I collaborated to create 

the report from the original white paper. Its publication is jointly funded by The 

Ocean Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and IFAW. I want to acknowledge all 

their contributions to assembling the information I will provide the subcommittee. 

The purpose of the report is to survey what is currently known about the impacts 

of global warming on ice-dependent marine mammal species in the U.S., including 

four species of ice seals (Erignathus barbatus - bearded, Phoca fasciata - ribbon, 

Pusa hispida - ringed and Phoca largha - spotted seals), two stocks of polar bears 

(Ursus maritimus - the Southern Beaufort Sea stock, Chukchi/Bering Seas stock), 

Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus), and western Arctic bowhead whales (Balaena 

mysticetus)also known as the Bering/Chukchi/Beaufort Seas stock). The report also 

provides an overview of each of these marine mammal species, its habitat, and the 

relevant federal statutes, agreements and management entities that govern it. Finally, the report explains the serious threat global warming poses to these animals, 

and the sobering impacts that they are already experiencing as observed by biologists and Alaska Native subsistence hunters. 

Most importantly, the report addresses these issues and provides tangible recommendations that policy makers can immediately do to help improve the prospects 

for long term survival of these animals in the Arctic. The government must aggressively employ all of its legal authorities, international agreements and management 

bodies to create systemic protections for ice dependent marine mammals. Specifically, the government must avail itself of all the tools it has at its disposal under 

the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, and through 

these various management bodies, to begin to take actions that will conserve these 

animals and their habitat. 

Immediate actions are needed—we cannot wait until a comprehensive legal and 

regulatory structure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is enacted by Congress. 

Congress can act in the short run to increase funding for research and stock assessments of ice dependent marine mammals, and to close the loophole in the Marine 

Mammal Protection Act that permits the importation of polar bear trophies hunted 

in Canada. Taking these steps will set the stage for providing relief to ice dependent 

marine mammals in the United States. However, it is also clear that in the long 

run, unless greenhouse gas emissions are radically reduced, we can expect mass extinction of these amazing animals within this century. Such a tragic loss of species 

and biodiversity will have far reaching effects on the entire vast Arctic ecosystem, 

and the subsistence and cultural uses of these animals by Alaska Native peoples. 

Background 

In Alaska, ice seals, walruses, polar bears and bowhead whales rely on sea-ice as 

habitat in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Much of these seas are covered 

39

by sea-ice for three quarters of the year from roughly October until June. Sea-ice 

has a large seasonal cycle, reaching a maximum extent in March and a minimum 

in September. There are three major forms of sea-ice in the Arctic: (1) shorefast or 

landfast ice that is attached to the shore and relatively immobile, extending to variable distances offshore; (2) stamukhi ice that consists of thick ridges that become 

grounded during the winter and attach to the ocean bottom; and (3) pack ice that 

includes first-year and multiyear ice and moves under the influence of winds and 

currents. Leads and open water areas form within the pack ice zone. 

Each ice-dependant marine mammal species is precisely adapted to this harsh environment. Each species prefers different types of ice and uses it in different ways 

that are suited to its biological characteristics. These animals rely on this ice environment as a platform for resting and foraging, breeding, traveling, protection, 

pupping, nursing and mating. They largely follow the movement of the ice in their 

migration patterns. 

There are several serious issues of general concern that affect all ice-dependent 

marine mammals. The issues range from simply not having adequate background 

information about the different species’ populations to the sobering projection that 

their ice habitat is disappearing due to climate change and will be gone within this 

century. Related to climate change and the loss of sea-ice, there are additional concerns about what emerging human uses will be made possible by more open water 

in the northern seas and Arctic Ocean. These uses include increased oil and gas activities, the development of new commercial fisheries, new and emerging shipping 

routes, and increased disturbance and pollution in the ecosystem due to the newly 

possible human activities. There is also concern about bioaccumulation of contaminants in Arctic marine mammals. 

There is a surprising shortage of background information about almost all ice-dependent marine mammals. This can be attributed to the difficulty of studying animals in a very remote and extreme environment, and the expense of both physically 

accessing the animals and using the appropriate technology to survey them. With 

the exception of bowhead whales and the Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears, there 

are no reliable abundance estimates for any of the four ice seal species, the Pacific 

walrus or the Chukchi/Bering Seas polar bear stock. Also, there is no information 

about population trends for these animals and no potential biological removal rate. 

As such, it is virtually impossible to discern the overall health of these marine 

mammal species, and how much loss of individual animals the stocks can sustain. 

Considering the threats ice dependent species currently face and are likely to face 

in the future, it is troubling to have so little background information. It is critical 

that research is undertaken as soon as possible to collect reliable background abundance information, to monitor population trends, to identify sustainable take levels 

and to evaluate if and how human-caused and natural events are affecting the populations. In addition, as human activities increase in the Arctic it will become more 

important to monitor those activities for possible impacts on ice dependent marine 

mammals, their prey and their habitat, in order to detect harmful changes as early 

as possible. Moreover, research is needed to understand the cumulative effects of all 

issues of concern—climate change, oil and gas activities, and contaminants—on 

these animals to inform management actions and to mitigate against adverse impacts within our control. The current level of financial support for research limits 

informed decision-making about the status of Arctic marine mammals, now and in 

the future. Adequate funding is critical to support efforts by management agencies, 

their research collaborators and academic institutions to comprehensively survey 

and study the ice dependent marine mammals. 

With that background, I will now discuss what is known about the impacts of 

global warming on each of the four marine mammal species in Alaska. In addition, 

I will make recommendations about actions the government can take in the near 

term to begin to mitigate and address the issues they face due to the loss of polar 

ice habitat. 

Ice Seals 

Ice seals spend the majority of time on the ice, and use ice as a platform from 

which to feed, to birth their pups and to rest. They migrate northward with the ice 

during the warmer months. Their reliance on sea-ice means that they will be severely impacted as the sea-ice diminishes due to climate change. Each of the four 

seal species found in arctic Alaska will be affected by the loss of sea-ice in different 

ways based on their specific habitat preferences and their unique biological characteristics. 

For example, ribbon and spotted seals that currently live at the southern edge of 

the polar bears’ range could expand their range northward. This could greatly affect 

ribbon seal populations if their habitat shifts north into polar bear territory as the 

40

ice shrinks, because polar bears may prey heavily upon ribbon seals which do not 

have the wariness of seals that currently live near polar bears. Moreover, the absence of ice in southern pupping areas or the relocation of pupping to more northern 

areas could affect seal reproduction. In addition, crowding in birthing areas because 

of a reduction in the quality of the ice may also increase the risks of disease transmission. 

Ringed seals prefer stable, shore-fast ice for construction of birth lairs. Adequate 

snow drift accumulation is necessary to protect pups in lairs with thick roofs. Access 

to birth lairs for thermoregulation is considered critical to the survival of nursing 

pups when air temperatures fall below freezing. For the past six years, ringed seals 

have abandoned lairs increasingly early as spring temperature and snow melts have 

advanced. The transition from lair use to basking on the surface was especially 

early and abrupt in 2002, and by mid-May all the seals had abandoned their lairs. 

Many pups in their natal coats were resting on the ice in the open instead of in 

lairs as is usual in mid-May. The early snow melts that researchers have observed 

are consistent with a general pattern observed in the Beaufort Sea. Premature lair 

abandonment by ringed seals, associated with early snow melts, likely will increase 

juvenile mortality rates due to exposure to freeze-thaw conditions and predation. 

When lack of snow cover forced birthing to occur in the open, nearly 100% of the 

pups died from predation. 

In addition, increased rain on snow during the late winter damages or eliminates 

snow lairs, which increases pup exposure to hypothermia and predation. Researchers believe that if early season rain becomes regular and widespread in the future, 

ringed seal pup mortality will increase especially in the more southerly parts of 

their range. Consequently those local populations may be significantly reduced. 

Researchers have reported that an early spring breakup negatively impacted the 

growth, condition and probably the survival of un-weaned ringed seal pups. Early 

breakup likely interrupted lactation in mother seals which negatively affected the 

condition and growth of pups. Earlier ice breakups are predicted to happen more 

frequently and result in decreased ringed seal productivity and abundance. Moreover, in addition to loss of habitat, the seals may also have to contend with the related loss of their major food sources. Arctic cod is one of the ringed seals’ primary 

prey species. It is strongly associated with sea-ice throughout its range and uses the 

underside of the ice to escape from predators. It is likely that a decrease in seasonal 

ice cover could have adverse effects on Arctic cod and consequently affect its availability to ringed seals as food. 

Recommendations for Ice Seal Conservation 

Federal funding for the study of ice seals must be increased so that further research can be undertaken. It has been decades since there has been any comprehensive study on population numbers and distribution of ice seals. Without this critical 

information, it is impossible to know how rapidly the seal populations are declining, 

much less to make intelligent management decisions regarding subsistence hunts. 

At the very least, the government should conduct assessments of these stocks to determine whether they are depleted and develop conservation plans as required 

under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Further, in order to ensure that these 

seal species do not reach the brink of extinction without us even knowing it, we recommend that the government consider whether to propose listing these seal species 

under the Endangered Species Act. The challenges faced by these seal species are 

not appreciably different than those faced by polar bears, which the government recently proposed for listing. 

Polar Bears 

Polar bears are the largest of all land predators, with males weighing up to 1,700 

pounds and standing 2-3.5 meters tall. They are a potentially threatened species living in the circumpolar north in Alaska, Canada, Russia, Greenland and Norway. In 

Alaska there are two populations: (1)the Southern Beaufort Sea population, which 

occurs along the North Slope of Alaska and ranges into western Canada; and (2) 

the Chukchi/Bering seas population, which occurs off western Alaska with its range 

extending to Wrangel Island and eastern Siberia. This is a shared stock with Russia. Only the Southern Beaufort Sea population can be reliably estimated with certainty. The Polar Bear Specialist Group of IUCN, the pre-eminent international scientific body for research and management relating to polar bears, estimated the 

population at 1,800 bears. The Chukchi Bering Sea population is estimated at 2,000, 

but that number is unreliable due to widespread poaching in Russia. 

Polar bears are superbly adapted for Arctic survival, with physical characteristics 

that make them especially suited to live in the extremely cold ice environment. The 

polar bears’ water-repellant white coat helps it blend into the snow and ice and they 

41

have dense under fur. Their bodies are entirely fur covered except for their nose, 

and they have a thick layer of insulating fat (up to 4.5 inches thick) that keeps their 

body temperature and metabolic rate stable at -34 degrees F. Their claws are suited 

to walking on ice and grasping prey along with ‘‘suction cups’’ on the underside of 

their feet for increased ice traction. Also, their enormous, oar-like feet make them 

expert swimmers and spread their weight on the ice. Polar bear are specialized for 

a carnivorous diet because they have an acute sense of smell for finding seals in 

snow caves. Polar bears have received much media attention in recent years due to their high 

profile connection to their shrinking sea-ice habitat. In June 2005, 40 members of 

the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group/Species Survival Commission of the World 

Conservation Union concluded that polar bears should be classified as a ‘‘vulnerable’’ species based on a likely 30% decline in their worldwide population over the 

next 35 to 50 years caused principally by climatic warming and its consequent negative affects. 

In Alaska, there is evidence of decreased body condition, death from drowning, 

cannibalism and starvation. In three of the past four years, there have been record 

low ice packs in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea region, pushing more and more polar bears 

onto land for protracted periods, with bears congregating around whale carcass 

sites, village dumps and other settled areas where they may increasingly come into 

conflict with people. Observed and predicted changes in sea-ice cover and the timing 

of freeze-up and break-up have profound effects on polar bears. The Polar Bear Specialist Group of IUCN reports the following expected effects from climate change: • Changes that alter the period of ice coverage could affect polar bear distribution 

and impact their condition: 

Æ With ice pack shrinkage, bears may spend greater amounts of time on land Æ Bears will likely more extensively use terrestrial areas, ultimately affecting 

their physical condition from relying on fat stores for energy Æ Bears with decreased physical condition could effect production and survival Æ Bears using deteriorating pack ice may experience increased exertion associated with movements and swimming • Climate changes on prey species will have a negative effect on polar bears: 

Æ decreased snow or increased seasonal rain patterns could effect ringed seal 

pupping by not having adequate snow for construction of birth lairs or increased rain fall can collapse birth lairs and reduce seal productivity Æ increased snow can result in reduced success in entering ringed seal birth 

lairs Æ prey reductions could effect polar bear condition and ultimately cub production and survival • Denning could be impacted by unusual warm spells: 

Æ access to high quality denning areas may be limited or restricted 

Æ use of less desirable denning habitat could have impacts on reproduction and 

survival 

Æ rain or warming could directly cause snow dens to collapse or be opened to 

ambient conditions 

Æ loss of thermal insulative properties in opened dens could effect cub survival 

The best information on the effect of global warming on polar bears comes from 

the western coast of Hudson Bay in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Sea-ice has 

been breaking up there three weeks earlier than it did decades ago. Bears must 

spend an extra month on shore fasting, waiting for ice to re-form in the fall. As a 

result, the western Hudson Bay population has plunged 22% from 1,194 in 1987 to 

934 in 2004. Canadian scientists have observed that today’s polar bears are smaller 

in stature, weigh less, and have fewer cubs. Scientists estimate that for every week 

of delay in freeze-up, polar bears lose at least 22 pounds of critical fat reserves. 

Pregnant females are losing so much weight that they fail to produce enough milk 

for their cubs, which then suffer increased mortality. Once females fail to attain a 

minimum weight they will not give birth at all, and scientists can already document 

a 15% drop in birth rates. As polar bears are spending more time on land, there 

has been an increase in people killing curious and aggressive bears in self defense. 

In addition, polar bears are expending more energy because of reduced ice thickness and extent. Arctic sea-ice circulation is clockwise and polar bears tend to walk 

against this movement to maintain a position near preferred habitat within large 

geographical home ranges. Ice thickness is diminishing and there is increased transport of multi-year ice from the polar region. This increased rate and extent of ice 

movements requires polar bears to work harder to maintain their position near preferred habitat. As sea-ice moves more quickly or becomes more fragmented, polar 

bears will likely use more energy to maintain contact with consolidated ice. During 

summer periods the remaining ice in much of the central Arctic is now positioned 

42

away from more productive continental shelf waters and over much deeper, less productive waters in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. As the open water enlarges, bears 

will spend more time and energy swimming in transit. In 2004, scientists documented for the first time four polar bear drownings in open water off Alaska and 

extrapolate that 27 bears may have drowned during that event after trying to swim 

between shore and distant ice. 

Researchers suggest that as habitat patch sizes decrease, available food resources 

will also decline, resulting in reduced polar bear residency time and increased movement in search of food. As discussed earlier, the polar bear’s primary prey—ringed 

seals are projected to decline from reduced sea ice habitat, and decreased snowfall 

that prevents adequate birth lairs to protect ringed seal pups from freezing air. 

Polar bears cannot offset energy losses from decreased seal consumption by using 

terrestrial habitat because food such as berries, snow geese and caribou do not represent significant energy sources and nutritional stress will result. The consequences of increased energetic costs to polar bears are reduced weight and condition and corresponding reduction in survival and recruitment rates. 

Declines in fat reserves during critical times in the polar bear life cycle are likely 

to lead to an array of impacts. These include: delay in the age of first reproduction, 

fewer females with adequate fat reserves to complete successful denning, decline in 

litter sizes with more single cub litters and fewer cubs overall, lower cub body 

weights and lower survival rates. When mother bears and their cubs leave the den, 

their body masses are correlated; heavier females produce heavier cubs and lighter 

females produce lighter cubs. Researchers are seeing decreased body condition of 

southern Beaufort Sea polar bears. Cub survival rates declined significantly when 

comparing rates from 1967 to 1989 and 1990 to 2006. The lower cub survival rate 

coincided with warming temperatures and altered atmospheric circulation starting 

in the winter of 1989-1990 that caused an abrupt change in sea-ice conditions in 

the Arctic basin. In addition, broken and fragmented ice conditions may cause cubs 

to be in the water longer, increasing the chance of hypothermia or death because 

they cannot survive more than 10 minutes in icy water. In the Western Hudson 

Bay, declines in cub survival and physical size were seen for several years before 

a statistically significant decline in the population size was confirmed. Polar bear 

experts believe that if the trends in sea-ice loss continue, the southern Beaufort Sea 

population will significantly decline within the next 45 years. 

Polar bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea may be turning to cannibalism because 

longer seasons without ice keep them from getting to their prey—ringed seals. From 

January to April 2004, in the region north of Alaska and western Canada, researchers found three instances of polar bears preying on each other, including the firstever reported killing of a female in a den shortly after it gave birth. Adult males 

are believed to have actively stalked or hunted the bears before attacking and eating them. 

Recommendations for Polar Bear Conservation 

The effort underway by the government to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act is an important first step in polar bear conservation. This process, which can be quite lengthy, should be undertaken as quickly 

as possible. The government should not allow the process to be bogged down by opponents of the listing. In the meantime, the government should take other steps to 

conserve polar bears out of an abundance of caution. For example, the Congress 

should close the loophole in the Marine Mammal Protection Act that permits Americans to hunt polar bears in Canada and return home with their bear trophies. Each 

year approximately 200 bears are killed by American hunters. It is illegal to hunt 

these bears in the U.S. The Marine Mammal Protection Act should be amended to 

prohibit these trophies from entering our borders. 

Pacific Walrus 

Walruses are the largest pinnipeds in the Arctic and sub-Arctic seas, with a geographic range that completely encircles the polar basin. The Pacific walrus, which 

accounts for 80 percent of the world’s walrus population, is one of two geographically isolated subspecies of walrus. The Pacific walrus is found in the North Pacific 

Ocean’s Bering Sea and in Arctic waters from the East Siberian Sea to the western 

Beaufort Sea, as well as in the Laptev Sea. 

They are most commonly found in relatively shallow water areas, close to ice or 

land. Walruses spend about half their time in the water and half their time on 

beaches or ice floes where they gather in large herds. They forage from ice above 

the continental shelf for bottom-dwelling invertebrates. The mouth of the walrus is 

uniquely adapted to allow them to eat buried clams and invertebrates. The walrus 

squirts high-power jets of water out of their mouths like a water drill to unearth 

43

clams mired in the mud at the bottom. Scientists believe that they then use strong 

suction to remove the fleshy parts of the prey away from the shell and then discard 

the shell. This intensive tilling of the sea bottom releases nutrients into the water 

column, provides food for scavengers such as starfish, and increases the patchiness 

of the bottom, which likely plays an important community structuring function for 

benthic and pelagic animals. 

Walruses may already be feeling the impacts of climate change in Alaska. They 

use ice as a platform for resting and from which to forage. They can only dive to 

depths of approximately 90 meters; when the ice recedes north of the continental 

shelf, they are unable to dive as deep as their bottom dwelling prey is found. In 

addition, walrus calves, which have been observed swimming in open water alone, 

are believed to have been abandoned by their mothers who were searching for food 

in ice-free waters, leaving no place for the dependent calves to rest. 

Pacific walruses are showing the effects of global warming associated with the 

changing distribution and extent of pack ice in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. Currently, there are no data upon which to make reliable predictions of the net impacts 

that changing climate conditions would have on the status and trend of the Pacific 

walrus population. However, disturbing observations have been made in recent 

years about climate change impacts on walruses. 

As described earlier in this section, the process walruses use to eat involves 

bioturbation, which is the disturbance of sediment layers by biological activity. 

Bioturbation releases an extraordinary amount of nutrients, including nitrogen, into 

the water, which is a massive effect compared to natural release in the absence of 

walrus feeding. Researchers believe that walruses return to the same drifting ice 

floes from which they left to forage in the water. The loss of sea-ice due to climate 

change will result in diminished extent and configuration of ice platforms from 

which walruses will feed and bioturbate the benthic environment. 

As noted above, walruses are distributed only over continental shelves because 

they feed on benthic invertebrates and cannot effectively feed at depths beyond 90-

100 meters. After breeding on the winter ice in the Bering Sea, the males retreat 

to coastal areas while the females and young (up to age three) retreat with the ice 

into the Chukchi Sea. There they feed intensively in between periods of resting and 

nursing their young on the ice. 

In 1998, the sea-ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas retreated unusually far to 

the north and by September it covered 25% less of the Arctic Ocean than during 

the minimum for the previous 35 years. Vessel-based researchers surveying walruses found that substantial portions of the ice edge had receded north of the continental shelf where the water was too deep for walruses to feed. Continued warming 

and reduction in ice over the continental shelf in summer and fall will likely reduce 

the amount of forage available to lactating walruses. The result may be a reduced 

survival of nursing calves if female walruses respond by concentrating on ice or 

shorelines near feeding areas. This will result in a corresponding increase in their 

risk of predation by polar bears. There have also been reports of mother walruses 

following the retreating ice and abandoning their calves in open water because the 

calves cannot keep up, which creates yet another possible method of mortality. 

Moreover, the calves have been reportedly abandoned on the ice as well. In April 

2006, the Aquatic Mammals journal stated that walrus calves had apparently been 

stranded far offshore by melting sea-ice in the Arctic Ocean. During a summer 2004 

cruise in the Canada Basin to investigate the impact of global warming on the oceanic ecosystem over the continental shelf of Alaska, researchers aboard the U.S. 

Coast Guard icebreaker Healy found nine lone walrus calves swimming far from 

shore. The area was 53 to 134 miles from shore in water that was over 3000 meters 

deep. Ice was virtually absent throughout the area where the scientists saw the lone 

calves. Scientists had never before documented calves offshore without their mothers and had seen mothers and calves together only in water less than 100 meters 

deep and 20 miles from shore. The calves, which swam around the ship, barked continuously and seemed distressed and according to the researchers. These calves likely drowned or starved. 

The sightings of lone calves coincided with evidence of rapidly melting seasonal 

ice in the shallow continental shelf region where walruses feed on clams and crabs. 

Researchers measured an unusually warm mass of water moving onto parts of the 

continental shelf north of Alaska from the Bering Sea that caused seasonal sea-ice 

to rapidly melt. Sea temperatures there were more than six degrees warmer than 

those observed at the same time and location two years earlier. In areas where seaice remained, the sea floor was too deep, about 2836.5 meters, for adult walrus to 

feed. This development is significant because walruses use sea ice as a resting platform, especially for pups when their mothers dive for food. The calves, which are 

dependent on mothers’ milk for up to two years, cannot forage for themselves. ReVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
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searchers believe that the mothers had to swim farther and farther from shore to 

find ice for the calves to rest on and eventually had to abandon them in waters too 

deep for the mothers to reach food. 

Recommendations for Walrus Conservation 

The same course of action is recommended for walruses as for ice seals. Federal 

funding for the study of walruses must be increased so that further research can 

be undertaken. It has been decades since there has been any comprehensive study 

on population numbers and distribution of walruses in Alaska. Without this critical 

information, it is impossible to know how rapidly the walrus populations are declining, much less to make intelligent management decisions regarding subsistence 

hunts. At the very least, the government should conduct stock assessments of these 

stocks determine whether they are depleted, and develop conservation plans as required under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Further, in order to ensure that 

this species of walrus does not reach the brink of extinction without us even knowing it, we recommend that the government consider whether to propose listing the 

Pacific walrus under the Endangered Species Act. The challenges faced by this walrus species is not appreciably different than those faced by polar bears, which the 

government recently proposed for listing. 

Bowhead Whales 

Bowhead whales are the only baleen whales that spend their entire lives in waters near sea-ice and do not migrate to temperate or tropical waters to calve. 

Bowheads are well adapted for living in Arctic and sub-Arctic waters. They have the 

thickest blubber of any marine mammal, up to .61 meters thick, which is used for 

insulation, food storage, and padding. 

Bowhead whales are the most important subsistence animal for most northwestern and northern Alaska coastal Eskimos. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) manages the subsistence harvest, and has granted the Alaska Eskimo 

Whaling Commission a harvest quota. For 2002-2007, subsistence hunters received 

a block quota of 280 bowhead strikes allowed, of which 67 whales (plus up to 15 

unharvested in the previous year) could be taken annually. This quota allows the 

Chukotka Natives in Russia to take 5 whales. The next five-year quota is up for 

renewal in May of 2007 at the annual 

As a result of heavy exploitation by commercial whalers, the western Arctic 

bowhead whale stock is currently listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. This stock of 

bowhead whales is the most studied of bowhead whales in the world and because 

of their importance to Alaska Natives for subsistence, the International Whaling 

Commission’s regulation of bowheads, and the sub-sea location of oil and gas reserves below bowhead habitat. Research has included obtaining reliable population 

estimates and trends, information about the whale’s overall health, migration and 

stock structure. 

The impacts of global warming on bowhead whales are not clearly understood yet, 

but it is believed that the abundance of their food may decline as more open water 

occurs. Also, some are concerned that gray whales may be moving into bowhead 

whale habitat and may compete with bowheads for space. 

Climate change and the associated changes in the distribution and extent of pack 

ice in the Bering, Beaufort and Chukchi Seas is a large concern for bowhead whales. 

Bowhead whales are likely sensitive to changes in Arctic weather, sea-surface temperatures, or ice extent and the associated effect of prey availability. There is insufficient data to make reliable predictions of the net impacts that changing climate 

conditions would have on bowhead whales. However, the IWC has listed bowhead 

whales in the Eastern Arctic and Okhotsk Sea as vulnerable due to a combination 

of climate change and other factors. 

The bowhead whale’s foraging efficiency is intricately linked to the Arctic ecosystem by changes in ice cover, in spring ice break-up, in algal blooms, and in the 

abundance of its prey species. Bowheads, which spend their entire lives in Arctic 

waters, may be strongly affected by changes in the distribution or abundance of 

their prey in these areas. If plankton species are affected by climate change, this 

could lead to cascading effects through the food chain. In addition, global warming 

and possible shifts in wind patterns could also affect the distribution of polynyas 

in the polar ice cap. Dark polynyas often contain significant blooms of 

phytoplankton. Cetacean species such as bowhead whales that rely on ice edges for 

phytoplankton foraging might be adversely affected by any decline in these habitat 

areas. 

Researchers and subsistence hunters are concerned that bowhead whales may 

also be impacted by gray whales migrating further northward beyond their historVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
45

ical range, seeking colder waters. Large pods of gray whales typically travel to the 

Bering Sea’s northern waters each spring from Baja, California, feasting on 

amphipods, tiny shrimp-like creatures that live in the muck at the bottom of the 

shallow sea. The gray whales feed voraciously all spring and summer in preparation 

for a three- to five-month fast during their 12,000-mile journey back to Baja. They 

make the return trip in the fall, having the longest total migration of any marine 

mammal. 

However, now the gray whales are heading north into the Chukchi Sea, above the 

Arctic Circle, where the colder waters support amphipods. Some gray whales are 

foregoing their full fall migration, going no further south than Kodiak. It is unknown exactly what effect more gray whales in the northern seas year-round will 

have on bowhead whales. Both bowhead and gray whale populations are increasing 

at approximately 3% per year. Gray whales have a broader diet than bowheads, 

breed faster and generally seem more capable of colonizing new areas than bowhead 

whales. As the gray whales shift northward, they are moving closer to the territory 

of the bowhead whale, which feeds offshore on krill. Some Alaskan Natives bowhead 

hunters are concerned that the more aggressive gray whale may interfere with the 

quieter bowhead, competing for space. 

It has also been predicted that reductions in Arctic sea-ice will lead to an increase 

in ice-free days annually. Several potential concerns arise from this. The presence 

of sea-ice also affects the timing, nature and possible locations of human activities 

such as shipping, research, barging, whale hunting, oil and gas activities (seismic 

surveys and drilling), commercial fishing, military activities and other activities to 

introduce noise and pollution into the marine environment. Seasonal changes in ice 

extent and human activity may restrict whale movements such that patterns of 

gene flow are altered. Further, bowhead whale migrations and selection of wintering 

and summering grounds may shift in a warmer Arctic. 

Recommendations for Bowhead Whale Conservation 

The federal government must continue to be a forceful advocate for whale conservation at the IWC. It must make clear that the limited scope of the subsistence 

hunt for bowheads stands in sharp contrast to the commercial hunts conducted by 

other nations under the guise of scientific research. Moreover, the Alaska Eskimo 

Whaling Commission should continue to collaborate with scientists to ensure there 

is adequate data collection and documentation of changes regarding the range and 

population densities of bowhead and gray whales in the Arctic in order to ensure 

that we have as much information as possible about the impacts of global warming 

on the whales. The fact that there are annual subsistence hunts provides an opportunity to collect data in a consistent and timely manner about the impacts of global 

warming on bowhead whales, on other whales, and on the Arctic ecosystem in general. 

Conclusion 

The information compiled in the report makes a powerful and persuasive case 

that the time is now to take action. The very existence of polar bears, walruses, ice 

seals, and bowhead whales for future generations to enjoy is at stake. Immediate 

actions are urgently needed. We cannot wait until a comprehensive legal and regulatory structure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is enacted by Congress and our 

greenhouse gas emissions decrease, and the warming trend eventually slows. By 

then it will be much too late. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Medina. 

Finally, the Chair would like to recognize Dr. Haney to testify for 

five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF J. CHRISTOPHER HANEY, Ph.D.,

CHIEF SCIENTIST, DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE 

Dr. HANEY. Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am J. Christopher Haney, Chief Scientist for Defenders of Wildlife. Thank you for the invitation this morning to speak 

with you about the impacts of climate change on America’s fish and 

wildlife. 

My organization was founded in 1947. It is a national nonprofit 

organization representing more than 500,000 members and 

46

supporters dedicated to protecting and restoring native animals 

and plants in their natural communities. We stand at a crucial moment when we must act, and act now, if we desire to protect the 

nation’s natural heritage. 

Conclusions reached about the changed climate that we see are 

compelling—they are so compelling—because the observed impacts 

have been consistent across species and across diverse geographic 

regions. The results are based literally on hundreds of plants and 

animals, thousands or articles dealing with climate change. 

In my written testimony I describe 10 categories, major categories, of climate change impacts that currently threaten our national fish and wildlife resources. These categories include such examples as sea and land ice meltdowns; heightened risk from 

invasive species, including nonnative diseases like West Nile virus; 

ocean acidification, more intense storms and rising sea levels. 

I also provide several examples of species or habitats from the 

districts or states that you represent that are vulnerable to climate 

change impacts. Though emphasizing fish and wildlife resources, 

both terrestrial and marine, nevertheless you can see obvious connections with human welfare as well. 

Instead of repeating those technical details here this morning, let 

me relate to you a brief firsthand account of how climate change 

has altered the places and species that I study. 

Exactly 20 years ago today, my Fish and Wildlife colleagues in 

a small, cramped office in Anchorage, Alaska, were busy preparing 

for a very large, major expedition that we were putting together for 

the remote St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Straits region of 

northern Alaska. 

Because this island is entirely owned and administered by two 

native corporations, we were there as their guests. Despite the 

Service having stewardship or management authority over those 

resources, we had to go through certain protocols and procedures 

in order to work on their lands. 

When we settled all of the organizing and eventually got out to 

the island, we finally arrived at a very remote campsite about 30 

miles southwest of Gambell on the far southwest coast of the island 

toward late May. Our guide, a Yu’pik Eskimo by the name of Mr. 

Lane Iyacatan, showed us how and where to set up our camp. 

The trick was to find sites that were flat enough to put up tents 

and weather ports, but also high enough to avoid the spring snow 

melt, the floods that were going to come later on in the season. 

Now, mind you as a southerner at Memorial Day weekend the 

place looked more like midwinter than any place I had ever seen, 

and it was an eye-opening experience to see snow melt on into 

June and July. 

A slight man of immense strength and very gracious nature, Mr. 

Iyacatan was very, very sparing with his words. For whatever reason, he and I seemed to hit it off, and we chose to team up to do 

some of the more strenuous activities in this remote camp. One of 

those was building bridges out of driftwood that would link the 

parts of our camp as the river started to rise later in the spring. 

Whenever Mr. Iyacatan would finally get around to take a break, 

and that wasn’t very often it seemed to me, he would take a slow 

look around at the usually gray sky, the gray Bering Sea nearby 

47

and the mountains that ringed our camp. His typical remark was, 

‘‘Kind of cold today.’’ That was 1987. Mr. Iyacatan would use this 

phrase rather less often these days. 

When I return to Alaska now, I cannot help but notice the later 

falls, the milder weather, the disappearing glaciers. Entire villages 

are being moved away from crumbling shorelines that are no 

longer protected by the ice pack. Animals and plants certainly, but 

most of all the local inhabitants, know that climate change is here 

now. These kinds of experiences are also what convince skeptical 

scientists of the reality of climate change. 

Let me finish by stressing that our national strategy for coping 

with impacts of climate change must consist of two key approaches. 

We must take immediate steps now to reduce the causes, mitigation. We also must treat this bottleneck that we are going to experience over the next decades or century on the effects. We also need 

to use adaptation. 

We stand ready to work with this Subcommittee and the rest of 

the Congress. Thank you for this opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Haney follows:]

Statement of Dr. J. Christopher Haney, Chief Scientist,

Defenders of Wildlife 

Madam Chairwoman and members of the subcommittee, I am J. Christopher 

Haney, Chief Scientist for Defenders of Wildlife. Thank you for this opportunity to 

speak with you today about impacts of climate change from global warming on 

America’s fish and wildlife. 

My organization was founded in 1947 and is a national non-profit organization 

with more than 500,000 members and supporters dedicated to the protection and 

restoration of all wild animals and plants in their natural communities. I come before you today to express our profound concern that we stand at a crucial moment 

in our history when we must act, and act now, if we desire to protect this natural 

heritage—the nation’s diverse fish and wildlife resources. 

As you know, the U.N. sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

(IPCC) recently released two out of an eventual four volume report that summarizes 

findings from much larger technical reports (IPCC 2007 Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (WGI Science) Summary for Policy-Makers (SPM) and (WGII Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability) SPM). The IPCC report makes clear that global warming is occurring, that it is exacerbated by human activity, and that it will 

have a devastating impact on fish and wildlife. The IPCC report is particularly important for two reasons. 

First, the underlying technical report reflects a synthesis of the existing scientific 

and technical literature compiled by the world’s top experts. It represents the collective understanding of literally thousands of scientists from around the world, and 

includes hundreds of top university researchers and government scientists from the 

U.S. Therefore, these Assessment Reports summarize the current science and portray our state of knowledge about climate change and global warming. Impacts of 

climate change in North America were included in this report. 

Second, the report is based on actual observation. In my testimony today, I wish 

to share with you first-hand personal observations, and will emphasize ten (10) separate categories of impacts from climate change that we at Defenders see affecting 

fish and wildlife resources across the country. These categories not only serve to further reinforce findings of the Intergovernmental scientific report, they will enable 

you to see direct connections to human welfare as well. 

GLOBAL WARMING’S IMPACT ON WILDLIFE 

Recent studies clearly demonstrate that species and biological communities are responding to changing climate due to global warming. The strength of these conclusions—that impacts of climate change are consistent across diverse species and 

48

1Meta-analysis is a statistical method using multiple studies that examine similar factors and 

use similar methods. Conclusions reached through a meta-analysis are reinforced by the consistencies observed across multiple sources. 2Parmesan, C., and G. Yohe. 2003. A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts 

across natural systems. Nature 421: 37-42. 3 Root, T. L. et al. 2004. Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants. Nature 

421: 57-60. 4 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (WG-I) concluded that evidence of global warming is unequivocal, and that dramatic changes to the planet’s climate are, with a 90 percent 

certainty, the result of human-generated emissions of greenhouse gases. 

geographic regions—is based on the robust nature of the meta-analyses 1 which examined hundreds of species and thousands of articles on climate change. A 2003 

study by Parmesan and Yohe 2 examined more than 1,700 species. More than half 

showed measurable changes in distribution and/or timing of their life cycles coherent with global warming. An analysis by Root et al. (2003) 3 of 143 studies ‘‘reveal 

a consistent temperature-related shift, or ‘‘fingerprint’’—more than 80% of the species that show changes are shifting in the direction expected on the basis of known 

physiological constraints.’’ Plants and animal populations are clearly feeling the effects of global warming. 

Simply put, there is no real scientific debate: global warming from our activities 4

has altered biological and physical systems. Due to the timescales associated with 

climate processes and feedbacks, the effects will continue for decades or centuries. 

Thus, even if the human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases—the causes of the 

observed accelerated global warming—are stabilized in the very near future, our nation’s wildlife will continue to feel those effects for some time to come. 

MAJOR CATEGORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS 

(1) Sea and land ice meltdowns. According to the IPCC, average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years. Satellite data since 1978 show that annual average Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk 

by 2.7% per decade. Temperatures at the top of the permafrost layer have generally 

increased since the 1980s in the Arctic (by up to 3°C). The maximum area covered 

by seasonally frozen ground has decreased by about 7% in the northern hemisphere 

since 1900, with a decrease in spring of up to 15%. 

These changes in the Arctic environment have reduced the integrity of the region’s unique terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Sea pack ice is disappearing, 

thinning, and moving further offshore from land, all of which tip the scales against 

wildlife that rely on this key habitat. Spectacled eiders (Somateria fischeri), a sea 

duck already listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, use large icefree areas (termed polynyas) for foraging during the winter, and rest and sleep on 

adjacent ice edges strategically located over sea floor grounds rich in prey. Without 

such sea-ice roosting areas, spectacled eiders won’t be able to easily reach their food 

sources. Rapidly changing ice conditions have forced ringed seals (Phoca hispida) to 

move and give birth to their pups in different locations—even under ice—making 

finding and catching seals a bigger challenge for the polar bears (Ursus maritimus) 

that depend on them for survival. With expectations that the Arctic Ocean will be 

largely devoid of summer sea pack ice later in this century, species such as polar 

bears, ivory gulls (Pagophila eburnea), walruses (Odobenus rosmarus), and the several species of ice-dwelling seals will find their habitat literally melted away. 

Polar bears are especially dependent on sea ice as platforms for hunting the marine mammals that provide their nutritional needs. Because the necessary ice 

bridges linking land and sea have now been severed across wide areas, adult and 

young polar bears have starved and drowned. Some polar bears have resorted to 

cannibalism, leading scientists to remark that they are witnessing stressors unprecedented in decades of observation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed 

listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, a proposal 

which Defenders of Wildlife strongly supports. 

On land, prospects are no better. Disappearance of permafrost has led to draining 

of Arctic wetlands, aquatic habitats used extensively by the breeding waterfowl that 

winter in the lower 48 states and support a multi-billion dollar sport hunting economy. Declining winter snow packs threaten terrestrial species such as the wolverine 

(Gulo gulo), a large relative of the weasel that relies upon snow drifts for maternal 

denning. 

One key place where changes are especially visible is the Arctic National Wildlife 

Refuge in Alaska. The Arctic Refuge is the most important on-shore denning habitat 

for polar bears in the United States. As offshore sea-ice denning areas melt away, 

the Arctic Refuge becomes one of the last places for these polar bears to winter with 

their newborn cubs. The refuge’s famed Porcupine caribou herd is also being 

49

5 IPCC figures for the range in sea level rise are conservative. Ice cap and glacier melt, however, where the disintegration of ice shelves and lubrication of glaciers by meltwater speed up 

the flow of ice into the oceans, are more difficult to model. 

affected by global warming. Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) are departing their wintering grounds a month earlier and are still having trouble making it to the coastal 

plain of the Arctic Refuge in time for the earlier arrival of spring, when the most 

nutritious forage is available for their calves. Thus, the significance of the Arctic 

Refuge to wildlife is reinforced by the added threats from global warming. 

(2) Habitat shifts. As the planet warms, the habitats required by particular species shift as well, typically northward in the northern hemisphere, upslope, and inland. Northern and elevational boundaries have moved, on average, 6.1 km northward and 6.1 meters upward each decade. 

For some species already on the edge, these shifts could spell ultimate extinction. 

For instance, the Cheat Mountain salamander (Plethodon nettingi) is found nowhere 

else but West Virginia. Its entire range is just 935 square miles, spread across the 

high mountains of the east central part of the state from Backbone Mountain, Tucker County in the north to Thorny Flat, Pocahontas County in the south. The Cheat 

Mountain salamander is generally found above 2,600-3,500 feet. With one of the 

most restricted ranges of any salamander in the United States, and already listed 

since 1989 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as threatened throughout its range, 

this amphibian is extremely vulnerable. If global warming pushes it further up the 

mountains in search of a cooler environment, eventually it will find no place left 

to go. 

(3) Heightened risks from invasive species, including disease. Rapidly changing 

environments increase the risk of invasive native and invasive non-native species, 

both of which can pose threats to other parts of natural systems they share. For 

example, the longer growing seasons from global warming have been implicated as 

facilitating unusually large and long outbreaks of spruce bark beetles (Dendroctonus 

rufipennis). In the past 25 years beetle outbreaks have resulted in the loss of an 

estimated two billion board feet of timber on the Kenai Peninsula and elsewhere in 

Alaska. Longer summers enable the beetles to complete one or more generations of 

their life cycle within a season, leading to exploding populations of this forest insect. 

In Guam, native wildlife is greatly threatened already from accidental introduction 

of the non-native brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis). Climate change will open 

new frontiers for such invasive species, and make conservation all the more challenging. 

We know from studies of human health that rises in temperatures and increases 

in flooding are often associated also with a rise in certain infections and movement 

or spread of pathogens and disease vectors. Wildlife and fish are also susceptible 

to increases in disease risk. Such risk will become even more important as wild populations decline—a loss in numbers will increase demographic risks of extinction—

as well as the impact of an increase in population density as animals move into the 

last remaining wild lands due to large-scale land conversions. This increased population density as well as increase risk of contacting an infected species or vector will 

magnify as new infections and disease vectors themselves spread into more regions 

with climate change. 

(4) Rising sea levels. Projections of sea level rise from global warming range from 

7 to 23 inches over the next century, according to the latest IPCC report. Accelerated melting of Antarctica or Greenland glaciers could raise sea levels by several 

meters 5. Any rise will have negative consequences for some wildlife. Some islands 

used by the endangered Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi) could be 

completely underwater by century’s end, overcrowding the remaining islands used 

for breeding and rearing of young and increasing the predation of seals by sharks. 

Other coastal species like the endangered Florida Key deer (Odocoileus virginianus 

clavium) depend entirely upon low-level barrier islands, and are especially vulnerable to sea level rise. 

Essential habitats along low-lying coastlines are also at serious risk. Approximately 160 national wildlife refuges occur in coastal areas, including several refuges 

in New Jersey, Maryland, and Louisiana. Many of these refuges, like Maryland’s 

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, protect coastal marshes that are only a foot 

or two above the current sea level. Even the lowest estimated rise in sea level over 

the next century will have profound effects on coastal wetlands, which are one of 

the most biologically productive ecosystems on earth. Coastal marshes also happen 

to be tremendous carbon sinks, and their loss will reduce their ability to absorb carbon and potentially release even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the 

inundated marsh plants decompose. 

50

6 Epps, C. W., D. R. McCullough, J. D. Wehausen, V. C. Bleich, and J. L. Rechel. 2004. Effects 

of climate change on population persistence of desert-dwelling mountain sheep in California. 

Conservation Biology 18: 102-113. 

(5) Longer droughts. Extended drought resulting from global warming poses an 

additional kind of threat to species that rely on already scarce water in arid environments such as the American southwest. For example, even in the best of times, 

survival can be precarious for desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis spp.). Inhabiting steep, rocky terrain in the driest areas of the American southwest, they live 

in small groups isolated by miles of blazingly hot terrain. In southeastern California, rainfall has declined by as much as 20%, leading to drying of springs and 

disappearance of important food plants 6. More than a third of the sheep populations 

that once lived in California’s mountains have disappeared in the last century. 

Less-arid regions face dramatic changes as well. As Defenders highlighted in our 

2006 report, Refuges at Risk: The Threat of Global Warming, the prairie pothole region of the country is the nation’s duck factory; its thousands of small lakes and 

ponds provide ideal habitat for breeding waterfowl. Over 50 national wildlife refuges, such as Medicine Lake refuge in eastern Montana, and Devils Lake Wetland 

Management District in North Dakota, have been established in this region to protect breeding bird habitat. Climate scientists predict that warmer climates in the 

northern prairie wetlands region will increase the frequency and severity of 

droughts—so much so that the number of breeding ducks in this region could be 

cut in half. 

(6) Excess carbon dioxide. Often described as rainforests of the ocean, coral reefs 

support a dazzling array of creatures. But die-offs of corals, as much as 98% in some 

locations during the last 25 years, landed two coral species on the endangered species list. Staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) and elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) form 

massive thickets, provide cover for numerous reef fish, and are essential for the 

health of entire reef ecosystems. However, warming ocean temperatures are stripping corals of the algae they need to survive, while carbon dioxide emissions are 

also turning the naturally alkaline oceans more acidic. Reefs subsequently turn into 

rubble because of lowering concentrations of carbonate ions, a key building block for 

calcium carbonate required by the corals. Threats from global warming to coral reefs 

have the potential to harm some of our most spectacular national wildlife refuges, 

including the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, Guam, Palmyra Atoll, Midway Atoll, 

and Kingman Reef in the south Pacific. 

Guam’s coral reefs are home to thousands of species of animals and plants, including hundreds of kinds of fishes and shellfishes. Fishes and other animals and plants 

taken from coral reefs are an indispensable part of the island’s traditional diet. 

Tourists are attracted to the reef’s abundant marine life and clear waters. Given 

other threats such as invasive starfish, pollution, silting, and other hazards, ocean 

acidification and other climate-change impacts only serve to increase the 

vulnerabilities of these key fishery habitats. 

(7) Greater extremes in precipitation and/or flooding patterns. In natural systems, 

extremes can be just as important as the averages, and sometimes more so. The 

plains cottonwood (Populus sargentii) is the great tree of the American prairies; no 

other plant approaches the stature of this tree on the grasslands that sweep five 

hundred miles westward from the ninety-eighth meridian to the foot of the Rockies. 

This key tree species acts to provide wildlife habitat, shade, and streamside stabilization in the region. But the plains cottonwood is a flood-sensitive species that 

depends upon just the proper amount of precipitation (intermediate flooding). Not 

only is drought a severe stress on this trees, spring runoffs that are too powerful 

scour out the river bottoms used by the tree, washing away the sand bars and banks 

and any young trees. 

The streamside salamander (Ambystoma barbouri) of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, 

Indiana, and West Virginia is another example of a species that requires the optimal amount of precipitation, with too much rain just as stressful as too little. The 

salamander is most successful in first- and second-order streams that are seasonally 

ephemeral, that have natural barriers (cascades, waterfalls) that block upstream 

movement of predatory fishes, and that also have large flat rocks for laying their 

eggs. Increased flooding causes high mortality in this species, an amphibian with 

a total population size of only about 10,000. 

(8) Disruptions to migration patterns. Some species are able to modify their behavioral patterns in response to environmental patterns, others are not. Climate 

change is expected to severely disrupt the timing and patterns of seasonal cycles 

and breeding migrations. Budding, flowering, pollination, seeding, and generation 

times of plants will change. Origins, routes, and destinations of migrating animals 

will be different. If climate change creates conditions that exceed the biotic limits 

51

of these species, adaptation itself is at risk. For example, behavioral responses can 

be successful only if the animals are sufficiently mobile, their movements are not 

blocked, and they actually have an alternate place to live. For some species, this 

option is unlikely or even impossible. 

Notably, we have very little information upon which to predict how climate-linked 

changes will disrupt the biotic interactions and inter-dependencies that have 

evolved at the community or ecosystem levels. The entire fabric of these systems is 

in jeopardy when species move, are extirpated from one site, invade others, or go 

extinct. We can expect surprises from these cascade or synergistic effects. Some of 

these surprises will detrimental to the interests of humans as well as wildlife. 

(9) Direct effects of higher temperatures. Warming of the planet from greenhouse 

gases within the atmosphere is the ultimate trigger for all climate changes that we 

observe. However, regional expressions of elevated temperatures on the planet’s surface from climate change can also directly impact fish and wildlife. For example, 

cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki) and certain other anadromous fishes have 

well-established climate sensitivities, and are susceptible to increases in the average 

temperatures of freshwater systems. Increasing ocean temperatures can cause gender imbalance in future generations of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) because of their temperature-sensitive development. Studies also indicate that earlier 

nesting times of the sea turtle are directly linked to increases in sea surface temperature. 

(10) More intense storms. Humans are by no means the only species to lose homes 

to the storms that are projected to be more virulent and to occur with greater frequency due to climate changes from global warming. Several imperiled species illustrate this particular vulnerability. Isolated populations of the threatened redcockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis), such as those found in parts of Florida, 

Louisiana, and other Gulf states, are susceptible to having their key habitats wiped 

out by more intense and frequent hurricanes. The West Indian manatee (Trichechus 

manatus), currently listed as federally endangered and proposed for downlisting to 

threatened status, experiences lower survival probability during years with more intense storms. Even our concerted action to shelter species for eventual recovery in 

the wild is put at risk. Recently, all or nearly all of the endangered whooping cranes 

(Grus americana) being held in a Florida captive propagation facility prior to release 

into the wild were killed by intense tornados. And it would be the ultimate tragedy 

if the recently rediscovered ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) loses 

habitat as a result of global warming. 

A NATIONAL STRATEGY TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS 

AND HELP WILDLIFE THROUGH THE BOTTLENECK OF GLOBAL 

WARMING IMPACTS IS NEEDED 

For many species, global warming is the greatest threat to their survival because 

changes in seasonal and weather patterns are altering their ability to respond environmentally or behaviorally. Species that are very specialized, rare, or those with 

very limited ranges, are less able to adapt to change and thereby more vulnerable 

to extinction. Others have been brought to the brink due to non-climatic stressors 

that already reduced their numbers, distribution and range, thereby making them 

less resilient to climatic change and more vulnerable to extinction. 

Moreover, every species has a ‘‘tipping point’’—a set of conditions which, if exceeded, will push it towards extinction. Some rare species may already have reached this 

point whereas others may soon follow without our efforts to intervene and save 

them. Wildlife managers must now explore new approaches and innovative strategies to manage the broader landscape as well as wildlife populations if we are to 

help species survive and adapt to these changes. Because impacts of climate change 

from global warming are already here and will continue, fish and wildlife need our 

intervention to navigate through this bottleneck in order to survive and reap the 

eventual benefits of the steps we take today to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

A national strategy for combating the impacts of global warming on wildlife must 

consist of two key approaches. First, we must take immediate steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to address the root cause behind climate change. Second, we 

must also craft responses now to help wildlife navigate through a looming bottleneck of complex effects caused by global warming. These two approaches are usually 

referred to as mitigation and adaptation. Both approaches are absolutely essential 

for our nation to frame its policy response as we build a comprehensive strategy to 

protect fish, wildlife, and other natural resources. 

CONCLUSION 

Impacts of climate change from global warming represent a truly global threat to 

our efforts to conserve and recover fish, wildlife, and other natural resources for 

52

future generations of American citizens. As scientists and resource managers, we 

recognize the need to meet this challenge in a thoughtful, comprehensive manner. 

Where we have opportunities to reduce causes of climate change, we must support 

mitigation measures to reduce the levels of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same 

time, we must take adaptive steps to assist wildlife in navigating effects of climate 

change so that they can survive decades to a century of impacts still to come. The 

time to use both mitigation and adaptation is now, immediately. By addressing the 

needs of fish, wildlife, and entire natural systems, we also help ourselves. We and 

the generations that follow can continue to benefit from the remarkable diversity 

of economic, cultural, spiritual, and social goods and services provided by all terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. 

On behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, I want to thank you for the opportunity to 

share our observations and perspectives on this critical issue, and submit this testimony for the record at this hearing. It is no exaggeration to say that all work on 

behalf of conserving wildlife and its habitat, in North America and around the globe, 

is at risk now from global warming. We stand ready to work with this subcommittee 

and the rest of the Congress to develop solutions that will reduce greenhouse gas 

emissions and enable wildlife to survive until the benefits of emission reductions are 

fully realized. 

Response to questions submitted for the record by

Dr. J. Christopher Haney 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE MADELEINE BORDALLO, CHAIRWOMAN 

Dr. Haney, in your view, what should the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service be 

doing to prepare for global warming on national wildlife refuges and 

in its endangered species and migratory bird programs? 

Refuges 

First, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) should consider the present and 

future impacts of global warming when developing objectives and management actions in the Comprehensive Conservation Planning (CCP) process. 

Second, the FWS Division of Conservation Planning and Policy could coordinate 

efforts to assemble available knowledge on climate change in order to assist refuges 

around the country in obtaining current information and designing strategies to 

mitigate the worst of the anticipated effects. Also, the FWS should convene a panel 

of experts to assist refuges in developing adaptation strategies for coastal marshes 

and other habitats, including the prairie pothole region. 

Third, in recognition that global warming will undoubtedly have a dramatic effect 

on many wildlife species and ecosystems, the FWS should take action now to minimize all non-climatic related stressors on refuge lands and wildlife. This would include mitigating for or reducing the harmful effects of fragmentation and roads on 

wildlife, among other things (boats, pollution, other incompatible uses of refuges, 

e.g.). 

Fourth, global warming should be incorporated into all refuge environmental education and interpretation programs. Visitors should learn of how global warming 

and climate change are affecting the refuge’s wildlife and ecosystems. 

Finally, the expected effects of global warming and climate change should be incorporated into infrastructure design and planning, such as elevating buildings and 

other structural reinforcements near the coast. 

Endangered Species 

The FWS should incorporate global warming into recovery plans. 

Migratory Birds 

The FWS should carefully monitor migratory bird populations and design monitoring strategies that can detect changes caused by global warming. Waterfowl 

hunting levels should be adjusted accordingly. 

The FWS should inform the Migratory Bird Commission of its monitoring and research on changes in migratory bird populations, habitats, and behavior and recommend changes in land acquisition strategies to conserve migratory birds carried 

out by the Commission. 

53

Dr. Haney, what additional resources or tools will the Fish and Wildlife 

Service and National Marine Fisheries Service need to adequately prepare and address the impacts of global warming on wildlife over the 

next decade? 

The following are some of the resources, tools, or approaches that the Fish and 

Wildlife Service and/or National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) could benefit 

from to better address climate change: 

1) Fund permanently a new science center that focuses on wildlife and global 

warming to advise land and fisheries managers of adaptation strategies for 

dealing with the anticipated effects of climate change, that coordinates fish and 

wildlife monitoring strategies, and that researches effects of global warming on 

fish and wildlife. 

2) The Departments of Interior, Commerce, and Agriculture should develop a national strategy for conserving wildlife in the face of global warming. Wildlife 

crosses jurisdictional and political boundaries and national level coordination 

is required to adequately conserve wildlife and assist wildlife in adapting to 

climate change. 

3) Develop spatially-explicit maps of expected plant community changes (USFWS) 

or shifts in bathymetry, currents, and other marine attributes (NMFS). Such 

maps would be valuable as resource managers seek to anticipate and then minimize ecosystem changes. 

Dr. Haney, you note that climate change is likely to disrupt wildlife migration patterns and that species which are sufficiently mobile, not constrained, and have alternate habitat available should be able to adapt 

their migratory behaviors to a changing environment. To your knowledge, has there been any research to identify how many wildlife species 

are not likely to meet these criteria? 

Indeed, and given adequate opportunity and facilitation, some (but not necessarily 

all or even most) mobile species might be able to adapt to certain climate changes. 

I am not aware of any research which has explicitly investigated which, how 

many, or what proportion of sedentary, non-mobile species are unlikely to be able 

to adapt. Until very recently at least, the most comprehensive forecast for impacts 

of climate changes on global biodiversity was made in 2004 (Thomas C.D. et al. 

2004. Extinction risk from climate change. Nature 427: 145-148). 

Analyzing distributions of 1103 species of animals and plants from various parts 

of the world, these authors showed that 15-37% are likely to go extinct based on 

the best projections of future climate change. Certainly many (but not necessarily 

all) of those species identified as vulnerable to extinction would be in the sedentary 

or less mobile category mentioned in your question. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE DALE KILDEE 

Dr. Haney, you noted in your testimony that climate change is likely to 

heighten risks from invasive species, including disease. Regrettably, 

the Great Lakes are all too familiar with invasive species. But if I understand correctly your testimony and the testimonies of other witnesses, the northern boreal forest areas surrounding the Great Lakes 

may be equally at risk. 

1. How might we improve our present methods to screen and control for 

invasive species in the Great Lakes Region to temper the effects of a 

changing climate? 

The over-arching objective for invasive species policy is to close off the pathways 

for entry while also maintaining active international and interstate trade. 

One comprehensive means for doing so has been Executive Order 13112 (1999: 64 

Federal Register 6183-6186). This Order also helped form the National Invasive 

Species Council (NISC) with representatives from the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, State, Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, Treasury, 

Health and Human Services, EPA, NASA, and others. The Order also established 

an Invasive Species Advisory Committee consisting of various stakeholders from 

states, tribes, universities, industries, and non-governmental organizations. The 

NISC created a National Invasive Species Management Plan which reviews approaches and authorities for preventing introduction and spread of invasives, minimizes risk of introductions via identified pathways, and identifies research needs 

and recommends measures for minimizing risks of introductions. 

Major pathways identified for screening and controlling include: 1) Transportation-related pathways such as air, aquatic, and land transport vessels (airplane 

land gears, hull fouling, ballast water containers, packaging materials, solid wood 

54

packing material, tourism, travel, and shipping); 2) Living industry pathways such 

as foods, pet and aquarium trades, bait industry, livestock and other animals, and 

trade in whole plants, seeds, and plant parts; and 3) Miscellaneous pathways including connected waterways, minimally processed plant and animal products (hides, 

trophies, feathers, logs, firewood, mulch, and straw), and ecosystem disturbances 

(rights of way, clearing, and damming). Any and all of these pathways can and 

should be tightened to prevent exacerbating the effects of climate change via greater 

risks from invasive species. 

2. If both the surrounding uplands and the Great Lakes themselves are 

going to be threatened, should we be moving to a more comprehensive, 

holistic landscape planning approach to address invasive species? Might 

a new pilot program focused specifically on landscape approaches be 

helpful in testing and evaluating new methods? 

Yes, a more comprehensive planning approach is much needed. One means of 

doing so would be to link Great Lakes upland and coastal planning for invasive species through a pilot program targeting one or more of the major pathways mentioned above, especially the ecosystem disturbances under ‘‘Miscellaneous,’’ several 

of which must pass through the upland/lake boundary. 

With respect to unintentional aquatic introductions into the Great Lakes the most 

critical improvement that now is actively being considered is an outright ban on 

ocean-going ships from going into the Great Lakes. After decades of ineffective responses to the well-known invasions caused by ballast water discharges and associated introductions from ocean-going ships it is time to put a stop to this traffic, 

which carries a relatively small amount of cargo at terrible environmental and economic cost to the Great Lakes region. 

With respect to intentional aquatic introductions—that is human release of unwanted pet fish, live bait, aquaculture species and so on into Great Lakes connected 

watersheds—we must engage in pre-import risk screening for all intentionally imported non-native aquatic plants and animals brought into the United States. The 

current National Aquatic Invasive Species Act (NAISA) Senate bill, S.725, is a 

start—but it is not nearly strong enough. The provisions in S.725 need to be dramatically strengthened to require more comprehensive pre-import risk screening 

that is not limited to only ‘‘novel, not already in trade’’ species as in the NAISA bill. 

The NAISA bill would only screen a few species per year and give a green light to 

about a thousand other species. 

As far as invasive plants and plant pests, both aquatic and terrestrial (e.g., including boreal forest pests), the Administration should support, strengthen, and finalize the current USDA Plant Protection and Quarantine proposal to dramatically 

strengthen our national pre-import screening of intentionally imported plants, 

known as the Quarantine 37 rule revision. 

Finally, our USDA (now Homeland Security) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife port inspection offices are woefully understaffed and under-resourced. We need more and 

better trained inspectors to identify and block potential harmful invaders at our 

ports of entry. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE PATRICK KENNEDY 

Regardless of whether or not we take actions to control and reduce green 

house gas emissions, wildlife and wildlife habitat and the ocean environment are going to change and adapt, often unpredictably, to a 

warming climate. Consequently, we should take steps now to develop 

strategies to allow for the future conservation of biodiversity and the 

maintenance of a healthy and resilient environment. 

1. Keeping in mind that any transition to a new ‘‘Green Economy’’ will take 

decades to achieve and that most Members of Congress will want to 

limit unnecessary disruptions of social and economic systems, can you 

be more specific on what practical types of adaptive management strategies we should consider to mitigate the negative effects of climate 

change on our collective wildlife and ocean resources? 

Adaptive management strategies necessary for mitigating climate change must be 

drawn from existing, commonly-recognized conservation tools as well as new approaches that are not yet fully developed, this latter category encouraged through 

appropriate research and development supported by federal legislation. 

For instance, adaptation strategies already available to us include reducing existing, non climate change-related threats to vulnerable species. Examples include reducing mortality, habitat protection (via economic incentives, conservation easements, land-use regulation), and restoration where appropriate. 

55

Examples of new adaptation strategies that are not yet ready for implementation, 

although they could be essential in our toolkit for climate change adaptation include: 1) assisted migration, translocation, and/or captive propagation, 2) accelerated 

immunization for wildlife diseases (e.g., West Nile virus), or 3) genetic modifications 

and engineering methods for climate change adaptations. 

Finally, public policies that encourage adaptations that jointly benefit humans 

and wildlife need to be identified and then implemented. One example of this would 

be when and where possible to facilitate coastal land uses that enable inward migration of both protected areas and regions of human settlement away from risk-prone 

zones. 

2. Should we be doing more to re-evaluate our current policies for land use 

planning and public acquisition of land for wildlife habitat? Should we 

be adopting a broader landscape and ecosystem-based approach for protecting wildlife? 

Of course we should be doing a great deal more. It makes no sense for each land 

management unit (e.g. park, forest, refuge) to develop wildlife adaptation strategies 

on their own. Greater assistance should be given to all the agencies and agencies 

should coordinate their management across jurisdictional boundaries. That is why 

Defenders believes a national strategy for assisting wildlife adapt to global warming 

is essential. 

All land and natural resource agencies should consider the present and future impacts of global warming when developing objectives and actions when they craft 

management plans. Although these planning processes vary in strength, public 

input, and duration across agencies, each agency could and we believe should be 

given more incentives from Congress to target their planning for climate change. 

Second, agencies should coordinate efforts to assemble available knowledge on climate change in order to assist their various operations around the country in obtaining current information and designing strategies to mitigate the worst of the anticipated effects. Also, agencies should convene a panel of experts to assist them in 

developing credible adaptation strategies for coastal marshes, the prairie pothole region, and other vulnerable habitats and systems. 

Third, because global warming will undoubtedly have a dramatic effect on many 

wildlife species and ecosystems, the natural resource agencies should take corrective 

action now to minimize all non-climatic related stressors on fish, wildlife, and habitat under their jurisdictions. This would include mitigating for or reducing harmful 

effects of fragmentation and roads on wildlife, or disturbances from among other 

things boats, pollution, other incompatible uses of conservation land, and so on. 

Fourth, climate change should be incorporated into all agency environmental education and interpretation programs. Visitors should learn of how global warming 

and climate change affect the nation’s wildlife and ecosystems. 

Finally, the expected effects of global warming and climate change should be incorporated into infrastructure design and planning, such as elevating and reinforcing buildings near the coast. 

3. Finally, how might such ideas be applied to the ocean and coastal environment and the wildlife therein? 

As mentioned above, far more attention needs to be directed at reducing risks 

(and thus costs to society) in the coastal zone. For public facilities, this could include 

better building codes for the extreme winds and waves expected from more intense 

storms (roughly analogous to earthquake coded-buildings in California). Certainly, 

public policy should not encourage (or at least reward) development that is sited in 

known risk zones. Some market-based solutions, such as much higher insurance 

premiums, might be appropriate. 

One general idea that I have often heard from natural resource professionals is 

to re-orient the pattern of coastal land use so as to facilitate a gradual movement 

of everything (refuges, protected areas, human infrastructure) inland as sea level 

rises and risks from intense coastal storms increase. In this scenario, incentives for 

orienting land uses perpendicular to the coast would be favored over those that 

blocked such adjustments and adaptations. 

56

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE HENRY BROWN, MINORITY 

RANKING MEMBER 

1. Dr. Haney, in your testimony you state: ‘‘In Guam, native wildlife is 

greatly threatened from accidental introduction of the non-native brown 

tree snake’’. Are you suggesting that global warming is somehow responsible for brown tree snake infestation? 

No, rather examples like accidental introduction of the brown tree snake can be 

expected to be more prevalent and more likely with climate change. As a recent report from our Military Advisory Board concluded, climate change acts as a ‘‘threat 

multiplier for instability...’’ For invasive, non-native species such as the brown tree 

snake, parts of our country once inhospitable to this species will become suitable 

for successful colonization as the climate warms. And the greater movements of people (including climate change refugees) and goods will act as vectoring forces to 

move more of these unwanted species around to places where they can be introduced. 

2. You also tell us that Defenders of Wildlife is ‘‘dedicated to the protection 

and restoration of all wild plants and animals’’. Does that include brown 

tree snakes? (If it doesn’t, what other species are not covered by this 

pronouncement) How much money has your organization donated in 

Guam to eliminate this terrible invasive species which has wiped out 

most native bird and lizard species? 

As my testimony stated, Defenders is dedicated to protection and restoration of 

all wild plants and animals in their native habitats. Clearly, brown tree snakes are 

not native to Guam. I do not know the total budget our organization has devoted 

to addressing threats from invasive, non-native species over the past 5 or more 

years, but it is considerable. Much of our international program’s efforts are devoted 

to limiting the risk of invasive species through monitoring of unregulated wildlife 

trade. Additional staffers from science, field conservation, and lands conservation 

also work to limit risks and threats from non-native species. 

3. Dr. Haney, on Page 4 of your testimony, you correctly noted that the latest IPCC report finds that sea levels would rise ‘‘From 7 to 23 inches 

over the next century’’. Hasn’t former Vice President Gore predicted 20 

foot rises in sea levels? Who is correct, the IPCC report or former Vice 

President Gore? 

Both or either may be correct. IPCC figures for the range in sea level rise are 

conservative. That is, they reflect a rise without any large-scale melting of ice caps 

and glaciers. However, ice cap and glacier melt, i.e., the disintegration of ice shelves 

and lubrication of glaciers by melt water, speed up the flow of ice into the oceans. 

But these are more difficult to model precisely due to more uncertainty in the parameters. Any accelerated melting of Antarctica or Greenland glaciers could raise 

sea levels by several meters, a figure in line with the predictions attributed to Gore. 

4. You state that: ‘‘For many species, global warming is the greatest threat 

to their survival’’. Wouldn’t that statement also be true if we were talking about a new ‘‘ice age’’? 

No. During the earth’s ice ages, there were always warm zone refuges where 

plants and animals survived. But when the entire planet warms, there are no or 

many fewer (and much smaller) comparable cold zone refugia where species adapted 

to these conditions can survive. Also, the rate of warming currently experienced is 

notably greater than the more gradual temperature changes experienced in the 

earth’s geological history. Moreover, past episodes of climate change on Earth occurred without the additional pressures on species from extensive human modifications. Therefore, species today have far less time and fewer places to make the sort 

of adjustments that they otherwise might be able to make. 

5. Do you agree with the statement that: ‘‘Coal is the cheapest and dirtiest 

source of energy around and...if we cannot get a handle on the coal 

problem, nothing else matters’’? Does your organization support a moratorium on coal-fired utilities? 

Our organization does not specialize in nor have as its mission developing or promoting a national energy policy, the technology of energy, or the costs/benefits (economic, environmental, or otherwise) of various energy alternatives. As far as I 

know, Defenders does not currently support a moratorium on any particular energy 

source. 

Furthermore, we stress that the nation cannot mitigate its way out of climate 

change impacts. By this I mean that while our treating the causes of climate change 

57

is essential (e.g., through cutting back on emissions), we still have to deal with the 

effects of climate change. In other words, we must use adaptation in concert with 

mitigation for a national strategy to work. Our fish, wildlife, and ocean resources 

cannot wait, either, for the mitigation to work; they need our help with adaptation 

now. 

6. Does your organization support reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050? How would you accomplish that goal? 

See above. Our organization does not specialize in nor have as its mission crafting 

a national energy policy, the technology of energy, or the costs/benefits (economic, 

environmental, or otherwise) of various energy sources. Given our specific mission 

to protect native plants and animals in their native habitats, our organization is emphasizing adaptation as an essential complement to mitigation in order to solve the 

problems of climate change. 

7. In response to a question during the hearing, you talked about the economic impact of hunting for migratory birds. Does Defenders of Wildlife 

support or oppose hunting? 

Because we focus our efforts on imperiled species, the issue of hunting rarely 

intersects with our activities and projects. Defenders of Wildlife does not perceive 

hunting to be a conservation threat (at least as practiced in the United States). We 

also recognize the immense contributions that sport hunting and fishing make to 

land and water conservation in the nation, thereby reinforcing the success of our 

mission. Several of our staff and/or their families hunt, of course, including the 

Chief Scientist. 

8. Do you or have you (or your organization) received any funding from 

the Pew Charitable Trust or the David and Lucille Packard Foundation? 

If so, please elaborate. 

We have a grant from the Packard Foundation for policy analysis related to the 

Endangered Species Act. As far as I know, we do not have (nor have we had recently) any support from the Pew Charitable Trusts. 

9. Are you currently a party to any law suit against the Department of the 

Interior or the Department of Commerce (or any of the agencies within 

these departments)? If so, please describe. 

The following is a list of cases on which we are a party against the Department 

of Interior or Commerce: 

• Defenders of Wildlife v. Gutierrez, No 05-2191 (right whale) 

• Butte Environmental Council v. Kempthorne, No 05-629 (vernal pools) 

• Stevens County v. DOI, No 06-156 (Little Pend Oreille - grazing) 

• Defenders of Wildlife v. Kempthorne, No 06-180 (Fl black bear) 

• American Bird Conservancy v. Kempthorne, No 06-02631 (red knot emergency 

listing) 

• Cary v. Hall, No 05-4363 (African antelope) 

• Communities fora Greater Northwest v. DOI, No 1:06-01842 (grizzly 

intervention) 

• State of Wyoming v. DOI, No 06-0245J (Wyoming wolf intervention) 

• Defenders of Wildlife v. Kempthorne, No 04-1230 (lynx) 

• Conservation Northwest v. Kempthorne, No 04-1331 (Cascades grizzly) 

• Defenders of Wildlife v. Kempthorne, No 05-99 (wolverine) 

• Tucson Herpetological Society v. Kempthorne, No 04-75 (flat-tailed horned lizard) 

• The Wilderness Society v. Kempthorne, No 98-2395 (National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska) 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE WAYNE GILCHREST 

1. If paleo-records show that corals existed in the past under high atmospheric CO2 concentrations, why is it a problem now? 

A specific and arguably unique concern for this particular epoch of climate change 

is the speed with which it is occurring. Some-to-many species that might be able 

to adjust otherwise over very long durations of change simply cannot adapt fast 

enough in this recent climate change era. 

In the case of relatively slow-growing corals, the sheer number of stressors from 

climate change may exceed their ability to adapt. For example, corals are subject 

to all of the following: 1) increasing sea levels with which their growth must meet 

in order to stay within the relatively shallow depths required by these marine species, 2) increased pollution from human coastal communities that were not present 

58

in previous climate change eras, and 3) increased ocean acidification which compromises their calcium dependency. 

2. Among the various effects of climate change to wildlife and the oceans, 

are there issues that are more pressing than the others? Why? 

It is my professional judgment that low-lying coastal zones are among the most 

vulnerable sites to extreme impacts from climate change. (These impacts include 

long-term sea-level rise, but also more frequent, intense storms, beach erosion, increased salinity, disrupted navigation). My reasoning on the importance of this issue 

stems from the sheer number of climate change impacts, their severity, and the importance to natural resources (including many of the nation’s commercial enterprises such as seafood and tourism) in these regions. 

3. In the U.S., as plant and animal species migrate north and to higher elevations, what does that mean for the regions they leave behind? For instance, it has been said that some U.S. states that border Canada might 

actually benefit from the next few decades of climate change, but what 

will it mean for the states further to the South, and especially those on 

the coast? 

My professional judgment is that some species will be able to move northward, 

and some subset of these will be able to thrive. Other species will not be able to 

move northward because the conditions apart from climate are not suitable for 

them. Two examples will illustrate. In Alaska, the east-to-west orientation of the 

Beaufort Sea will eventually block any and all terrestrial species from further northward movement. In the northern U.S. and Canada, the current agricultural bread 

baskets cannot survive moving north over the Canadian Shield because the soils 

there are unsuitable for farming. 

To be sure, there will be both winners and losers under climate change. However, 

I not aware of any analyses which indicate that on a net basis, the ‘‘winnings’’ from 

climate change impacts will compensate for the ‘‘losses,’’ even on a planetary scale 

(never mind for particular regions, like the U.S.). Some regions will experience disproportionately high impacts or losses. Just today (May 11, 2007), news accounts 

are reporting research that projects the eastern United States, including the South, 

will experience much higher summer temperatures than previously anticipated. 

4. How do shifts in habitat range of plants and animals affect human interests such as agriculture or the spread of invasive species and diseases? 

How can we adaptively plan for such changes? 

See answer to question #4, above. 

5. The IPCC reports with 80% certainty that the changes in water temperatures, ice cover, salinity and ocean circulation are impacting the ranges 

and migration patterns of aquatic organisms. How will this affect management and use of these resources, and how can we prepare for any 

changes? 

Because to some extent each species will react differently to climate change, the 

overarching preparation for climate change by the United States must embrace two 

goals: 1) mitigation of the causes behind climate change (emissions of greenhouse 

gases), and 2) adaptations to the effects of climate change. 

6. In the Chesapeake Bay, we are losing marshland to rising sea levels. Can 

you talk about what is happening to coastal wetland areas in other 

areas of the country and what that is doing to their ecosystems and the 

local economies that depend upon these natural resources? 

My specialty or area of expertise is primarily terrestrial wildlife. I would defer to 

other witnesses, especially on the second panel, who may possess greater familiarity 

with the regional differences in the response of coastal wetland areas to climate 

changes and/or the economic consequences of those responses. 

7. What role do marshlands play in sequestering carbon? Is marsh restoration a viable alternative in carbon sequestration? 

My specialty or area of expertise is primarily terrestrial wildlife. I would defer to 

other witnesses, especially on the second panel, who may have greater familiarity 

with biogeochemistry generally, and with marsh ecosystems specifically, for determining whether restoration was an effective alternative in carbon sequestration. 

Current research indicates that carbon sequestration may not be appropriate everywhere, and indeed in some cases may make the problem of global warming 

worse. For example, carbon budget estimates for the Arctic indicate that increased 

woody vegetation (trees, shrubs) growing in high-latitude areas that are now 

59

covered by tundra will actually accelerate warming (G. Bala et al. 2007. Combined 

climate and carbon-cycle effects of large-scale deforestation. Proceeds of the National 

Academy of Science 104(16): 6550-6555. This is because darker vegetation absorbs 

more heat, increasing surface temperatures, melting permafrost, causing less and 

shorter duration of snow cover, etc., thereby creating a negative feedback loop. 

8. The latest IPCC report warns that ocean acidification poses a threat to 

coral reefs and shell-forming organisms that form the base of the aquatic food chain. But the report says more study is needed to determine the 

full scope of the threat. What do we know about the potential impacts 

to U.S. coastal ecosystems today and how quickly is our understanding 

of acidification improving? What can Congress do to improve upon this 

understanding? Do we know enough to act? 

An arguably unique concern for this particular epoch of climate change is the 

speed with which the changes are occurring. Some-to-many species that might be 

able to adjust otherwise over very long durations of change simply cannot adapt fast 

enough in this era. 

In the case of relatively slow-growing corals, the sheer number of stressors from 

climate change may exceed their ability to adapt. For example, corals are subject 

to all of the following: 1) increasing sea levels with which their growth must meet 

in order to stay within the relatively shallow depths used by these marine species, 

2) increased pollution from human coastal communities that were not present in 

previous climate change eras, and 3) increased ocean acidification which compromises their calcium dependency. 

One means to help corals better adapt to climate change impacts would be to reduce the levels of coastal pollution and nutrient loading that may be contributing 

to bleaching and other stressors. 

9. What additional resources or tools will the Fish and Wildlife Service and 

National Marine Fisheries Service need to adequately prepare and address the impacts of global warming on wildlife over the next decade? 

The following are some of the resources, tools, or approaches that the Fish and 

Wildlife Service and/or National Marine Fisheries Service could benefit from when 

addressing climate change: 

1) Fund permanently a panel of experts to advise refuge and fisheries managers of adaptation strategies for dealing with the anticipated effects of 

climate change. Such panels would increase the scientific capacity of the 

FWS and NMFS with regard to climate change science. 

2) Establish an interagency planning and coordinating mechanism, a National Council on Global Warming and Wildlife (or Marine Systems). 

Modeled after the National Interagency Fire Center and the National 

Invasive Species Council, the National Council on Global Warming and 

Wildlife (or Marine Systems) would develop a national strategy for addressing the impact of global warming on fisheries, wildlife, and ecosystems, with the express purpose of helping natural resources navigate 

the bottleneck of global warming impacts over the next century. This 

strategy should examine management issues common to geographic 

areas and threat type (e.g. sea level rise, increased hurricane frequency 

and intensity). Individual agencies and land management units could 

then coordinate their management activities with these national and regional goals and strategies. State strategies, particularly those set forth 

in state wildlife action plans, should address global warming impacts on 

wildlife and also be coordinated with the national strategy. 

3) Develop spatially-explicit maps of expected plant community changes 

(USFWS) or shifts in bathymetry, currents, or other marine attributes 

(NMFS). Such maps would be valuable as resource managers seek to anticipate and then minimize ecosystem changes. 

10. We’ve heard a lot about the polar bear and the petition to list the species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Opponents of listing 

claim that the effects of global warming are in fact unclear. What evidence is there that global warming is already having a dramatic effect 

on the species across its range? How will an ESA listing help polar 

bears? 

There is no credible doubt that global warming and climate change have greatly 

decreased the extent of Arctic Ocean pack ice, the primary and essential habitat of 

polar bears. Indeed, since my testimony was delivered last month, the projections 

of pack ice loss have actually worsened, with estimates now that summer pack ice 

in the Arctic Ocean will disappear decades earlier than once forecast. 

60

ESA listing will assist polar bears by giving the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

more discretion over reducing other threats to polar bears, ones that are still within 

our control to influence and that will have immediate benefits while we await the 

results of our longer-term reductions in emissions. 

11. To date, climate legislation has largely focused on reducing greenhouse 

gas emissions to reduce the threat of global warming. In your testimony you state that even if emissions reductions are achieved, there 

will be a period of at least 100 years where the effects of global warming will continue to be felt, and our national response should include 

adaptation strategies as well as emissions reductions. Can you explain 

how the earth will continue to warm even if we reduce our emissions? 

Yes, all natural systems, including the Earth’s atmosphere, experience a variety 

of time lags related to inertia in function. 

With respect to greenhouse gases, some increased warming will continue because 

there is a lag between the atmospheric warming per se and the effects expressed 

in wildlife and ecosystems. For example, we currently are experiencing some effects 

from climate change from the emissions into the atmosphere that started long ago 

in the Industrial Revolution. 

Another component to the lag times is that other, non-human emissions of greenhouse gasses will continue even as we halt or even reverse our own contributions. 

For example, much carbon is stored in Arctic permafrost and other locations which, 

although currently ‘‘locked-up’’, will be released into the atmosphere as the climate 

warms. These thresholds, tipping points, and negative feedback loops are a major 

source of continued warming even if man-made sources are controlled. 

12. Your testimony portrays a dire picture for the future of wildlife in this 

country. What can be done to prevent species extinctions as the planet 

warms? What percent of the world’s species are at risk? 

Because to some extent each species will react differently to climate change, the 

overarching preparation for climate change by the United States must embrace two 

goals: 1) mitigation of the causes behind climate change (emissions of greenhouse 

gases), and 2) adaptation to the effects of climate change. 

Until very recently at least, the most comprehensive forecast for impacts of climate changes on global biodiversity was made in 2004 (Thomas C.D. et al. 2004. 

Extinction risk from climate change. Nature 427: 145-148). This study Analyzed distributions of 1103 species of animals and plants from various parts of the world, 

and found that 15-37% of species are likely to go extinct based on the best projections of future climate change. 

13. In your view, what should the Fish and Wildlife Service be doing to 

prepare for global warming on national wildlife refuges and in its endangered species and migratory bird programs? 

Refuges 

First, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) should consider the present and 

future impacts of global warming when developing objectives and management actions in the Comprehensive Conservation Planning (CCP) process. 

Second, the FWS Division of Conservation Planning and Policy could coordinate 

efforts to assemble available knowledge on climate change in order to assist refuges 

around the country in obtaining current information and designing strategies to 

mitigate the worst of the anticipated effects. Also, the FWS should convene a panel 

of experts to assist refuges in developing adaptation strategies for coastal marshes 

and other habitats, including the prairie pothole region. 

Third, in recognition that global warming will undoubtedly have a dramatic effect 

on many wildlife species and ecosystems, the FWS should take action now to minimize all non-climatic related stressors on refuge lands and wildlife. This would include mitigating for or reducing the harmful effects of fragmentation and roads on 

wildlife, among other things (boats, pollution, other incompatible uses of refuges, 

e.g.). 

Fourth, global warming should be incorporated into all refuge environmental education and interpretation programs. Visitors should learn of how global warming 

and climate change are affecting the refuge’s wildlife and ecosystems. 

Finally, the expected effects of global warming and climate change should be incorporated into infrastructure design and planning, such as elevating buildings and 

other structural reinforcements near the coast. 

Endangered Species 

The FWS should incorporate global warming into recovery plans. 

61

Migratory Birds 

The FWS should carefully monitor migratory bird populations and design monitoring strategies that can detect changes caused by global warming. Waterfowl 

hunting levels should be adjusted accordingly. 

The FWS should inform the Migratory Bird Commission of its monitoring and research on changes in migratory bird populations, habitats, and behavior and recommend changes in land acquisition strategies to conserve migratory birds carried 

out by the Commission. 

14. The melting of arctic sea ice is well known, but I was interested to read 

in your testimony that wetlands in the arctic are also being impacted—

literally drying up. Can you explain this process and what are the impacts on migratory bird populations? What portion of U.S. birds relies 

on wetlands in the arctic? 

The process of drying in Arctic wetlands occurs via two principal drivers. First, 

as the permafrost melts, the hard ‘‘pan’’ that underlies shallow wetlands in this region disappears, so the water simply drains away. Second, because much of the Arctic is essentially a desert with respect to annual precipitation, the marshy, boggy 

terrain was sustained historically because rates of evaporation did not exceed rates 

of precipitation. Now, however, the higher temperatures and reduced albedo (lower 

reflective properties in Arctic are due to ice/snow loss), this balance is disrupted, 

and more water is lost to the atmosphere. 

Some migratory bird species in the U.S. (e.g., Spectacled and Steller’s eiders) are 

entirely dependent on Arctic wetlands. For another set of species, most of the population breeds in the Arctic (e.g., the increasingly threatened Red Knot). Finally, for 

yet other species, a large proportion breeds in the Arctic (e.g., Northern Pintail). 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Dr. Haney. 

Consistent with Committee Rule 3[c], the Chairwoman will now 

recognize Members for any questions they may wish to ask the witnesses, alternating between Majority and Minority and allowing 

five minutes each for each Member. Should Members need more 

time, we will have a second round of questions. 

Before I recognize the first Member of the committee or the 

Ranking Member, I wish to ask a couple of questions myself. The 

first question is to Mr. McKibben. I want to thank you and all the 

witnesses for your excellent testimonies this morning. 

In the report on your latest efforts, Mr. McKibben, to organize 

peaceful protests for action to address climate change, you note 

that people across the country are concerned, informed and energized, but are there specific action items other than the goal to reduce carbon emissions that they are calling for? Does protection of 

wildlife and wildlife habitat resonate as a priority? 

Second, oftentimes critics of climate change label people concerned about the issue as alarmist or naı ́ve about the economic and 

social costs of addressing the challenge. In your estimation, Mr. 

McKibben, are the people who recently demonstrated around the 

country uninformed about the tradeoffs, or are these people aware 

of the scope and the complexity of the problem? 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. Those are very good questions. First in response 

to the question of whether or not people take wildlife and habitat 

seriously as a part of this phenomenon, I think the answer is very 

clearly yes. 

Around the country, among other things, as we have looked at 

these photographs one of the things we have noticed and everybody 

who took part in these demonstrations, one of the things they did 

was upload that day to our website a photograph and so there are 

now 1,400 or something of these pictures rotating through in a 

62

slide show on that website. You have many of those pictures from 

your districts in front of you today. 

One of the things we noticed was that there were an awful lot 

of people in polar bear costumes at various places around the country. Another thing we noticed, and I hope you will get the chance 

to go on the website and click the video that shows maybe the single most beautiful of all these demonstrations, a group of scuba 

divers underwater off the Florida Keys with that same banner, 80 

percent by 2050. 

In response to the question of particular mechanisms that people 

are hoping to—the most important thing we think at the moment 

is for Congress to finally set real and long-term targets with a detailed agenda to get going quickly on them. 

The reason for that is that having done that will send the necessary signal into our economic community, enough of a signal that 

carbon will no longer be a free good in the atmosphere, that the 

series of investment decisions and things that follow for the next 

40 years will begin to have a kind of virtuous effect. Certain things 

will begin to happen. 

Now, we know what some of the things are that cannot happen 

if we are ever to meet that goal, and chief among them and one 

of the things that people brought up at a number of these protests 

was the need not to put on-line these 150 coal-fired power plants 

in one stage or another of being on the books in this country. I 

think that that was a very clear consensus. 

As to whether people are either naı ́ve or alarmist in these demonstrations, I think the answer is clearly no. In fact, what has been 

very nice is to see the kind of naı ́vete begin to disappear, the idea 

that somehow the rules or the laws of physics and chemistry might 

not apply to the United States or that we might be able to avoid 

dealing with the molecular structure of carbon dioxide; that that 

naı ́vete ́ is finally beginning to disappear. 

Far from being alarmist, I think people are exceedingly realistic. 

They know that this will be a difficult job in order to wean our 

economy away from fossil fuels. They are also, however, confident, 

and I think confident in a very American way, that it is possible 

to put ourselves to this task and accomplish a good deal. 

One of the things that we heard over and over again was a kind 

of expression of dismay at the almost un-American timidity of 

those who say that it is impossible to deal with this problem or 

that we have to go exceedingly slowly or that it will put us out of 

business or whatever it is. 

We have a problem. People understand that we have a problem, 

that that problem derives from basic laws of physics and chemistry 

and that we better roll up our sleeves and get to work solving it. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. 

McKibben. 

I think the Chair now would like to go ahead and recognize the 

Ranking Member if he has questions for the witnesses. 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

To continue that same dialogue, Mr. McKibben, I know we talked 

about what Congress can do to get us through this problem. We are 

talking about cutting I guess the emissions by 80 percent by 2050 

or somewhere thereabouts. 

63

What can we do as individuals? I mean, it is easy for Congress 

to mandate. Should we mandate that everybody has one car and 

it takes 40 miles to the gallon or maybe it is all electric, or you 

can only drive with four people in the car? Maybe we all should go 

to mass transit. 

I mean, it is limited what the Federal government can do and so 

we have to be careful of what we ask the Federal government to 

mandate on our quality of life. 

We mention about coal powered, and we recognize there is some 

abuse, but we recognize too that industry has been doing a lot, putting scrubbers in and converting some of the byproducts into other 

materials and so I know industry is working collectively to try to 

do something. I don’t know about mandating them, how that might 

work, if we could develop tax credits or some other incentives to 

get us through that. 

Tell me what we as individuals could do? In fact, as I have heard 

the testimony from Dr. Lawler about the forestry, I was hoping he 

would bring in some injection of some kind of a reinforcement of 

what we can do proactively as citizens. Maybe we could plant more 

trees or do something else to help with the climate change rather 

than trying to address the issue through a second person. 

Anyway, I am anxious to hear either one of your comments on 

that. 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. Let me speak first. I think that the question 

about intrusive Federal mandates is a good one, and I think that 

it is one of the reasons why Congress would be well advised to try 

to set an overarching architecture for what is going to happen over 

the next 50 years so that then to some degree anyway the market 

could do the work. 

If you set a cap on carbon and begin to rachet it down, that signal will spread throughout the economy, and we will begin to get 

some of these changes that we need. 

The example that you give of scrubbers on coal-fired power 

plants is a very good example. That sort of thing is what happened 

20 years ago for sulfur and nitrogen compounds and is one of the 

reason we have begun to see those declines. 

Nothing like that has been done as it regards carbon dioxide, the 

global warming gas, and as a result those emissions in our economy continue to increase one percent a year, year after year after 

year, despite the scientific wisdom that we have come across. 

Now, there are important mandates that need to be made that 

only Congress can make that will begin to accomplish some of 

these goals. You mentioned some of them. Clearly we need an increase in automobile mileage standards. The average car coming off 

the assembly line today gets poorer gasoline mileage than the car 

that Henry Ford was pulling off his assembly line in the 1920s and 

the 1930s. 

That is pretty shocking, and it is not a good sign at all. We have 

the technology to easily produce cars that get much better than the 

40 mile per gallon figure that you estimate, and we should get to 

work on it. 

If we begin to make large-scale, targeted plans for the future 

then some of these changes will begin to make themselves and 

lessen some of the need for directed mandates, but that is not to 

64

underestimate the degree of work that it is going to take in order 

to accomplish this transition. 

Mr. BROWN. Let me interject. I know my time has just about 

slipped away. 

On the second panel we have Dr. Sharp, and he is going to testify in his written statement that manmade levels of carbon dioxide 

are only three percent of the global carbon cycle. 

Do you agree with that number? If so, are you suggesting reducing the manmade carbon dioxide by 80 percent? How are we going 

to handle nature’s influence? 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. I do agree with that number, and I am suggesting that. 

As I think the rest of the panel will indicate, the natural world 

was fairly well balanced for carbon before the injection of anthropogenic CO2 in the wake of the industrial resolution. It is that added 

increment that is now piling up in the atmosphere and causing 

these changes. 

Since we are unlikely to be able to legislate away volcanos, it 

probably makes more sense to legislate those things that we can 

control, our own actions. 

Mr. BROWN. I know my time has expired, but I know the influence that we are going to have from the emerging nations like 

China and India with all of their unregulated power plants or 

whatever. 

There is going to be an influence, and somehow or another we 

have to get a national policy directed and be careful of how we address just the United States. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you. 

The Chair now would like to recognize Mr. Kildee, the gentleman 

from Michigan. 

Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. Medina, I shared dinner and conversation with the Russian 

Ambassador last night, and he and your 10-year-old son would 

agree on the polar bear should they get a conversation. 

The Russians recognize that the polar bears are moving further 

south because of the climactic changes taking place now. In their 

own history, that is something new also. It was very interesting. 

Out of the mouths of young people has perfected wisdom. 

Dr. Haney, a question directly to you, but anyone may answer 

this. The Great Lakes, when I live in Michigan, have already been 

affected by invasive species brought about by human activity. We 

have the zebra mussel, which is very costly to us; the emerald ash 

borer, which is devastating our ash trees. 

What effects might we expect with climactic changes? What effects will it have on invasive species in the Great Lakes, the introduction of invasive species? If you want to go beyond that on the 

lake levels and forest health and agricultural health? 

Dr. HANEY. Well, there could be several. One of the expectations 

of global change generally is that there will be more movement and 

transport of peoples. We have already seen that through other 

kinds of globalization. 

So there is a high likelihood that more nonnative species are 

simply going to get moved around from one place to another, giving 

65

them the opportunity to establish. That is because we are more active all around the planet. 

Another potential impact on the Great Lakes is that the changing temperature of the water will make the Great Lakes more acceptable or suitable or vulnerable to species that aren’t native to 

that freshwater ecosystem, so whereas 50 years ago they might not 

have been able to thrive there they can today. 

Another potential impact, although I realize this is more longer 

term and somewhat speculative, is that as the planet’s freshwater 

resources get redistributed the Great Lakes are going to look very 

appealing as a place essentially to mine fresh water. 

Any of those things can act to—and if increased ships come in 

from other places to take out the freshwater, they are going to 

bring in their ballasts or on the hulls of the ships new species that 

might have the potential to establish themselves. 

Mr. KILDEE. The two largest bodies of freshwater in the world 

would be our Great Lakes and Lake Baikal in Russia. There was 

always a temptation to draw from those freshwater bodies I know. 

I think you had a response also? 

Dr. ROOT. I actually was at the University of Michigan for 14 

years, and I did a bit of studying on how global warming was going 

to affect the state. The lake levels are indeed going to drop, and 

that is going to hurt the fish nurseries that occur around the edges. 

The other thing it is going to do is it is going to increase the pollution content of the lakes because the pollution is not going to be 

going out, the heavy metals and the like. Right now you can eat 

whitefish what, once a week from the Lakes. You probably will not 

be able to eat any from the Lakes after there has been quite a drop 

in the lake levels. 

I just wanted to also agree with Chris in saying that the increase 

in population in Michigan is something that they are really quite 

concerned about because people are going to be moving up to 

Michigan because of the water. 

Thank you. 

Mr. KILDEE. Dr. Lawler, you had some response also? 

Dr. LAWLER. Yes. I was going to give you potentially one or two 

examples of invasive species changing with climate change. 

One is the mountain pine beetle in the western United States, 

which can devastate large stands of pine. It has moved up into 

pines that it didn’t used to work on, it didn’t used to affect, white 

bark pine at high elevations. 

In so doing, it has had sort of a cascade of ecological effects. By 

knocking out those pines, by killing off those pines, it devastates 

one of the winter food sources for grizzly bears and so it can have 

an effect on the pine trees. It can have an additional effect on 

grizzly bears. 

That is sheerly due to warming, so as the temperatures warm 

the beetle has been able to move up slope. It has been able to move 

into trees it hasn’t been in before. It is also moving northward into 

Canada, and there is fear that it will connect to pine populations 

that go across northern Canada, and it may even make its way into 

the eastern U.S., so invasive species will move as well as our basic 

wildlife species. 

Mr. KILDEE. So we are already seeing that? 

66

Dr. LAWLER. We are already seeing changes in invasive species. 

Mr. KILDEE. I thank you very much. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kildee. 

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Gilchrest. 

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Welcome to all 

the witnesses this morning. 

I was going to say something to my colleague from South Carolina, and maybe even you can give us some recommendations on 

novices reading good information about the scientific data collected 

over decades dealing with this issue unbiased from any industry or 

political source. I think that it is vital for us to act boldly and not 

be dysfunctional with an issue that is so potentially catastrophic. 

The comment I wanted to make was that I learned recently an 

interesting little tidbit. Sometimes these little tidbits give us insight. We put more CO2 into the atmosphere from burning fossil 

fuel in any one given year than it took nature a million years to 

lock up that same amount of CO2. I tested that tidbit any one of 

a number of times, and it has always proven to be accurate. 

My colleague, Roscoe Bartlett from western Maryland, made an 

interesting statement/insight into this issue, a clearer image so we 

could look at it. He said if you had a scale with 1,000 pounds on 

each side—this is in reference to we are contributing three percent 

of the CO2. If you have a scale with 1,000 pounds on each side and 

it is balanced, you add one pound to one side, which is extraordinarily tiny, and it goes off balance. To some extent, that is what 

we are doing. 

The other thing, we are talking about environmental concerns 

here, and there are many environmental concerns, but it is also an 

economic issue. As long as we are not energy independent, our 

economy will be virtually sluggish in the international global marketplace. 

New, innovative, bold technology will rise the U.S., not only becoming a green nation, not only leading the world in this issue, but 

we will have the innovative technology that the world will want. 

The last thing is national security. We get our fuel source from 

very, very unfriendly, unstable areas of the world, so if we look at 

the issue of climate change it is environmental, it is economic, and 

it is national security. 

We have a Climate Stewardship Act that I will not go into much 

detail today, but it does push for that reduction by 2050 to 70 or 

80 percent below 1990 levels, and if you look at that a little bit further you will see that the scientific data is clear that we do not 

want to go beyond that threshold of 450 or 500 ppm of CO2 because 

then we are not sure what the climate change is going to be, the 

catastrophic events that will occur after that, not to mention what 

is happening right now with the piling up of CO2. 

The question I have, and I have three questions if I could get 

into them. Maybe we will have a second round. I apologize for my 

soap box. If we look at the Canadian and the U.S. border, what do 

we see as changes there? The Chinese-Russian border? What do we 

see as changes there? Coastal areas like Maryland, the Chesapeake 

Bay, and the coast area of South Carolina, for example? Southern 

regions like Brazil, Central America? 

67

Can you give a quick response as to wildlife in those regions? I 

know you need about a three hour timeframe. I have probably a 

minute and a half left. 

Dr. LAWLER. I can give you just some stories that relate at least 

to my research. 

Some of the biggest changes in wildlife will likely be in the tropical regions, particularly in terms of sheer numbers of species. That 

is where the most species are. The changes even with my model, 

some of the most drastic changes show 300 to 600 species changing 

position in certain areas. That is from a reduced set of species, not 

all the species that are there. 

So the biggest changes will likely occur in the tropics for the reasons that, one, there are more species, and, two, that is where some 

of the biggest climate change is expected to be seen, the tropics and 

the high latitudes. 

In terms of borders, some interesting things will happen. Species 

will move across borders. Sometimes diseases will move across borders. Invasive species, as we were talking about, will move across 

borders. Also species that we care about and national treasures 

may also move across borders and no longer be ours, so to speak, 

so those are changes that we will see in terms of wildlife at borders. 

The disease might be the most disturbing to me I think, seeing 

new diseases come from countries to the south and diseases moving 

into countries to the north. 

Mr. GILCHREST. Dr. Root? 

Dr. ROOT. I have no time left. 

Mr. GILCHREST. Sorry. 

Dr. ROOT. May I answer, Madam Chairwoman? 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes. 

Dr. ROOT. Thank you. Thank you. 

One of the main things that I think is going to be going on with 

species is that they are shifting their ranges. They are going north 

in North America. We have already seen that. I have seen it in 

Michigan. The work that I did in Michigan was looking at the 

Upper Peninsula, and there was a very strong shifting that is going 

on. 

Actually that is wrong. Some of these species are shifting up. 

Others are not. That actually is the concern because you are going 

to have this tearing apart of the biotic interactions that we have 

right now, kind of the balancing of nature. When you tear apart 

these predator/ prey relationships, what is going to happen? The 

prey is going to go up in abundance. 

Now, what happens if that is a bug that eats our agricultural 

crops? We will be concerned. What if it is a bug that pollinates our 

agricultural crops? That will be wonderful. So what we need to do 

is figure out how each of these species is going to be moving because they are going to be moving differentially. 

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. We could have a second round, Mr. 

Gilchrest, if you would like to ask further questions. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. 

Kennedy. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

68

I want to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman 

from Maryland on his work. He has been outstanding on issues of 

ocean protection, and it has been a pleasure working with him to 

try to put protection of our nation’s oceans and the world’s oceans 

on more of a priority. 

In that regard, we have tried to focus on looking at all of our 

oceans policy as it is affected by each of our agencies, and it seems 

to me when we are talking about this is that we have to look at 

a global kind of agency to start to bring together this global strategy of how we are going to look at this. If it is going to affect every 

nation, every nations’ policy is going to be impacting this. 

What are you all proposing in terms of how the United States 

can lead in the way of setting up more as the United Nations effective at all through their efforts as the World Bank? World Bank is 

obviously a great tool for when it is lending. It lends to these developing nations on certain criteria. It can have an enormous impact 

if those criteria include following the dictates of certain developmental criteria and so forth and so on. 

I mean, we have to think a lot bigger than our little corner of 

the earth, because of course this is not us. This is the whole world. 

What are we doing? What can we do to propose something that establishes something bigger? 

We have the World Bank, but it is really controlled. We have a 

managing control of it. I mean, it is really great. We have other institutions that we have great influence on. I mean, these are the 

kinds of things we need to have strong recommendations from 

groups like yours in order to make a profound impact. I mean, that 

is what we need from all of you. 

In terms of getting a sense of what the real budgets are going 

to need to be in place in order to manage these changes, we are 

going to need more specifics. I mean, it is not enough just to say 

we are going to need more in the budgets for managing fish and 

wildlife. 

I mean, we are going to need to know what instructs us in terms 

of what the order of magnitude is going to be in terms of managing 

the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife and how is that going to instruct 

what our budget is going to be. 

You know, give us some more tangible things to go on here because we need to come up with specifics. It is not good enough right 

here for us to talk about it because we all get it. I mean, I appreciate the fact that you don’t think that we are doing enough, but, 

quite frankly, we are reacting to the American public. 

When you are saying you have trouble getting 1,000 people together for a march and it has taken this long for you to get it and 

you are the first person to come up with a book in 1987, frankly 

that points to the problem. The American people haven’t been. 

We are just a reflection of the American people, and the fact that 

they haven’t been screaming about this has been tragically the reason why their democracy hasn’t worked for them is because they 

haven’t demanded more from their representative government. 

Until you give us some specifics in terms of what you need us 

to do, we are going to be floundering out here in terms of just talking about it. I don’t think that is going to do us a lot of good. 

69

Mr. MCKIBBEN. Let me respond to the larger question and then 

I think to the more detailed budget questions. 

You should know that Americans now are screaming for just this 

kind of action. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I understand that. 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. It will be interesting to see what kind of response that gets. Your question——

Mr. KENNEDY. Let me just say this. This is not to me calling on 

me for global change. I don’t get that many calls. I can honestly 

tell you, I do not get that many people calling my office on environmental——

Mr. MCKIBBEN. We will do our best to make sure that you get 

more. 

Mr. KENNEDY. I have a 100 percent voting record on the environment, so it is not as if——

Mr. MCKIBBEN. That may be why they don’t call you. This question goes directly to something that Mr. Brown asked too, which 

was a very wise question, which is how we get the entire world involved in this situation. 

Of all the reasons that it is important for this Congress to take 

dramatic steps to begin reducing American carbon emissions, perhaps the most important is that it will give us some credibility 

again in the international negotiations that need to go on quickly 

in order to produce a worldwide response. 

The United States and China in particular have served as each 

other’s enablers for the last six years in making sure that no action 

takes place. Since we are the historical giant in contributing carbon 

emissions to the world, it will be once you all do something about 

this that you will be able then perhaps—perhaps—to engage China 

and India and the rest of the developing world, but that waits on 

credible action in this country, and that is something that people 

increasingly understand. 

Mr. KENNEDY. No question. We have to have our own credibility. 

We have to walk the walk before we talk the talk. I understand 

that, but it would be helpful to begin to understand that we need 

to get some specific recommendations. 

This hearing is about trying to decide what our authorization 

should be in terms of a bill and what projected budgets we need 

for the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife, for example, so we need 

specifics. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Ms. Medina? 

Ms. MEDINA. If I could jump in? 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes. 

Ms. MEDINA. I am sorry to keep extending this time, but I think 

this is an excellent question, Congressman Kennedy. 

I want to say first in reaction to your question about whether the 

public is behind you on this, I guess I as a citizen and as a member 

of a group that activates citizens that sometimes leaders have to 

lead and that this is a difficult problem that is complex. 

We, the public, I think are looking to you as our representatives 

to lead and to take the steps that we may not as one individual 

in the public be able to take in terms of policies. 

I think what you are seeing, though, is that the public cares 

more about this and is doing things like buying those lightbulbs 

70

and hybrid cars and using their consumer power to change their 

behavior, and hopefully with more education and more leadership 

from our leaders in Congress people will be able to do more. 

That also means turning that leadership outward toward the rest 

of the world. I just attended a symposium in New York last week 

at the U.N. on whale conservation. There is a little known body 

called the International Whaling Commission that governs all commercial whaling, and it actually has a moratorium right now in effect on commercial whaling, which has been totally undermined by 

certain whaling nations who whale in the guise of science. 

I believe there are international institutions out there, and there 

are a number of them dealing with Arctic species, that cut across 

international borders and require international cooperation now, 

and what you as our leaders can do is reenergize those bodies to 

get to work and to do the hard work of figuring out how to take 

actions right away to conserve these species. 

You don’t have to invent anything new. There are lots of good 

ideas out there. I have heard one that I particularly like from the 

Progressive Policy Institute that calls for an E-8, an environmental 

group of eight large nations that might be able to come together 

and bring some of the most powerful nations and some small nations too into a more limited or small debate to begin to address 

some of these issues. 

I believe, Congressman Kennedy, there are lots of great ideas out 

there and that it is difficult to sort through them all, but that with 

political will and leadership by the Congress we can get it done. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Medina. 

The Chair would now like to recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Capps. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you. I congratulate you, Madam Chair, on 

putting together such an excellent panel, and I thank our witnesses 

for really doing a fabulous job today. 

With just five minutes, I want to divide the time in two and ask 

more specific questions to Dr. Haney about Hawaiian monk seals 

and to Dr. Root about migratory birds. 

So if I could start, Dr. Haney, last year President Bush designated the northwest Hawaiian Islands as the largest national 

marine monument in the world. These islands are the chief breeding and resting places for rare Hawaiian monk seals. 

Less than 50 years ago, a group of low lying islets called the 

French Frigate Shoals covered about 110 acres. Today only about 

38 acres are left. What should we expect to happen to these Hawaiian monk seals if these beaches continue to disappear under rising 

seas? Perhaps you want to include other wildlife as well. 

Dr. HANEY. Well, that is an excellent question, Congresswoman, 

and it illustrates very well some of the unintended consequences 

that can happen when we think that a species might just be able 

to move to a new site and be fine. 

The Hawaiian monk seal has been gravely threatened for some 

time. It has had a very small population for the better part of the 

last century, and the fear, the specific concern, about the Hawaiian 

monk seal is that as these low lying islets, coral atolls and beaches, 

as they become inundated the seals may move to larger islands. 

71

But in so doing they subject themselves to potential predation by 

sharks, so they have really moved out of their comfort zone, the 

place where their prey, their resting sites, their haul out sites is 

all toward their welfare and into a kind of a new scenario. 

That illustrates the dilemma of managing as a nation for climate 

change. It is important to keep in mind that we need to think in 

two tracks. We need to treat the emissions. 

That is something that we have to work on globally, but when 

it comes to mitigating the effects now that is something that we 

have in our control as a nation to do, and it is what Congressman 

Kennedy referred to as what sort of tools do agencies need. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Right. Thank you so much. I know we could go on 

about this, but you highlight something which we need to focus on, 

and I hope we can in the Subcommittee, which is adaptation strategies. That is a whole other topic, I know. 

I want to also touch on migratory birds. Dr. Root, Dr. Haney 

noted in his statement that wetlands in the Arctic are literally drying up and that this could have a significant impact on migratory 

birds. 

What portion of U.S. birds relies on wetlands in the Arctic for 

part of their life cycles, and do you agree that the loss or change 

of Arctic habitat will have or maybe already does have an overall 

negative impact on migratory birds? 

Dr. HANEY. For some species the entire world population is in 

the Arctic, and for some of them the entire population is essentially 

in Alaska. A spectacle lighter would be an example, some of the 

other sea ducks. 

You know, other waterfowl species use lots of states. They use 

the Canadian prairies, the U.S. prairies and Alaska, and what is 

interesting is that, for example, northern pintails, when the prairie 

states are dried up they just keep going because historically they 

have always been able to find wetlands more reliably further north 

because essentially even though the Arctic is a desert, the evaporation is so low that the wetlands in the permafrost keep the water 

from draining away. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Right. 

Dr. HANEY. It maintains a nice balance. Now we have disrupted 

that. The permafrost is melting. Those wetlands are draining. The 

heat has gone up, so the water is disappearing into the——

Mrs. CAPPS. Is this already happening? 

Dr. HANEY. It is already happening. In fact, there was a really 

interesting study—I don’t even know if it is out in print yet; it was 

in press the last time I looked—documenting a 30 to 40 percent reduction in Arctic wetlands. 

So depending on which kind of migratory bird we are talking 

about, the entire population may be dependent upon it or 80 percent or 30 percent, but to some extent these are the key nursery 

areas for a billion dollar sport hunting industry that is very important in this country. 

The birds that we see in the wintertime, many of them come 

from the far north. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you. 

Do you want to add? 

72

Dr. ROOT. Because I didn’t really know the percentages that you 

asked me for, but I did do a study of the prairie pothole region, 

which is around Minnesota and into Canada, and 50 percent of our 

wild waterfowl actually breeds in that area. 

I have done a study that shows that if we go up to and above 

three degrees C from preindustrial that that is going to drop to 

probably about 12 percent because it is not going to have the water 

and the light to be able to have the nest there. As Dr. Haney was 

saying, they fly up. They continue to go, continue to go. They are 

not going to be able to find anything. 

The other migratory birds that are not going all the way up that 

are actually stopping in Michigan and things like that, they also 

are having quite an effect already. We have seen a lot of them already moving north, and that is a concern in the northeast because 

there are three different species of warblers that feed on spruce 

budworm caterpillars, and they have already shifted up. 

We are already seeing stresses on trees because the caterpillars 

are going up in abundance, so there really is this connection between predator and prey. It is really quite important. 

Thank you. 

Mrs. CAPPS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. BORDALLO. I would like to thank the gentlelady from California and remind the Members here that we will go to a second 

round of questions. However, we do have a second panel to hear 

from so it is up to you if you wish to ask further questions. 

I have one for Dr. Root. Regardless of whether or not we take 

actions to control and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, the 

consistent theme running through all of your statements this morning is that wildlife and wildlife habitat are going to change due to 

the warming climate. 

Can we be more specific on what practical types of adaptive management strategies we should consider to mitigate the negative effects of climate change on wildlife? Should we be doing more to 

evaluate our current policies for land acquisition? Should we be 

adopting broader landscape approaches such as developing migratory corridors to allow wildlife to access suitable habitat? 

Even if it is remotely possible that all the current global climate 

change models are wrong, would it not make more sense to implement these concepts now to enhance our conservation of wildlife 

and preserve other valuable ecosystem functions? Dr. Root? 

Dr. ROOT. Thank you. I would actually like to add one comment 

to Congressman Gilchrest’s list that you gave as far as economic 

issues, national security issues. I actually also think that this is an 

ethical issue, and I think that we as one species do not have the 

right to cause the extinction of other species. 

So getting to your question, it is exactly right. How can we do 

something to help these species? Something that California has 

come up with is a nonsolid border preservation so that as things 

are moving the area that is actually being preserved goes with the 

species. 

Now, where we have done that is along the coast because we 

don’t know where the coastline is going to be, so we don’t want to 

have a set definition. What is happening is it is going back and 

forth. 

73

That is easier because it is on the coastline, but I do believe that 

what we need to be doing is something very crazy, something like 

that, because we don’t have land around to say OK, we are going 

to save this, and we are going to save this, and we are going to 

save this. 

If we could have a preserved area that goes north to south that 

would be great instead of doing it east to west, but we don’t have 

the land so if we can somehow hook onto the species instead of the 

land and help the species going as they are moving, I think that 

may be one way. 

I actually think that that could work in other countries, too. It 

is not easy, but I think it could work. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Root. 

Mr. Brown, do you have follow-up? 

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. This has been a very 

interesting discussion, and I certainly appreciate the panel being 

here. 

I think we need to define exactly how we are going to be able 

to reduce this two percent or get down to 80 percent in 45 years. 

I know the population of the world today is about what, 6.5 million? 

Dr. ROOT. Billion. 

Mr. BROWN. Billion, right. 6.5 billion. In four to five years, what 

do you think the population of the planet will be then? 

Dr. ROOT. Eight billion. 

Mr. BROWN. Eight billion? 

Dr. ROOT. The more I think about it, nine billion. 

Mr. BROWN. Nine billion. That is going to be a major I guess task 

that we are going to have to deal with is how are we going to be 

able to fit in three billion more people in that period of time at the 

same time as we try to control I guess the output from industry 

or the output from man. I mean, we create a lot of I guess carbon 

dioxide ourselves as we breathe, so that has to be some influence. 

Let me see if I can get some kind of resolve from you all as to 

how you might resolve this. Would you all be in favor of saying 

that we would put a moratorium on no new coal-fired utility generating stations? Would you all agree that would be a good thing? 

Dr. ROOT. As far as no new? Yes, I would agree to that, but I 

don’t think that what we can do is tear down the ones that may 

already be built. 

Mr. BROWN. OK. So you would be willing to just keep the status 

quo, but don’t permit any new ones. 

What would you all suggest then would be the next alternate 

substitute for those coal-fired plants? We are going to have three 

billion more people, so demand for energy is going to continue to 

be a situation we have to deal with. 

Dr. ROOT. Sure. I think what we need to be doing is putting more 

money into researching how you do solar and wind. That would be 

quite a strong thing to do. 

If we could take the subsidies off of the coal and actually put 

that money into research to try and figure out how we can increase 

the wind and the solar, I think it would make a big difference. 

Mr. BROWN. Let me go back to my original question. Could I get 

each one of you all to respond to that coal problem that we have? 

74

I really do feel we have to find some workable solution. I don’t 

think we can just mass produce two percent reduction a year for 

40 years or whatever that number is going to come. Just say yes 

or no if you would. 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. I thought you wanted some ideas. 

Mr. BROWN. No. First I want to know if you all are going to support doing a moratorium on any new coal plants. 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. Yes. 

Mr. BROWN. OK. Dr. Lawler? 

Dr. LAWLER. Yes, I would support it. 

Mr. BROWN. OK. Dr. Root? 

Dr. ROOT. Yes. 

Mr. BROWN. OK. 

Ms. MEDINA. As an individual, yes, but my organization isn’t involved in deciding——

Mr. BROWN. I understand. I understand. 

Ms. MEDINA. As an individual, yes. 

Mr. BROWN. As Members of Congress, we have to find a solution. 

We all know the problem, and we just have to find solutions. I am 

just trying to get some kind of support from you all exactly what 

it is you might have to come up with a workable solution to this 

increase. 

Yes, sir? 

Dr. HANEY. Well, the most honest answer, Congressman, is I 

don’t know, and I would not be able to answer it yes or no. It would 

depend upon are we talking about the world? Are we talking about 

this country? 

I mean, for me to say yes and then have the rest of the world 

go in a different direction, I would be wasting all of our time. 

Mr. BROWN. That is Congress’ problem too. We have about five 

percent of the population I guess of the world living in the United 

States. I believe that is correct about. 

I mean, I know we are a big user, an industrial nation and a big 

user of carbon dioxide, but we have to find some kind of a worldwide solution. 

Let me ask you another question. As an alternative, would you 

all recommend that we go to nuclear power or we go to natural 

gas? I know that my good friend from Maryland already suggested 

that we are getting a lot of our energy from sources that are not 

friendly to our country, and I am just trying to find a resolve on 

that too. 

What would be your alternative? I know you mentioned the sun, 

solar and wind. 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. By far the cheapest alternative and the one that 

makes the most sense is chromatic conservation. That is where the 

savings are cheapest. 

The average western European, who enjoys a lifestyle equivalent 

to ours, uses half as much energy per capita, which begins to give 

you some sense of the possibilities for conservation. When that conservation regime begins to kick in then many of the renewable 

technologies now coming on line begin to make a lot more sense for 

closing that gap. 

As for population, it is a very important point that you make, 

but, just to sort of let you breathe a little easier, of that three 

75

billion people that are joining the planet in the next 50 years or 

so, most of them are coming in countries whose carbon dioxide 

emissions are now small and will remain so. 

Take, for instance, Tanzania, much of Africa. There was a recent 

study showing that the average American used more fossil fuel between the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve and dinner on 

January 2 than the average Tanzanian family would use in the 

course of a year. 

The four percent of us produce 25 percent of the world’s carbon 

dioxide. 

Mr. BROWN. Not to interrupt you, but I don’t believe we want to 

go to Tanzania and live in those little thatched huts and get your 

wives to take the water bucket down to the hole and get water. We 

will never go back to that in the United States. 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. I think we would be better off following the European standard of carbon consumption. 

Mr. BROWN. OK. 

Mr. MCKIBBEN. That might be a very good target for Americans. 

Mr. BROWN. I got you. OK. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Kildee. 

Mr. KILDEE. I would just like to thank the panel. You have been 

very, very effective not just now, but through the years. 

I have always believed that all is needed for evil to prevail is 

that good men do nothing or not enough, and we have a responsibility. We have more than a political responsibility. We have a 

moral responsibility to recognize the reality. 

To my mind, those who question global warming are living in an 

unreal world. It is there, and we actually sponsor it. We have a 

moral obligation. I thank you for motivating me more to make sure 

that evil does not prevail. 

Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kildee. 

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Gilchrest. 

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Just very quickly, if I can help my colleague from South Carolina, we have a bill, the Climate Stewardship Act, that has been 

referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee with another referral to this committee, and at some point in the future I would 

really appreciate a hearing on that, Madam Chairman. 

It is an approach in the same way that we got lead out of gasoline. We got CFCs out of the atmosphere worldwide. To use that 

same concept of cap and trade by setting a goal and letting the industry deal with the marketing, the ingenuity, the technology 

worked, so we have a bill dealing with cap and trade for CO2 to 

make it a commodity that can be traded like any stock can be 

traded. 

We feel, talking to numerous industries in this country, including 

Ford Motor Company, Dupont, power companies, oil industries, 

that by 2050 we can through technology, innovation, letting the 

private market, the collective ingenuity of individuals deal with 

this issue, we can reduce CO2 input we feel 70 or 80 percent by 

2050. 

76

I actually think once this thing gets going—the same way with 

CFCs and the whole acid rain issue was dealt this way and lead 

in gasoline—we could probably achieve that goal actually a lot 

sooner, but there are ways. 

I read a book a number of years ago called Human Options by 

Norman Cousins, and a phrase in there that was extraordinary is 

knowledge is the solvent for danger. That is it. Knowledge, information. We want our kids to learn in school. We want them to be 

good in science. We want them to do their homework. We want 

them to read. Well, Congress is no different. 

The question I have after my soap box again, and I apologize. I 

actually like this. I will have to meet all the kids in Chestertown, 

and I did live in Vermont, East Fairfield, for three years in the 

1970s. It was a blissful, wintery period of time. It was a cold snap 

on the planet. It was great. 

Do we have an indication of what climate change will do to salmon? Will do to coral reefs? Will do to eels? In my region or neck 

of the woods in the Chesapeake Bay there is a pretty good industry 

that catches eels. They are out there in the Sargasso Sea. They 

swim up all those little tributaries and inlets. 

Do you have a quick snapshot of eels, coral reefs, salmon and 

how reforestation and restoration of wetlands can sort of buffer the 

increasing warming? 

Dr. HANEY. I will take a short answer at that. The philosophy 

behind adaptation is that while we are getting it right on emissions 

and waiting for those solutions to kick in, wildlife and fisheries resources need our help to get through this bottleneck of the next 

decades to centuries. 

For the example of anadromous fishes like salmon, one solution 

would be we know temperatures are going to go up, so let us keep 

the stream temperatures as cold as we can. That might mean in 

a real practical way extending the forest buffers along the sides so 

that they are never, ever opened up. They are shaded everywhere 

all of the time. 

That is the kind of solution that again I want to stress. We have 

to get the emissions right. There is no question. That is not going 

to be enough. Fish that we use, salmon and fly fishing is a huge 

industry in this country and elsewhere for that matter. In order for 

those cold water fisheries to survive we are going to need to keep 

stream temperatures as cool as we can. 

We can even allow wolves in some places that we didn’t before 

because the wolves keep the elk away from the streams, and the 

willows and the alders come back and the temperatures go down. 

Dr. ROOT. May I follow up? 

Mr. GILCHREST. Yes. Thank you. 

Dr. ROOT. OK. As far as the coral reefs go, up to two degrees increase from preindustrial, and again we are at about .7 right now, 

most of the reefs in the world will be bleaching, and if we go up 

three degrees then they will start to die, and by four degrees we 

will not have coral reefs that we know anymore. 

Mr. GILCHREST. Thank you. 

Dr. ROOT. Actually, that does not take into account the acidification of the oceans, which I assume you will talk about in the second 

panel. 

77

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gilchrest. 

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Kennedy. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you. 

I would love it if you all can show us and do some modeling 

afterwards on how this directly impacts us in myriads of ways economically. 

I mean, the point I was making earlier about how we are not politically astute to this is I think a real tragedy in all of this because, for example, with the oceans we just got this oceans report 

back, and it calls on by every expert us doubling the oceans budget, 

but OMB gave us half of the budget, OK? 

For us, our whole agricultural budget depends on us properly 

being able to determine what the weather forecasting is going to 

be, and the forecasting is going to be impacted by global warming 

and also be able to detect how the oceans’ currents are going to go. 

If we are able to do that, we are able to better determine what 

our agricultural forecasting should be and so forth. It also impacts 

insurance policies because it depends on how much you are going 

to ensure certain areas and so forth. 

The point I am making is that we haven’t done as good a job as 

we need to in terms of when you mention the migratory birds, it 

is a billion dollar industry for hunters, OK? We need to start bringing this home. We cannot look like we are out there in the ‘‘tree 

hugger’’ mentality. We have to bring this home to people and how 

it impacts them in real concrete ways in their pocketbook. 

This does in really powerful economic ways that are going to impact them directly, and what I think we need to do is get these 

models that you are talking about and break them out and do the 

modeling and talk about how many species do we lose every day 

in the rain forests, OK? 

Where do we get our pharmaceuticals? How do we find out the 

cures to some of these diseases that we have in the world? We get 

them from a lot of plant life and a lot of these species, the plant 

life and so forth. Do people understand this? 

We need to maybe start to connect the dots so they start to see 

oh, my God. If we are losing all these species we might be losing 

the cures to certain diseases in the future that may impact my 

family. I mean, this is what we need to start to do I think. 

Dr. Root? 

Dr. ROOT. Let me answer that very quickly. It actually is in answer to your previous question too. 

There has been a lot of disinformation that has been going out 

to all of America, and the scientists, we have been sitting here saying this is not right. Here are the facts. This is not right. Here are 

the facts. 

The disinformation has been very well funded. We have been 

doing what we can, but I think now everybody is saying hey, it 

really is happening, and now they are listening to us more. I truly 

believe that that is the case. 

As far as the economic models, I think we do need to do a lot 

more, but we have to remember when people start saying oh, this 

is an economic issue, there are going to be losers. That is for sure. 

They are the ones who are going to scream and yell. 

78

But there are going to be winners, and those winners don’t even 

know who they are yet because they are not coalesced behind a 

business. They are not together. We need to understand that. 

If you look at the economics of this issue, we will be 500 percent 

richer than we are today by 2100 in January if we don’t do anything to stop global warmer. If we do, we will be 500 percent richer 

in November instead of in January. That is not that much of an 

issue to change. That is a fairly low insurance policy, I think. 

Mr. KENNEDY. In terms of showing new businesses that can be 

created from environmental businesses obviously, but also like 

when you are talking about the infestation of these predatory bugs 

and so forth and how they can ruin crops and so forth, people need 

to understand these connections so that their eyes open up to what 

happens when you break down the natural ecosystems that are a 

result of global warming. 

I mean, this is what we need to be doing so people get a better 

understanding of this, I think. 

Ms. MEDINA. I just want to add, Congressman Kennedy, that I 

agree with all that you have both said, and I think there are some 

simple indicators out there that are making the public more aware. I for one paid more than $3 for a gallon of gas today at the 

pump, and that is a simple economic indicator of the problem that 

we are facing right now and the consequences of our actions in the 

past. 

I also want to say that we at IFAW are very concerned with animals, and we have a wealth of membership, as does Dr. Haney’s 

organization, of people who care about animals. Putting the face of 

these charismatic animals on this problem and this crisis does help 

I think to make people more aware of the fact that what they do 

and the choices they make every day have dramatic and very devastating impacts on our environment. 

So I am all for more complicated analyses, more study. I think 

I said in my testimony I think study and more facts will also help 

to shape the public’s opinion. We don’t know a lot right now. There 

is more that we don’t know than what we do know, but there are 

some simple facts that I think are starting to register with the public, and you can just start with the price of gas. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much. 

Mr. KENNEDY. The price of gas is what is funding stopping this 

environmental movement. It is what is funding the stopping of the 

environmental movement. That is what is funding it, your $3 price 

of gas. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. 

I want to thank all the Members for their questions, and I thank 

the witnesses very much for their excellent testimony and informative answers. 

The Chairwoman now recognizes our second panel of witnesses 

who will be testifying on the effect of climate change on the oceans. 

The Chair would also like to recognize the gentleman from Idaho, 

Mr. Sali, who will take the place of the Ranking Member on the 

committee. 

Would the second panel of witnesses please be seated? I would 

like at this time to introduce them. Dr. Mark Eakin, the Coordinator of the Coral Reef Watch Program in the National Oceanic 

79

and Atmospheric Administration; Dr. Ken Caldeira from the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institute of Washington; Dr. Joanie Kleypas from the Institute for the Study of Society and Environment at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado; Mr. Gary Sharp; and Dr. John Everett of Ocean 

Associates, Inc. 

I would now like to recognize Dr. Eakin to testify for five minutes. Again, I remind the witnesses that the timing lights on the 

table will indicate when your time is concluded. We would appreciate your cooperation in complying with the limits that have been 

set. 

Be assured that your full written statement will be submitted for 

the hearing record. 

And now Dr. Eakin? 

STATEMENT OF C. MARK EAKIN, Ph.D., COORDINATOR, NOAA 

CORAL REEF WATCH, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION 

Dr. EAKIN. Hafa adai, Madam Chairwoman. Good morning to 

you. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. 

Dr. EAKIN. Good morning, Ranking Member Sali and Members of 

the committee. Thank you for inviting me to discuss the effects of 

climate change on coral reefs, an important resource for many 

coastal and island communities. 

As you probably know, the earth’s oceans have already warmed 

about one degree Fahrenheit during the 20th century and are very 

likely to warm faster in the 21st century. This warming has already influenced many natural systems, including coral reefs, even 

those reefs in remote, pristine environments. 

Coral reefs are valuable to island and coastal communities. Globally they provide ecosystem services valued at hundreds of billions 

of dollars each year, so damage to reefs can be very costly. By 2050, 

the declining Caribbean coral reefs could reduce benefits from fisheries, tourism, shoreline protection by $350 to $870 million a year. 

While healthy coral reefs significantly reduced the wave damage 

in parts of Sri Lanka during the 2004 tsunami, other communities 

where reefs have been mined for building materials suffered much 

greater damage and loss of life. 

Of course, these valuable resources are threatened by human 

stress, including rising temperatures. Coral bleaching occurs when 

high temperatures cause corals to expel the algae that live in their 

tissues. When stress is prolonged or intense, corals die. 

In the last 25 years since the first report of large-scale bleaching, 

ocean warming has accelerated the bleaching, and bleaching events 

have become more frequently and severe. This includes 1998 when 

16 percent of the world’s reefs bleached and died. 

[Slide.] 

Dr. EAKIN. NOAA monitors sea surface temperatures that cause 

coral bleaching. As an example, a map of our satellite data for the 

Caribbean seen on the screen shows the stress caused by high 

ocean temperatures. 

The black regions have no stress. As the stress increases, the 

map changes to blue for mild stress, to green for stress that causes 

80

bleaching, to orange, red and beyond for widespread bleaching and 

coral death. The graph below shows the average stress for the 

Caribbean during each of those years in the 21-year record. 

As we go through this record, you can see the effects of rising 

temperatures. The stress becomes more intense and widespread, 

ending here with a record setting bleaching event in 2005. Unfortunately, the 2005 bleaching event that you see on the screen left 90 

percent of the corals bleached and almost 50 percent dead in the 

Virgin Islands National Park. That is half of their corals dead, 

gone. Imagine losing half of the redwoods in just a few months. 

The only way to eliminate the threat of coral bleaching is to reduce ocean temperatures by reducing atmospheric greenhouse 

gases. This lies outside the mandate of NOAA and is far beyond 

the reach of local reef managers. However, we can act to protect 

coral reefs under a changing climate. 

NOAA and its international partners released a report last year 

entitled the Reef Manager’s Guide to Coral Bleaching. This guide 

identifies three actions that managers can take to help reefs survive and recover from mass bleaching events. 

First is to monitor the reefs to better understand the consequences of bleaching. Second is to reduce local stress to help corals survive during severe bleaching, and third is to develop management strategies that support reef survival, recovery and resilience in warmer oceans. 

A key message of the Reef Manager’s Guide is that multiple 

sources of stress act together to threaten coral reefs, and managers 

play an important role by taking all actions practical to control 

local threats to reefs. 

To summarize, sea surface temperatures are rising, increasing 

the frequency and intensity of coral bleaching and mortality. It is 

very likely that this will continue through the 21st century. 

Second, coral bleaching threatens resources that are important to 

our nation and to islands and coastal communities throughout the 

world. This disrupts ecosystems, ecosystem services and the people 

who depend upon them. 

Finally, we must protect coral reefs from local stressors and 

manage our resources, our marine resources, with rising temperatures in mind. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. I would be pleased to answer any 

questions at the end. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Eakin follows:]

Statement of C. Mark Eakin, Ph.D., Coordinator, Coral Reef Watch, 

National Environmental Satellite, Data, And Information Service, 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of 

Commerce 

Introduction 

Good morning Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Committee. My name is 

Mark Eakin, and I am the Coordinator of the Coral Reef Watch program within the 

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service of the National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in the Department of Commerce. 

This program is a component of the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program 

(CRCP), for which I also serve as the climate lead. The CRCP coordinates NOAA’s 

many coral reef activities across its various offices. Thank you for inviting me to 

discuss the effects of climate change on coral reefs, an important resource to many 

coastal and island communities. Among NOAA’s diverse missions, our tasks include 

understanding and predicting changes in the Earth’s environment and acting as the 

81

nation’s principal steward of coastal and marine resources critical to our nation’s 

economic, social and environmental needs. 

I will focus my remarks on how climate change is impacting coral reef ecosystems 

and local communities. NOAA’s work on climate change and marine ecosystems relevant to this hearing includes observations of the physical environment and biota, 

research to understand the changes in the environment and the broader ecosystem, 

and incorporating projected effects of climate change into NOAA’s conservation and 

management of living marine resources and ecosystems. Climate change is one of 

a complex set of factors that influence marine ecosystems, including natural climate 

cycles, overfishing, atmospheric pollution, pesticide and fertilizer use, land use 

changes, inadequate storm water management, and discharge of untreated sewage. 

NOAA is committed to an ecosystem approach to resource management that addresses the many simultaneous pressures affecting ecosystems. 

Changing climate is potentially one of the most significant long-term influences 

on the structure and function of marine ecosystems and must therefore be accounted 

for in NOAA’s management and stewardship goals to ensure healthy and productive 

ocean environments. Changes and variations in climate may directly or indirectly 

affect marine ecosystems. This includes changes and variations of sea-surface temperature, ocean heat content, sea level, sea ice extent, freshwater inflow and salinity, oceanic circulation and currents, pH, and carbon inventories. 

Analyses of NOAA data show that the Earth’s oceans have warmed almost 1 degree Fahrenheit over the 20th century average (Figure 1). These data, along with 

findings from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments of 2001 and 2007 show that not only have the atmosphere and oceans 

warmed, they will continue to do so during the 21st century, at least in part due 

to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The 2007 IPCC Working Group 

II report stated: ‘‘Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows 

that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.’’

NOAA’s Roles in Climate and Ecosystem Sciences 

Within the climate science community, NOAA is a recognized leader both nationally and internationally. Our scientists actively participate in many important national and international climate working groups and assessment activities. One of 

NOAA’s mission goals is to understand climate variability and change to enhance 

society’s ability to plan and respond. NOAA is the only federal agency that provides 

operational climate forecasts and information services (nationally and internationally). NOAA is the leader in implementing the Global Ocean Observing System 

(NOAA contributes 51 percent of the world-wide observations to GOOS, not including satellite observations). NOAA also provides scientific leadership for the IPCC 

Working Group I and the interagency Climate Change Science Program. To better 

serve the nation, NOAA created a Climate Program Office to provide enhanced services and information for better management of climate sensitive sectors, such as energy, agriculture, water, and living marine resources, through observations, analyses and predictions, and sustained user interaction. Services include assessments 

and predictions of climate change and variability on timescales ranging from weeks 

to decades. 

Within the ecosystem community, NOAA’s ecosystem researchers have been at the 

forefront of establishing links between ocean variability and impacts on marine ecosystems. NOAA has funded some research programs specifically dedicated to evaluating impacts of changes in the physical environment on marine resources, as well 

as many observing programs established to aid in the management of fisheries, protected species, marine sanctuaries, corals and other specific agency mandates. 

These data, primarily collected in support of NOAA’s ecosystem stewardship authorities, provide a wealth of information for interpreting climate impacts when 

combined with NOAA’s climate, oceanographic and weather information. Results of 

these analyses have been widely disseminated and NOAA’s contributions to the 

emerging science of ecosystem impacts of climate change have been significant. 

However, a greater understanding of the full range of climate induced effects on ecosystems will require us to increase our observation of ecosystems in relation to variable climate forcing and focus our research on the mechanisms through which ecosystems are affected. In this way we can develop quantitative assessments and projections of climate’s ecological impacts, including impacts on the resources on which 

human communities rely. 

82

Current and Projected Impacts of Climate Change on Coral Reef 

Ecosystems 

Coral reef ecosystems are among the most diverse and biologically complex ecosystems on Earth and provide resources and services worth billions of dollars each 

year to the United States economy and economies worldwide. Coral reefs have been 

estimated to house several million different species. They house more than one third 

of all described marine species—more species per unit area than any other marine 

environment—including about 4,000 known species of fish and 800 species of hard 

coral. Approximately half of all federally-managed fish species depend on coral reefs 

and related habitats for a portion of their life cycles. NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service estimates the annual commercial value of U.S. fisheries from coral 

reefs is over $100 million per year. Local economies also receive billions of dollars 

from visitors to reefs through diving tours, recreational fishing trips, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses based near reef ecosystems. In the Florida Keys, for 

example, coral reefs attract more than $1.2 billion annually from tourism. In addition, coral reef structures buffer shorelines against waves, storms and floods, helping to prevent loss of life, property damage and erosion. 

Coral reefs are under stress from many different sources, including increased seasurface temperatures, pollution, overfishing, destructive fishing practices, coastal 

uses, invasive species, and extreme events (e.g. hurricanes and coastal flooding). Climate change, in particular, increases in global air and ocean temperatures, threatens coral reef ecosystems through increased occurrence and severity of coral bleaching and disease events, sea level rise, and storm activity. Increased absorption of 

atmospheric carbon dioxide into the oceans also leads to ocean acidification that 

may reduce calcification rates in reef-building organisms, as declining seawater pH 

reduces the availability of carbonate ions. Reduction in calcification rates directly 

affects the growth of individual corals and the reef’s ability to maintain itself 

against forces that cause reef erosion, potentially compounding the ‘‘drowning’’ of 

reefs caused by sea level rise. 

Ocean Acidification 

The oceans are the largest natural long-term reservoir for carbon dioxide, absorbing approximately one-third of the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by 

human activities each year. Over the past 200 years the oceans have absorbed 525 

billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or nearly half of the fossil fuel 

carbon emissions over this period. Because the rate of emissions has increased faster than oceanic uptake and mixing, the percentage of anthropogenic CO2 in the 

oceans requires time to catch up with atmospheric increases and terrestrial uptake. 

Ultimately, oceanic and geologic processes acting over very long time-scales will redistribute much of the anthropogenic CO2 into the deeper ocean waters. Over tens 

of millennia, the global oceans are expected to absorb approximately 90 percent of 

the carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere (Archer et al., 1998; Kleypas et al., 

2006). 

For over 20 years, NOAA has participated in decadal surveys of the world oceans, 

documenting the ocean’s response to increasing amounts of carbon dioxide being 

emitted to the atmosphere by human activities. These surveys confirm that oceans 

are absorbing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide. Estimates of future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, based on the IPCC emission scenarios and 

general circulation models, indicate that by the middle of this century atmospheric 

carbon dioxide levels could reach more than 500 parts per million (ppm), and near 

the end of the century they could be over 800 ppm. This increase in atmospheric 

CO2 to 800 ppm would result in a surface water pH decrease of approximately 0.4 

pH units as the ocean becomes more acidic, and the carbonate ion concentration 

would decrease almost 50 percent by the end of the century. To put this in historical 

perspective, this surface ocean pH decrease would result in a pH that is lower than 

it has been for more than 20 million years (Feely et al., 2004). 

Recent studies indicate that such changes in water chemistry would have effects 

on marine life, such as corals and plankton (Orr et al., 2005). The carbonate chemistry of seawater has a direct impact on the dissolution rates of calcifying organisms 

(coral reefs and marine plankton). As the pH of the oceans decreases and becomes 

more acidic, some species of marine algae and plankton will have a reduced ability 

to produce protective calcium carbonate shells. This makes it more difficult for organisms that utilize calcium carbonate in their skeletons (e.g. corals, Langdon et al., 

2000) or shells to build and maintain their structures. Decreased calcification may 

also compromise the fitness or success of these organisms and could shift the 

competitive advantage towards organisms not dependent on calcium carbonate. 

Carbonate structures are likely to be weaker and more susceptible to dissolution 

and erosion. In fact, a recent study showed that the projected increase in acidity 

83

is sufficient to dissolve the calcium carbonate skeletons of some coral species (Fine 

and Tchernov, 2007, using CO2 projection from Caldeira & Wickett, 2003). Ongoing 

NOAA research is showing that decreasing pH may also have deleterious effects on 

commercially important fish and shellfish larvae. 

Coral Bleaching Events 

As global temperatures have risen over the past 30 years, there has been a corresponding increase in the frequency of extremely high sea-surface temperatures 

and coral bleaching events in many tropical regions (Brown, 1997; Hoegh-Guldberg, 

1999). Coral bleaching is a response of corals to unusual levels of stress primarily 

thought to be associated with high light and unusually high sea-surface temperatures. Bleaching occurs when a coral expels the symbiotic algae that live in its tissues and give the coral its coloration. Loss of the symbiotic algae leaves the coral 

tissue pale to clear and, in extreme cases, causes a bleached appearance. Corals 

often recover from mild bleaching. However, if the stress is prolonged and/or intense, the corals may weaken, causing them to be more susceptible to disease and 

other stressors, or die from direct thermal stress. 

Coral bleaching has occurred in both small, localized events and at larger scales. 

Although many stressors can cause bleaching, large-scale, mass bleaching events 

have exclusively been linked to unusually high sea-surface temperatures (Glynn & 

D’Croz 1990; Brown, 1997; Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999). There is still much that we do 

not know about the effects of bleaching-associated mass coral mortality on the functioning of coral reef ecosystems and associated ecosystem services, such as fisheries, 

coastal protection, recreation, and tourism industries. 

Through satellite and in situ monitoring of sea-surface temperatures, NOAA 

tracks the sea-surface temperature conditions that could lead to coral bleaching. 

NOAA provides access to all of its data and products, including sea-surface temperature anomalies, bleaching HotSpot anomalies, Degree Heating Weeks, and Tropical 

Ocean Coral Bleaching Indices. This work builds on, and complements, NOAA’s efforts to monitor temperatures on coral reefs in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, 

using instruments deployed throughout U.S. coral reefs. These systems are designed 

to provide local managers and scientists with the information they need to make informed decisions. When the data show that conditions are conducive to bleaching, 

NOAA provides watches, warnings, and alerts via e-mail to users throughout the 

globe through NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program and Integrated Coral Observing 

Network. Coral bleaching alerts allow managers and scientists to deploy monitoring 

efforts that can document the severity and impacts of the bleaching to improve our 

understanding of the causes and consequences of coral bleaching. The alerts also 

allow managers to take actions to reduce local stress, such as water quality and recreational abuse, that further threaten corals already under stress from bleaching. 

Large scale or mass bleaching events were first documented in the eastern Pacific 

in the early 1980’s in association with warming during the El Nin ̃ o Southern Oscillation (Glynn, 1984). In 1997-98, coral bleaching became a global problem when a 

strong El Nin ̃ o (period of warmer than average water temperature in the central 

tropical Pacific), followed by a La Nin ̃ a (which warmed some western Pacific regions) caused unprecedented coral bleaching and mortality worldwide (Wilkinson, 

2000; Wilkinson, 2002). In 1998, reefs in parts of the southern Indian Ocean and 

East Asia lost more than 80 percent of their corals. Parts of Palau lost up to 50 

percent of their hard corals and 75 percent of their soft corals. 

Coral bleaching events are not only tied to the El Nin ̃ o/La Nin ̃ a phenomena. In 

2005, a year lacking El Nin ̃ o or La Nin ̃ a climate patterns, record high sea-surface 

temperatures were recorded in the tropical North Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of 

Mexico. NOAA climate records show that in 2005, the eastern Caribbean experienced the warmest September water temperatures in over 100 years (Figure 2; 

Smith and Reynolds, 2004). Satellite records showed that the thermal stress experienced by corals in the Caribbean region 2005 was the largest and most intense 

event on record (Figure 3), with an average stress for the Caribbean region almost 

twice any level previously observed (Figure 4; Eakin et al., in prep.). NOAA’s ability 

to assess the extent and severity of this event was the result of investments in the 

development and operational implementation of satellite remote-sensing products. 

NOAA’s ability to provide synoptic views of the global oceans in near-real-time and 

the ability to monitor reef areas have become a key tool for coral reef managers and 

scientists. 

While the thermal stress in the Caribbean has increased over the last 20 years, 

2005 was unusually high. As a result of NOAA satellite and in situ monitoring, 

NOAA alerted managers and scientists to this event as it developed. The unusually 

high sea-surface temperatures gave rise to the most intense coral bleaching event 

ever observed in the Caribbean. In 2005, many reefs, including those in the U.S. 

84

Virgin Islands, suffered bleaching of over 90 percent of their corals. In situ monitoring of reefs at the Virgin Islands National Park (NPS and USGS data) indicated 

a loss of 50 percent of the corals due to bleaching and disease outbreaks related to 

the prolonged high temperatures. 

To respond to and assess the massive coral bleaching event in the Caribbean region in 2005, an interagency effort led by NOAA and the Department of Interior 

(DOI) was convened under the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force. This effort engaged 

many government and non-government partners from across the region, including 

local partners in Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Caribbean island 

nations, to assess the impacts of the 2005 mass bleaching event and make recommendations on how to prepare for and address future events. NOAA, DOI’s National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) employed detailed monitoring and 

new instrumentation to investigate the response of reefs and individual colonies to 

this record-breaking coral bleaching event. NPS and USGS research has been especially vital in identifying the effects that the unusually warm waters have on both 

bleaching and disease outbreaks (Miller et al, 2006). Some of this research will 

hopefully answer the question of why some corals survived while others perished. 

NOAA, NPS, and USGS, along with many partner agencies are analyzing the effect 

of this bleaching event on already vulnerable elkhorn and staghorn coral species. 

These two species were listed as ‘‘threatened’’ under the Endangered Species Act in 

May of 2006. It is clear that mass bleaching is a serious concern to the communities 

that depend upon these resources. 

Even if greenhouse gases are kept at year 2000 levels, the 2007 IPCC Working 

Group I report concluded that global temperatures are expected to warm at almost 

0.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. Based on current emissions, the anticipated increase in ocean temperatures over the coming decades is expected to increase the 

incidence of coral bleaching events (Donner et al., 2005). The 2007 IPCC Working 

Group II report concluded: ‘‘Corals are vulnerable to thermal stress and have low 

adaptive capacity. Increases in sea surface temperature of about 1 to 3°C are projected to result in more frequent coral bleaching events and widespread mortality, 

unless there is thermal adaptation or acclimatization by corals.’’ This means that 

marine resource management needs to plan for frequent and severe coral bleaching 

events in the future (Marshall and Schuttenberg, 2006). 

The Value of Coral Reefs to Island and Coastal Communities 

In its recent report In the Front Line: Shoreline Protection and Other Ecosystem 

Services from Mangroves and Coral Reefs, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimated the value of coral reefs to be between $100,000-600,000 

per square kilometer. This makes coral reefs among the most valuable resources of 

island and coastal communities. As part of their evaluation, they considered the loss 

to local economies if the ecosystem services of coral reefs were lost. UNEP predicted 

that ‘‘over a 20-year period, blast fishing, overfishing and sedimentation in Indonesia and the Philippines could lead to a net economic loss of $2.6 billion and $2.5 

billion respectively.’’ Further, in an extensive economic evaluation, the World Resources Institute estimated that coral reef degradation continuing through 2050 

could reduce benefits from fisheries, dive tourism and shore protection by a predicted total of $350 million to $870 million in the Caribbean (Burke and Maidens, 

2004). 

Coral reef ecosystems also provide non-economic value to island and coastal communities, which are harder to quantify. Field teams evaluating the 2004 Indian 

Ocean tsunami suggested that the presence of healthy coral reefs significantly reduced wave damage to some communities in Sri Lanka (Fernando and McCulley, 

2005). Modeling at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Princeton 

University also suggests that healthy reefs can provide protection and reduce damage from tsunamis (Kunkel et al., 2006). 

Unfortunately, the value of ecosystem services provided by coral reefs has been 

poorly quantified for many locations. Accordingly, the cost of climate change effects 

to coastal communities is poorly known. NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program 

intends to begin research to quantify the effects that climate change may have on 

socioeconomic systems in the Florida Keys, similar to a study conducted for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (Hoegh-Guldberg, and Hoegh-Guldberg, 2004). Even 

without strict monetary valuations, island and coastal communities have recognized 

the tremendous economic and cultural values that reefs provide. Because coral reefs 

are such valuable resources, during the 16th U.S. Coral Reef Task Force Meeting 

in November 2006, Governor Togiola Tulafono of American Samoa gave a statement 

in which he recognized the threat and implored the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force to 

address climate change and its impacts on coral reefs to a greater extent than it 

85

has in the past. In his statement, Governor Tulafono said: ‘‘As a small island our 

way of life, a primary source of our food and a growing percentage of our economy 

depends heavily on a healthy coral reef. Under the present circumstances I can implement all the best management practices and still a single climate change event 

could devastate the majority of coral in the Territory...As the available data and scientific consensus become more persuasive and compelling on the present trends and 

projected impacts of global climate change, especially to the small islands dependent 

upon coral reefs and related resources, a set of proactive and responsive policies 

need to be developed along with realistic implementation strategies.’’ This request 

was further echoed by delegations from other Pacific Island territories and the Freely Associated States at the 17th U.S. Coral Reef Task Force meeting in March 2007. 

What Can Be Done? 

As a steward of marine resources for the benefit of the nation, NOAA is working 

to improve its products to alert users of bleaching events through satellite and in 

situ observations, forecasts, and warning systems. NOAA is also working with local 

and regional managers to quantify the effect that increasing ocean temperatures 

have on coral reefs and ecosystem services, and to determine ways in which local 

managers can mitigate the impact of climate change on coral reefs. 

The only practical way that we know of to eliminate the threat of coral bleaching 

is to stop or reverse the rise in ocean temperatures that has occurred over the last 

century. Such a reversal will very likely require reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, however, the policies to accomplish such a reduction fall outside the mandate 

of NOAA and beyond the reach of local managers in coastal and island communities. 

Recent work indicates that corals in the 21st century will have to adapt to temperature increases of at least 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit per decade to survive the increasing frequency and intensity of bleaching that we have seen. Unfortunately, ongoing 

studies have not found that corals have an ability to make physiological or evolutionary changes at that rate. Small latitudinal expansion of coral distributions is 

possible and may be occurring in one case (Precht & Aronson 2006). However, corals 

in higher latitudes are likely to encounter lower pH waters where skeletal growth 

may be depressed (Guinotte et al., 2003). This leads us to the question of what local 

managers can do to protect valuable coral reef resources in light of rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification. 

Indeed, what can be done for coral reefs in response to a changing climate? The 

U.S. Coral Reef Task Force posed this question when climate change was identified 

as one of the seven threats to reefs in The National Plan to Conserve Coral Reefs. 

As world leaders in coral reef management, NOAA and Australia’s Great Barrier 

Reef Marine Park Authority, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the IUCN 

(The World Conservation Union), convened an expert workshop in 2003 to address 

what can be done. In 2006, we released A Reef Manager’s Guide to Coral Bleaching. 

The Reef Manager’s Guide includes contributions from over 50 experts in coral 

bleaching and coral reef management from 30 organizations. The guide identifies 

three key actions reef managers can take to help reefs survive and recover from 

mass bleaching events: 

(1) Increase observations of reef condition before, during and after bleaching to 

increase information and understanding of impacts and areas that may be especially resistant to bleaching. 

(2) Reduce stressors (e.g., pollution, human use) on reefs during severe bleaching 

events to help corals survive the event. 

(3) Design and implement reef management strategies to support reef recovery 

and resilience, including reducing land-based pollution and protecting coral 

areas that may resist bleaching and serve as sources of coral larvae for ‘‘reseeding’’ reefs. 

The Reef Manager’s Guide provides information on the causes and consequences 

of coral bleaching, and management strategies to help local and regional reef managers reduce this threat to coral reef ecosystems. 

The Reef Manager’s Guide reviews management actions that can help restore and 

maintain coral reef ecosystems. This review draws on a growing body of research 

on ways to support the ability of coral reef ecosystems to survive and recover from 

bleaching events. It also includes specific guidance and case studies on how to prepare bleaching response plans, assess impacts from bleaching, engage the public, 

manage activities that may affect reefs during bleaching events, identify resilient 

reef areas, and incorporate information regarding reef resilience into marine protected area design. 

A key message from NOAA and its partners in the Reef Manager’s Guide is the 

important role that resource managers play by taking all practical actions to control 

local threats to reefs. The 2007 IPCC Working Group II report addressed this issue 

86

stating that ‘‘Non-climate stresses can increase vulnerability to climate change by 

reducing resilience and can also reduce adaptive capacity because of resource deployment to competing needs.’’ There are multiple sources of stress to coral reefs 

and reducing other stresses can help corals survive the stress of bleaching. Research 

has shown that improved local management, which reduces key threats such as 

overfishing, provides reefs with the greatest chance of surviving and recovering from 

climate change (Wooldridge et al., 2005; Hughes et al., 2007). In its recently released Coral Reef Ecosystem Research Plan, NOAA describes the need to further (1) 

improve our understanding of the relationships between the severity of bleaching 

events and mortality, including what makes coral reefs resilient; (2) assess the extent and impact of bleaching on coral reefs during bleaching events; and (3) developing models to predict the long-term impacts to coral reef ecosystems from climate 

change. The plan can be viewed at http://coris.noaa.gov/activities/corallresearchl

plan/. 

Conclusion 

To summarize, sea-surface temperatures have risen, increasing the frequency and 

intensity of coral bleaching, disease, and mortality. As humans continue to add CO2

to the atmosphere, it is very likely that this will bring further increases in sea-surface temperatures and bleaching. Increased atmospheric CO2 threatens coral reefs 

that are important resources to our nation and to island and coastal communities 

throughout the world, doing harm to ecosystems, ecosystem services, and the people 

that depend on them. To protect coral reefs against rising temperatures and ocean 

acidification, we must take all practical actions to protect coral reefs from local 

stressors and manage marine resources, including planning marine protected areas, 

with rising temperatures in mind. NOAA looks forward to working with this Committee to ensure we have the tools and resources available to conserve, manage, and 

protect our coral reefs. 

Madam Chairman, I thank you for inviting me to help inform the Committee on 

this topic. I would be pleased to answer any questions. 

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Archer, D.E.; Kheshgi, H.; and Maier-Reimer, E. (1998) Dynamics of fossil fuel CO2

neutralization by marine CaCO3. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 12:259-276. 

Brown, B.E. (1997) Coral bleaching: causes and consequences. Coral Reefs, 

16(5):S129-S138. 

Burke, L and Maidens, J. (2004) Reefs at Risk in the Caribbean. World Resources 

Institute, Washington, DC, 80pp. 

Caldeira, K. and Wickett, M. E. (2003) Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH. Nature 

425(6956), 365-365. 

Donner, S.D.; Skirving, W.J.; Little, C.M.; Oppenheimer, M.; and Hoegh-Guldberg, 

O. (2005) Global adaptation of coral bleaching and required rates of adaptation 

under climate change. Global Change Biology, 11:2251-2265. 

Eakin, M. et al. (2007) Caribbean Corals in Hot Water: Record-Setting Thermal 

Stress, Coral Bleaching and Mortality in 2005. Intended for Nature, in prep. 

Feely, R.A.; Sabine, C.L.; Lee, K.; Berrelson, W.; Kleypas, J.; and Millero, F.J. (2004) 

Impact of anthropogenic CO2 on the CaCO3 system in the oceans. Science, 

305(5682):362-366. 

Fernando, H.J.S. and McCulley, J.L. (2005) Coral Poaching Worsens Tsunami Destruction in Sri Lanka. EOS, 86:301-304. 

Fine, M. and Tchernov, D. (2007) Scleractinian Coral Species Survive and Recover 

from Decalcification. Science, 315: 1811. 

Glynn, P. W. and D’Croz, L. (1990) Experimental evidence for high temperature 

stress as the cause of El Nin ̃ o- coincident coral mortality. Coral Reefs, 8: 181-

191. 

Guinotte, J. M.; Buddemeier, R. W.; and Kleypas, J. A. (2003) Future coral reef 

habitat marginality: temporal and spatial effects of climate change in the Pacific basin. Coral Reefs, 22(4): 551-558. 

Hoegh-Guldberg, H. and Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (2004) The Implications of Climate 

Changes for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. WWF Australia, 345pp. 

Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (1999) Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the 

world’s coral reefs. Marine and Freshwater Research, 50:839-866. 

Hughes, T.P.; Rodrigues, M.J.; Bellwood, D.R.; Ceccarelli, D.; Hoegh-Guldberg, O.; 

McCook, L.; Moltschaniwskyj, N.; Pratchett, M.S.; Stenech, R.S.; and Willis, B. 

(2007) Phase Shifts, Herbivory, and the Resilience of Coral Reefs to Climate 

Change. Current Biology, 17:360-365. 

Kleypas, J.A.; Feely, R.A.; Fabry, V.J.; Langdon, C.; Sabine, C.L.; and Robbins, L.L. 

(2006) Impacts of ocean acidification on coral reefs and other marine calcifiers: 

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A guide for future research. Report of a Workshop Sponsored by NSF, NOAA, 

USGS. 85 pages. 

Kunkel, C.M.; Hallberg, R.W.; and Oppenheimer, M. (2006) Coral Reefs Reduce Tsunami Impact in Model Simulation. Geophysical Research Letters, 33:L23612. 

Langdon, C.; Takahashi, T.; Sweeney, C.; Chipman, D.; and Goddard, J. (2000) Effect of calcium carbonate saturation state on the calcification rate of an experimental coral reef. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 14(2): 639-654. 

Marshall, P. and Schuttenberg, H. (2006) A Reef Manager’s Guide to Coral Bleaching. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Townsville, Australia, 163pp. 

Miller, J.; Waara, R,; Muller, E.; and Rogers, C (2006) Coral bleaching and disease 

combine to cause extensive mortality on reefs in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Coral 

Reefs 25: 418. 

Orr, J.C.; Fabry, V.J.; Aumont, O.; Bopp, L.; Doney, S.C.; Feely, R.A.; 

Gnanadesikan, A.; Fruber, N.; Ishida, A.; Joos, F.; Key, R.M.; Lindsay, K.; 

Maier-Reimer, E.; Matear, R.; Monfray, P.; Mouchet, A.; Najjar, R.G.; Plattner, 

G.K.; Rodgers, K.B.; Sabine, C.L.; Sarmiento, J.L.; Schlitzer, R.; Slater, R.D.; 

Totterdel, I.J.; Weirig, M.F.; Yamanaka, Y.; and Yool, A. (2005) Anthropogenic 

ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms. Nature, 437:681-868. 

Precht, W. F. and Aronson, R.B. (2006) Rapid range expansion of reef corals in response to climatic warming. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 38: 535. 

Wilkinson, C.R. (Ed.) (2000) Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2000. Australian 

Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Australia, 376 pp. 

Wilkinson, C.R. (Ed.) (2002) Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2002. Australian 

Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Australia, 388 pp. 

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Figure 3: Map of 2005 maximum thermal stress (NOAA Coral Reef Watch Degree Heating Week values, or DHW) showing the maximum thermal stress across the Caribbean during 2005. Source: Eakin, C. M. et al., 2007, Caribbean Corals in Hot Water: Record-Setting Thermal 

Stress, Coral Bleaching and Mortality in 2005, intended for Nature, in preparation. 


34670.008.eps 34670.009.eps
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Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Eakin. 

Dr. Caldeira, you are recognized to testify for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DR. KEN CALDEIRA, Ph.D., DEPARTMENT OF 

GLOBAL ECOLOGY, CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON 

Dr. CALDEIRA. Hi. I am pleased and very thankful that you invited me to testify on the topic of how climate change and acidification are affecting our oceans. 

I work at the Carnegie Institution and am also a professor at 

Stanford University where I study climate change and ocean chemistry. I worked for 12 years at a Department of Energy laboratory 

where I studied effects of carbon dioxide emissions in the marine 

environment. These effects are disturbing. 

[Slide.] 

Dr. CALDEIRA. We have all heard about climate change, but we 

might not be aware of how carbon dioxide is affecting the world’s 

oceans. There is evidence for at least four major kinds of effects—

rising sea level, heating of the ocean, decreasing ocean productivity 

and, of greatest concern to me, ocean acidification. 

Sea level is rising. Increasingly, this is harming our coastal ecosystems and coastal and island communities. Threatened ecosystems include wetlands, corals and mangroves. These ecosystems 

can provide many important services, including acting as hatcheries for fisheries, protecting coasts against storm damage and in 

many cases helping to support tourism. 

The ocean is heating up. This is affecting many ecosystems with 

many species shifting their ranges. It is throwing off the timing 

and distribution of different species that rely on each other for 

food. For example, breeding seabirds may not be able to find food 

because their food no longer lives where they normally feed. 


34670.010.eps
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Ocean heating is threatening coral ecosystems with extinction. 

With no change in how we produce energy, it is just a matter of 

time before other ecosystems are threatened as well. 

Climate change is making much of our oceans less productive. 

Most life in the ocean lives near the surface where there is both 

food to eat and life to support growth. Life in the oceans is fed by 

nutrients like fertilizers coming up from the deeper, nutrient-rich 

waters below. 

The climate change is heating the upper ocean, making it warmer. This warm water floats on top of cold water. This warm water 

caps the colder water below, reducing the amount of deep ocean 

fertilizer supplied to the ecosystems of the upper ocean. 

The result is likely to be a less productive ocean in many areas 

with lower fish yields. There is evidence from satellite data that 

this reduction in productivity is already occurring in the tropics 

and mid latitudes. 

Of all the things I have mentioned so far, the one that concerns 

me the most is ocean acidification. When we burn coal, oil or gas, 

we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Eventually nearly 

all of this carbon dioxide will go into the ocean. The oceans are already absorbing one-third of the CO2 we emit. That is 40 pounds 

of carbon dioxide going into the ocean for each American each day. 

The problem is that when this carbon dioxide reacts with seawater it becomes carbonic acid, acidifying our oceans. In high 

enough concentrations, carbonic acid can corrode the shells and 

skeletons of many marine organisms. 

Coral systems are perhaps the best study and may be the first 

to be threatened by ocean acidification. My colleague, Dr. Kleypas, 

will speak more to this. 

We heard about this three percent CO2. This is going away from 

here, but we breathe in and out, and if each time we breathe in 

we breathe in three percent more than we breathe out, very soon 

we will be in big trouble. 

The important thing is how fast are volcanos and other geologic 

sources adding CO2 to our atmosphere and oceans, and our current 

emissions exceed this natural supply of CO2 to the oceans and atmosphere by a factor of 50. In other words, if we cut 98 percent 

of our emissions, we would be doubling this natural geologic source 

of CO2 to our atmosphere. 

If current trends in carbon dioxide emissions continue, within 

decades we will produce chemical conditions in the ocean that have 

not been seen for at least 50 million years and probably not since 

the time when dinosaurs became extinct. At that time, organisms 

like corals that made shells and skeletons out of calcium carbonate 

disappeared from the fossil record. It took hundreds of thousands 

to millions of years for life in the oceans to fully recover. 

The carbon dioxide that we are using to light the lightbulbs in 

this room will be acidifying the oceans all over the world within a 

year. This is bad news for the oceans. 

The good news is that we can develop energy systems that do not 

emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and as soon as we stop 

emitting carbon dioxide the chemistry of the surface ocean will 

start improving. It is important that we act now. 

91

Thank you again for inviting me to testify, and I look forward to 

answering any further questions you might have. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Caldeira follows:]

Statement of Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 

Department of Global Ecology, and Stanford University Department of 

Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford, California 

INTRODUCTION 

Climate change and acidification are both affecting our oceans. These are two different phenomena but both are primarily caused by carbon dioxide emissions to the 

atmosphere associated with the burning of coal, oil, and gas. 

Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases cause the atmosphere to trap heat 

that would otherwise escape to space. The result in the atmosphere is changes in 

temperature, winds, precipitation, and evaporation. These changes in the atmosphere affect the oceans, causing changes in sea-level and ocean circulation, ultimately impacting coastal communities, fisheries, and natural ecosystems. 

Nearly all of the carbon dioxide we emit to the atmosphere is ultimately absorbed 

by the oceans. Today, each American emits about 120 pounds of carbon dioxide into 

the atmosphere each day, and already about 1/3 of this is being absorbed by the 

ocean. Unfortunately, when carbon dioxide reacts with seawater it becomes carbonic 

acid. Carbonic acid, in high enough concentrations, is corrosive to the shells and 

skeletons of many marine organisms. Over the next decades, continued carbon dioxide emissions have the potential to create chemical conditions in the ocean that have 

not occurred since the dinosaurs became extinct. Such chemical conditions could 

cause the extinction of corals and threaten other marine ecosystems. 

The solution of these problems lies in developing and deploying energy technologies that allow for economic growth and development without emitting greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. However, there are at least three other areas in 

which action is warranted: 

(1) Climate change and acidification both act as additional stresses on marine ecosystems. Other stresses include over-fishing, coastal pollution, and introduced species. Efforts to reduce other stresses on marine ecosystems can help make marine 

ecosystems more resilient to the stresses posed by climate change and ocean acidification. 

(2) Sea-level rise will be flooding coastal ecosystems and wetlands. These areas 

often act as hatcheries for commercially important fish. With sea-level rise, in the 

absence of coastal development, these coastal ecosystems would tend to shift towards what are now inland areas. However, if these areas are carelessly developed, 

such adaptive migration of these valuable ecosystems will be impossible. Management of our coastal environment and its development should take into account both 

future sea level rise and the welfare of coastal ecosystems, beaches, and wetlands. 

(3) While the physics of climate change is reasonably well understood and the 

chemistry of ocean acidification is very well understood, we are just beginning to 

learn about the consequences of climate change and ocean acidification for marine 

ecosystems. Especially in the case of ocean acidification, a focused research effort 

could help us to understand the magnitude of the threat to marine ecosystems generally and economically important resources specifically. 

CLIMATE CHANGE 

By this time, the fact that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide cause climate 

change is well established. The basic physics of the greenhouse effect has now been 

understood for over 150 years. There are still uncertainties in the exact amount of 

warming that might result from an increase in greenhouse gases and even greater 

uncertainty in regional predictions of temperature and precipitation changes. Nevertheless, the sign of the change is clear: The Earth is getting hotter. 

As the Earth heats, winds will change and areas of precipitation and evaporation 

will shift. All of these factors will affect ocean circulation. 

Sea-level Rise 

The simplest prediction is sea-level rise that results from the heating of the ocean. 

As the seawater warms, it expands. This thermal expansion of seawater is expected 

to increase sea level by about one foot during this century, if current trends in 

greenhouse gas emissions continue. Adding to this sea-level rise from thermal expansion is the sea-level rise from the melting of ice sheets. The amount of sea-level 

rise from the melting of ice sheets is far less certain, and could be anywhere from 

nearly zero to a couple of feet this century. 

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A sea-level rise of one or more feet this century means that coastal zones can expect floods that are one or more feet deeper than floods previously experienced. 

Beach erosion will increase. Much of the damage from sea-level rise is expected to 

occur during extreme conditions such as storm floods, and not during normal conditions. 

A two-foot rise in sea level would eliminate about 10,000 square miles of land in 

the United States, an area equivalent to the size of Massachusetts and Delaware 

(EPA, 1989). 

The natural response of coastal ecosystems (and beaches) to sea level rise that has 

occurred at the end of the last ice age was for these ecosystems (and beaches) to 

move inland as land was lost to the sea. However, today, there is significant human 

development along the coasts. This human development can act as a barrier to the 

shoreward migration of coastal ecosystems. As a result, coral ecosystems, 

mangroves, wetlands, beaches, and other coastal environments can be threatened by 

sea-level rise. 

Coastal ecosystems often act as hatcheries for commercially important fish stocks. 

Coastal systems such as coral reefs and beaches have high tourism value. 

It is important that future coastal development consider the potential for future 

sea-level rise and the protection of coastal ecosystems. 

Ocean Heating 

The heating of the ocean contributes to sea-level rise, but it has other effects on 

the marine ecosystems. Perhaps the clearest case relates to coral reefs, where the 

bleaching of coral reefs has been closely related to changes in sea surface temperatures. 

However, the warming of the oceans has more subtle effects on marine ecosystems. There has been extensive documentation of fish stocks moving poleward in 

response to warming of the North Atlantic ocean. There is no expectation that entire 

ecosystems are capable of migrating as a single unit. So, for example, fish species 

may migrate northward, but seabirds that feed on those fish have no way of knowing that the fish have migrated. Thus, the seabirds may seek food unsuccessfully 

in their traditional feeding grounds. Recent seabird deaths in northern California 

and Oregon have been associated with shifts in winds and resulting changes in 

ocean circulation and availability of food (Barth et al., 2007). 

Clearly, polar ecosystems cannot move further poleward to maintain the temperatures these ecosystems need. Thus, polar marine ecosystems are particularly threatened. 

Oxygen dissolves more easily in cold water than in warm water. Thus, fish can 

suffocate in warm water. Very active fish, like tuna, have a very high oxygen demand. This is a primary reason why adult tuna prefer to live in cold water environments where oxygen is plentiful. Warming of the ocean can be expected to increase 

the oxygen stress on marine ecosystems (Po ̈rtner and Knust, 2007). 

Stratification and Marine Productivity 

Most life in the ocean lives near the surface where there is both light and food. 

The base of the food chain are typically tiny photosynthetic organisms that rely on 

nutrients (essentially fertilizer) mixed up from below. 

Warm water floats on top of cold water. As the surface ocean heats, the contrast 

in temperature between the surface water and deeper water increases. This inhibits 

mixing between the surface ocean and deeper ocean waters. 

Deeper ocean waters are enriched in nutrients. When mixing of this nutrient-rich 

water up to the surface is inhibited, less nutrients are supplied to the productive 

surface layers of the ocean. With a diminished nutrient supply, there will be less 

growth of the plants and algae that form the base of the food chain (Behrenfeld et 

al., 2006), and marine ecosystems can be expected to become less productive, impacting fisheries. 

A relationship between increased sea-surface temperature and decreased biological productivity in the ocean has been confirmed for the tropics and mid-latitudes 

based on satellite observations of sea surface temperature and chlorophyll concentrations. 

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION 

Today, nearly 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released to the atmosphere 

from the burning of fossil fuels (and from secondary sources such as cement manufacture). About 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide are going into the ocean each year. 

The average American emit about five times as much carbon dioxide as the average 

person on this planet—the average American emits about 120 pounds of CO2 each 

day, with about 40 pounds of this CO2 going into the oceans each day for each 

93

American. It is unreasonable to expect that so much CO2 could go into the ocean 

without having negative consequences for marine biota. 

EPA Water Quality Standards 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1976) Quality Criteria for Water 

state: ‘‘For open ocean waters where the depth is substantially greater than the 

euphotic zone, the pH should not be changed more than 0.2 units outside the range 

of naturally occurring variation—’’ Atmospheric CO2 concentrations would need to 

be stabilized at <500 ppm for the ocean pH decrease to remain within the 0.2 limit 

set forth by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1976). 

A Personal History 

The first paper quantifying the greenhouse effect was called ‘‘On the Influence of 

Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground’’ (Arhenius, 1896). 

Back then, the tern ‘‘carbonic acid’’ was used to refer to carbon dioxide, because carbon dioxide forms carbonic acid when it dissolves in water. 

I began studying this issue when I worked for at a Department of Energy laboratory (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory). I was also scientific co-director of 

the DOE Center for Research on Ocean Carbon Sequestration. We were researching 

the feasibility of slowing climate change by intentionally placing carbon in the 

ocean. 

As part of this research effort, DOE funded investigation of the effect of carbon 

dioxide on marine organisms, including both primary research and synthesis of 

work funded by other organizations. It soon became apparent that CO2 could threaten marine organisms not only at the high concentrations that might be relevant for 

an intentional ocean storage project but also at the lower concentrations expected 

to result from the oceanic uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

I wrote the study that introduced the term ‘‘ocean acidification’’ (Caldeira and 

Wickett, 2003). When we first submitted this study for publication in Nature magazine, we compared the oceanic effects of releasing carbon dioxide into the deep ocean 

with the effects of releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The editors of Nature magazine felt that the effects of releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere 

were so alarming that it was unnecessary to show the effects of deep sea injection. 

Thus, the study as published focused on the effects of atmospheric release. In that 

study, we concluded that future carbon dioxide releases could produce chemical conditions in the oceans that have not been seen in the past 300 million years, with 

the exception of rare brief catastrophic events in Earth history. 

Ocean Acidity, Biota, and the Geologic Record 

Many marine organisms, including corals and clams, make their shells or skeletons out of calcium carbonate. The upper ocean is super-saturated with respect to 

calcium carbonate minerals, which means there is a chemical force helping these organisms to form and maintain their shells and skeletons. These organisms use both 

calcium and carbonate to form calcium carbonate. The ocean acidity produced by 

carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) attacks carbonate, removing one of the essential 

building blocks needs by corals and clams and many other marine organisms to 

build their shells and skeletons. 

It is very easy to predict the future chemistry of the upper ocean. The chemistry 

is very well understood. You can take a bucket of seawater and put it under a bell 

jar with a different atmospheric CO2 concentration, and then measure the chemistry 

of the water—and the measured chemistry will agree very closely with what would 

be predicted by calculations. This chemistry has been well understood for decades. 

(This chemistry is very similar to the chemistry of blood. In fact, the science of seawater chemistry was based on approaches developed to understand blood chemistry.) 

If you take a bucket of seawater from the Southern Ocean or Arctic Ocean and 

place it under a bell jar with CO2 concentrations expected later this century under 

‘‘business-as-usual’’ scenarios, you will find that this water is able to dissolve the 

shells of some marine organism (see Figure). If you do the same thing with seawater 

from the tropics, you will find that you create the kind of chemistry in which no 

coral is found living in the real ocean today—it would be so difficult for the corals 

to produce their skeletons that they would be unlikely to compete successfully with 

sea grasses, algae, and other organisms seeking that ecological space. 

The United States has funded project to drill into the ocean floor over the past 

few decades. From these drill holes cores are withdrawn. From the sediments in 

these cores we have gained an understanding of the changes in deep ocean chemistry over the past 50 million years. It is now clear that even if atmospheric CO2

is stabilized at 450 ppm, the deep ocean will be more corrosive to carbonate 

94

minerals than at any time over the past 50 million years (Caldeira and Wickett, 

2005; Tripati et al. 2005). 

My PhD dissertation work was on what occurred to ocean chemistry when the dinosaurs became extinct some 65 million years ago. At that time, nearly every marine organism that made a shell or skeleton out of calcium carbonate disappeared 

from the geologic record. It took hundreds of thousands to millions of years for marine biology to recover. For example, some few coral individuals survived but it took 

2 million years for them to repopulate the coasts of the tropical and subtropical 

oceans. 

In the next decades, if CO2 emissions are unabated, we may make the oceans 

more corrosive to carbonate minerals than at any time since the extinction of the 

dinosaurs. I personally believe that this will cause the extinction of corals, even 

though this cannot be proved conclusively. 

Knowns, and Known and Unknown Unknowns 

We know that our carbon dioxide emissions, if unabated, will produce chemical 

conditions in the oceans that have not been experienced for many millions of years. 

There is good reason to believe that this could ‘‘put the nail in the coffin’’ of the 

remaining coral reefs throughout the world. However, much is unknown. 

Most experiments on the biological response of marine organisms to increased 

CO2 have been conducted on relatively few organisms over relatively short periods 

in laboratory environments. Most of these experiments have focused on corals and 

other organisms with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons. 

Nobody has yet looked at how ocean acidification might affect fish eggs or fish 

larvae. Nobody knows how ocean acidification impacts on the plankton that form the 

base of the food chain might affect the organisms at the top of the food chain. 

AN EXAMPLE: CLIMATE CHANGE PLUS OCEAN ACIDIFICATION 

It was mentioned above that seawater chemistry is very similar to blood chemistry. When we use our muscles, the CO2 concentration in our blood increases, and 

our blood becomes more acidic, and this causes the hemoglobin in our blood to bind 

to the CO2. When this CO2-carrying-hemoglobin reaches our lungs, contact with the 

atmosphere in our lungs causes our blood to become less acidic, and this causes the 

hemoglobin in our blood to give up the CO2 and bind instead to oxygen. In this way, 

the chemistry of our blood regulates oxygen transport and CO2 removal. 

Similar processes go on in organisms like fish and squid (Po ̈rtner et al., 2005). 

But, as mentioned above, heating of the ocean will decrease the oxygen content of 

water. In addition, there will be much more carbon dioxide dissolved in the seawater. Thus, the ocean water will look a lot more like oxygen-depleted CO2-rich 

blood in a muscle. It is expected that in this environment the hemoglobin (or its 

relative in other species) may not give up as much of its CO2 or bind to as much 

oxygen. Thus, this can contribute to oxygen stress in marine organisms. 

It is not known how important this type of effect might be, or at what atmospheric CO2 levels this might to impact ecosystems, including economically valuable 

species. But this shows that climate change and ocean acidification have the potential to act synergistically to damage marine ecosystems. 

OBSERVATIONS 

The clearest way to reduce the risks climate change and acidification pose for our 

oceans is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. 

Climate change and ocean acidification will stress ocean ecosystems. Reduction of 

other stresses on marine systems (e.g., overfishing, loss of wetlands) will make marine systems more resilient to climate change and ocean acidification. 

The physics of climate change are fairly well understood and the chemistry of 

ocean acidification is very well understood. While there is enough information to be 

concerned and alarmed, there is still great uncertainty on the response of marine 

ecosystems to these stresses. More research could help inform sound policy development. Research on biotic effects of ocean acidification is especially lacking. 

Managements of our coastal environments, both on land and in water, should take 

climate change, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise into consideration.

95

Figure 1. Maps showing the distribution of ocean chemistry suitable for coral 

growth for different time periods, assuming ‘‘business-as-usual’’ CO2 emissions. Colors represent the chemical force promoting the development of coral skeletons. Year 

1765: Several hundred years ago, before the carbon dioxide emissions of the industrial revolution, nearly all coral reefs are found in the red-colored regions with a 

few in the orange and regions. No corals are found in the more blue and purple colored regions. Year 1994: Already, as a result of historical carbon dioxide emissions, 

the area that is most suitable for coral growth has retreated to the western Pacific 

Ocean (and a little bit of the Indian Ocean). Most existing corals are already in marginal environments for coral growth. Year 2040: Already, there is no place left in 

the ocean that is optimal for coral growth. In parts of the Southern Ocean, shells 

of some organisms, such as pteropods, are starting to dissolve. Year 2099: By the 

end of the century, there is no place left in the ocean with the kind of ocean chemistry where corals are found growing naturally. Shells of marine organisms are dissolving through most of the Southern Ocean. 

SELECTED REFERENCES 

Arrhenius, Svante, 1896, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the 

Temperature of the Ground, London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science (fifth series), April 1896. vol 41, pages 237-275. 

Barth, John A., Bruce A. Menge, Jane Lubchenco, Francis Chan, John M. Bane, 

Anthony R. Kirincich, Margaret A. McManus, Karina J. Nielsen, Stephen D. Pierce, 

and Libe Washburn. Delayed upwelling alters nearshore coastal ocean ecosystems 

in the northern California current. PNAS 2007 104: 3719-3724; 10.1073/

pnas.0700462104. 

Behrenfeld, M. J., R. T. O’Malley, D. A. Siegel, C. R. McClain, J. L. Sarmiento, 

G. C. Feldman, J. Milligan, P. G. Falkowski, R. M. Letelier, and E. S. Boss, 2006: 

Climate-driven trends in contemporary ocean productivity. Nature, 444(7120), 752-

755. 

Caldeira, K., and M.E. Wickett, Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH, Nature 425, 

365-365, 2003. 

Caldeira, K., and M.E. Wickett, Ocean model predictions of chemistry changes 

from carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere and ocean. Journal of Geophysical 

Research (Oceans) 110, C09S04, doi:10.1029/2004JC002671, 2005. 

Caldeira, K., M. Akai, P. Brewer, B. Chen, P. Haugan, T. Iwama, P. Johnston, 

H. Kheshgi, Q. Li, T. Ohsumi, H. Poertner, C. Sabine, Y. Shirayama, J. Thomson. 

Ocean storage. In: IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage. 

Prepared by Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 

[Metz, B., O. Davidson, H. C. de Coninck, M. Loos, and L. A. Meyer (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 442 

pp. 


34670.011.eps
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EPA, 1989: The Potential Effects of Global Climate Change on the United States. 

Report to Congress. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. EPA 

230-05-89-052. 

EPA, 1976: Quality Criteria for Water, Washington, DC (http://www.epa.gov/

waterscience/criteria/redbook.pdf) 

Orr, J.C., et al., Anthropogenic Ocean Acidification over the Twenty-first Century 

and Its Impact on Calcifying Organisms, Nature 437:681-686 (2005). 

Po ̈rtner, H.O., M. Langenbuch, and B. Michaelidis (2005) Synergistic effects of 

temperature extremes, hypoxia, and increases in CO2 on marine animals: From 

Earth history to global change, J. Geophys. Res. 110, C09S10, doi:10.1029/

2004JC002561. 

Po ̈rtner, H.O., Knust R. (2007) Climate change affects marine fishes through the 

oxygen limitation of thermal tolerance. Science 315, 95-97. 

Raven, J. Caldeira, K. Elderfield, H. Hoegh-Guldberg, O. Liss, P. Riebesell, U. 

Shepherd, J. Turley, C. Watson, A. (2005) Acidification due to increasing carbon dioxide. In Report 12/05. London, T.R.S.o. (ed.) London: The Royal Society, pp. vii + 

60. 

Tripati, A., Backman, J., Elderfield, H., and Ferreti, P., 2005, Eocene bipolar 

glaciation associated with global carbon cycle changes. Nature, 436:341-345. 

Mr. KENNEDY [presiding]. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Kleypas? 

STATEMENT OF JOAN A. KLEYPAS, Ph.D., INSTITUTE FOR THE 

STUDY OF SOCIETY AND ENVIRONMENT, NATIONAL CENTER 

FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH 

Dr. KLEYPAS. Thank you, Congressman Kennedy and other Members of the Subcommittee, for this opportunity to speak with you 

today. I am a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and I study the interactions between climate and marine 

ecosystems. 

I would like to speak about a topic that I feel is one of the most 

important environmental issues of our time. That issue is ocean 

acidification and what it means for our marine ecosystems. 

[Slide.] 

Dr. KLEYPAS. I want to repeat two of the main points made by 

Dr. Caldeira. First, every year the oceans absorb about a third of 

the carbon dioxide released by humans to the atmosphere. This is 

a natural service provided by the oceans that helps reduce the rate 

of climate change. 

Second, this uptake is not without consequences. The additional 

carbon dioxide in the oceans is turning them more acidic. Although 

we cannot feel this change, it is predictable, measurable, and it is 

accelerating. 

There are two main ways that increasing acidity affects marine 

organisms. First, it affects the basic life functions such as respiration and growth. Second, in a broad group of organisms that we 

call marine calcifiers it affects their ability to form their calcium 

carbonate shells or skeletons. 

With respect to life functions, the first question that comes to 

mind is will marine organisms be stressed by ocean acidification? 

Only a few experiments have so far been conducted to answer this. 

As expected, it appears that some organisms will be stressed 

while others will not. Squid, for example, appear to be more sensitive than fish, and early life stages of marine organisms such as 

larval fish appear to be more sensitive than adults. 

97

What we know the most about is how changes in acidity affect 

the ability of many marine organisms to build their shells or skeletons. This includes many groups from microscopic algae at the base 

of the food chain to familiar groups like claims and oysters, starfish 

and corals. 

As Ken said, corals are the best studied amongst these, and if 

current trends in emissions continue there is strong evidence that 

coral calcification rates will decline by 10 to 50 percent by the middle of this century. 

What does it mean to these organisms to have reduced ability to 

grow shells? It is like taking away their fundamental building material. These organisms grow shells and skeletons for a variety of 

reasons such as protection, competing for space or anchoring to the 

sea floor, amongst many others. Suppressing skeletal growth is 

thus very likely to decrease an organism’s ability to survive. 

Another critical question. How will ocean acidification affect marine ecosystems and food chains? There are indications that the 

ranges of some species will be reduced and that food webs will be 

altered—this is very similar to the terrestrial information we had 

today—including some species that support commercially important 

fish species. 

Researchers are beginning to take up the task to find out how 

such efforts will cascade through marine food webs. There has been 

little research on this unfortunately, but it is urgent that we figure 

this out. 

Calcium carbonate is essential at the ecosystem level as well. 

Coral reefs exist simply because corals and other organisms 

produce this mineral faster than it is removed or dissolved. Reef 

structures are important. They support high biodiversity in fisheries, they protect many coastlines from storms, they provide the 

quiet conditions necessary for mangroves and seagrass beds, and 

they allow the existence of low-lying coral atolls. 

If calcium carbonate production decreases the supply of coral 

sediment also decreases, leaving islands more vulnerable to erosion, particularly in the face of rising sea level and extreme weather events. 

Based on present day observations and the geological record, 

ocean acidification will alter our marine ecosystems in fundamental 

ways. Unfortunately, the problem of ocean acidification is a relatively new discovery, and we are just beginning to understand 

how far reaching the effects may be. We have much work to do. 

The obvious solution is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This 

will not only decrease ocean acidification; it will decrease the other 

compounding problems associated with climate change. In the 

meantime, given the problem of multiple stressors on ecosystems, 

it makes sense to address those stresses that we can control, like 

poor land use practices and overfishing, while we implement solutions to the global problem of rising atmosphere CO2. 

Personally I feel that ocean acidification is one of the greatest 

risks we face if we continue to allow carbon dioxide to build up in 

the atmosphere. The implications are important to life in the 

oceans as we know it and ultimately to our own lives. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Kleypas follows:]

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1 The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is sponsored by the National Science 

Foundation. 

Statement of Joan A. Kleypas, Ph.D., Scientist, Institute for the Study of 

Society and Environment, National Center for Atmospheric Research1

Introduction 

I thank Chairwoman Bordallo, Ranking Member Brown, and the other Members 

of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to speak with you today on the future of 

our wildlife and oceans in a changing climate. My name is Joan Kleypas. I am a 

Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. My 

personal research has focused on the interactions between marine ecosystems and 

climate change, with particular emphasis on the impacts of climate change on coral 

reef ecosystems. I have authored or co-authored between 30 and 40 peer-reviewed 

scientific journal articles, book chapters, and technical documents, and have presented more than 30 invited talks worldwide. I have co-organized several international workshops on issues related to climate change and marine ecosystems. I 

currently serve on two committees related to carbon and the oceans: the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Scientific Steering Committee, and the European 

CarboOcean International Advisory Board. You have asked me to provide insights 

on issues related to the known and predicted impacts that climate change is having 

and is expected to have on wildlife and oceans. My testimony will focus on the 

emerging problem of ocean acidification. I have worked on this issue since 1998, and 

have led several efforts to improve our understanding of this process and what it 

means for ocean life. 

Background 

A large proportion of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released to the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean. A recent inventory of carbon in the oceans estimates that by 

mid-1990s, the oceans had already taken up nearly half of the total carbon dioxide 

released by human activities between 1800 and 1994. Without this process, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide would have risen from 280 ppmv to be 

about 435 ppmv rather than the current concentration of 380 ppmv. The natural 

sequestration of carbon dioxide by the oceans thus slows down the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. 

However, the additional CO2 in the water column is resulting in ‘‘ocean acidification,’’ the progressive shift of ocean pH toward more acidic conditions. This shift is 

occurring because carbon dioxide combines with seawater to form carbonic acid, 

which lowers the pH. Once the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 

reaches twice that of preindustrial times (560 ppmv), the pH of the surface ocean 

will have decreased from a preindustrial average of about 8.16 to about 7.91. Because pH is reported on a logarithmic scale, this small change in pH represents a 

rather large increase (78%) in hydrogen ion concentration, with clear implications 

for biological processes. These changes will also cause shifts in the relative concentrations of other dissolved carbon species in the ocean. Notably, the concentration of the carbonate ion, which is a major building block for the skeletons and 

shells of many marine organisms, will decrease by about 34%. 

Even though the process of ocean acidification was predicted since the 1970s, only 

recently has this process been verified by large-scale measurements of carbon in the 

ocean through programs such as the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and the 

Joint Global Ocean Flux Survey. Based on what we know about ocean pH in the 

past, the seawater chemistry of the surface ocean is already altered to a state that 

is considerably outside the range of conditions of the past several hundred thousand 

years and possibly twenty million years. The surface ocean is everywhere experiencing a decline in pH (‘‘acidification’’). Today, the surface ocean remains saturated 

with the calcium carbonate minerals aragonite and calcite. The ‘‘saturation horizon,’’ 

below which these minerals will dissolve, is becoming shallower as the oceans take 

up more CO2. Within this century, it is predicted that the saturation horizon for 

aragonite will reach the surface near the poles, particularly in Antarctica. 

In the remaining testimony, the terms ‘‘increasing CO2’’ and ‘‘ocean acidification’’ 

are used interchangeably. Although these are not technically the same, the justifying assumption is that increasing atmospheric CO2 is the absolute driver of ocean 

acidification. 

The Effects of Ocean Acidification on Marine Organisms 

The potential effects of ocean acidification on marine biota were not recognized 

until about a decade ago, when experiments indicated that major groups of marine 

organisms were affected by ocean acidification. Ocean pH is a fundamental property 

99

1 Royal Society, 2005. Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, Policy 

Document 12/05. The Royal Society. http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/document.asp?id=3249 2Kleypas JA, RA Feely, VJ Fabry, C Langdon, CL Sabine and LL Robbins. 2006. Impacts of 

Ocean Acidification on Coral Reefs and Other Marine Calcifiers. A Guide for Future Research, 

Report of a workshop sponsored by NSF, NOAA and the USGS. 88pp. http://www.isse.ucar.edu/

florida/

of seawater that affects almost every aspect of biochemistry. First, it affects organisms physiologically; that is, such basic life functions such as photosynthesis, respiration, growth, etc. Second, in a broad group of organisms that we call ‘‘marine 

calcifiers,’’ it affects their ability to form their calcium carbonate shells or skeletons. 

For each, I will outline what we know and also what we don’t know. Most of the 

information I present here draws from two major reports on ocean acidification published by the Royal Society 1, and by a U.S. effort jointly funded by the National 

Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and 

U.S. Geological Survey 2. Currently, there is much more information regarding the 

calcification response of marine organisms to ocean acidification than the physiological response. 

Physiological response of primary producers and microorganisms. The bulk of the 

primary production in the oceans is carried out by phytoplankton, unicellular algae 

that live suspended in the upper few hundred meters of the ocean. These are the 

foundation for most marine food webs. Marine algae are not as CO2-limited as terrestrial plants, because they possess a ‘‘carbon concentration mechanism.’’ Thus, 

CO2 fertilization does not seem likely for most marine primary producers, and most 

experiments have confirmed this. One exception is in coccolithophorids, which 

showed an increase in primary production under conditions of elevated-CO2 experiments and elevated nutrients; in similar experiments with normal nutrient levels, 

primary production did not increase. Some true marine plants, such as seagrasses, 

may be carbon-limited and may grow faster in the future, but this has not been tested. Almost no realistic experiments have been conducted on the vast array of other 

marine microorganisms. 

Physiological response of higher marine organisms. In terms of physiological response, the first question that comes to mind is ‘‘will marine organisms be adversely 

affected by a lowered pH?’’ Most of the experiments conducted so far were designed 

to simulate the effects on ocean biota adjacent to deep-injection CO2 disposal sites, 

and most were designed to measure acute physiological effects and mortality. Most 

of the organisms in these tests experienced increasing rates of mortality with decreasing pH, and some of the experiments indicated that physiological stress was 

apparent even near slightly elevated concentrations. These experiments did show 

that some species are not likely to be adversely affected. For example, some copepod 

and amphipod species appear to be tolerant of even extreme increases in elevated 

CO2 concentrations, and/or recover following an acute exposure. These and other 

species that are adapted to existing extreme environments in the ocean (e.g., the 

unusual communities associated with hydrothermal vents) are not likely to be directly affected by ocean acidification. 

Few experiments have been so far been conducted to test the physiological response of marine organisms to pH changes consistent with projected atmospheric 

CO2 concentrations. These experiments have primarily been conducted on mollusks, 

echinoderms and fish. The basic argument about the effects of ocean acidification 

on higher-order organisms is that it causes acidosis of animal tissue and body fluids, 

which can have long-term effects on metabolic functions. A summary of these findings so far are: 

1. Chronic exposure of fish to lowered pH can cause changes in metabolic states, 

such as including increased or decreased respiration rates, changes in blood 

chemistry pH, or changes in enzymatic activities. 

2. Sea urchins grown in lower-pH waters show an inability to regulate internal 

acid-base balance, which would limit or inhibit growth. Development of sea urchin larvae is also slowed or abnormal. 

3. Mollusks grown in lower-pH waters exhibit a slower metabolic rate, a decrease 

in haemolymph pH, and a decrease in growth rates. Squid appear to be particularly sensitive to ocean acidification because of their high metabolic rate 

and pH-sensitive blood oxygen transport. 

4. Some coral species have survived low-pH conditions in the lab for one year, despite the complete dissolution of their skeletons. 

5. In most species, larval stages are considered more sensitive to pH changes 

than the adults, because they have less-developed systems for regulating internal pH. 

100

Even though many of these changes are not immediately detrimental to an organism, they may affect long-term growth and reproduction and may thus be harmful 

at population and species levels. 

Effects on marine calcifiers. So far, experiments have been conducted on at least 

six major groups of calcifying organisms: coccolithophores (microscopic algae); foraminifera (microscopic protozoans); coralline algae (benthic algae); echinoderms (sea urchins and starfish); mollusks (snails, clams, and squid); and corals. While the responses vary somewhat between the major groups, nearly all experiments have that 

calcification rates decline with decreasing pH. Corals are the best studied among 

these and the range of experiments indicates that calcification rates will decline by 

10-50% if atmospheric CO2 concentrations reach double the preindustrial concentrations. 

The ability of marine calcifiers to adapt to these pH changes has not been adequately tested. Corals that have been grown under decreased pH conditions for a 

year or more do not show signs of adapting. Calcification rates in one 

coccolithophore species appears to be maximized at near present-day conditions, 

which suggests that this species can adapt to new CO2 conditions. Geological and 

paleontological data show a waxing and waning of skeletal sizes and thicknesses 

over time, consistent with changing ocean chemistry, which indicates that many 

groups do not adapt to such changes. 

Ocean acidification not only compromises the ability of these organisms to secrete 

calcium carbonate, it also increases the rate at which existing calcium carbonate 

dissolves. This may be particularly important for groups that already exist near the 

‘‘saturation horizon’’ of calcium carbonate, such as cold water corals that live in deep 

waters above the saturation horizon, and planktonic marine snails called 

‘‘pteropods’’ that are particularly abundant in Antarctic waters and are an important food species from many commercial species. 

There is essentially no information regarding how changes in calcification rate 

will affect the ability of organisms to survive in nature, and most of what we know 

is based on assumptions that organisms grow shells and skeletons for a variety of 

reasons, such as: protection, gathering light for photosynthesis, competing for space, 

anchoring to the substrate, and reproduction. Suppressing skeletal growth is therefore likely to decrease an organism’s fitness and ability to function within its ecological community. Also, the function of the calcium carbonate may change over the 

lifetime of an organism. For example, calcium carbonate in a larval echinoderm provides the ballast that allows the larvae to settle onto suitable substrate, but later 

provides its protective exoskeleton. Recent experiments show that two coral species 

completely lose their skeletons (through dissolution) when pH is reduced to 7.4 

(which would occur if atmospheric CO2 concentrations exceeds 1200 ppmv); yet they 

survived in the lab, and once returned to a normal pH, grew new skeletons. This 

provides a positive note that some coral species could survive ocean acidification, albeit in a much altered state. Indeed, there is evolutionary evidence that some corals 

may have indeed survived mass extinction events in this way, and provided the 

stock from which new coral species evolved (over time spans of millions of years). 

But the survivability of ‘‘naked corals’’ in the field is questionable, and their ecological role in the coral community would be altered. 

The Effects of Ocean Acidification on Marine Ecosystems 

Changes in the physiology and calcification rates of marine organisms will undoubtedly affect marine ecosystems and food chains. There are indications that the 

ranges of some species will be reduced, and that food webs will be altered, including 

those that support some commercially important fish species. Researchers are beginning to take up the task to find out how such affects will cascade through marine 

food webs, but at the moment there has been little research on this. 

Calcium carbonate is also important at the ecosystem level. Coral reefs exist simply because corals and other organisms secrete calcium carbonate faster than it is 

removed. Reef structures are important because they 1) support high biodiversity 

and fisheries, 2) protect many coastlines and provide the quiet conditions necessary 

for mangroves and seagrass beds, and 3) allow the existence of low-lying coral atolls. 

The ability of coral reefs to keep up with rising sea level is well documented. This 

ability is because the amount of calcium carbonate produced by a reef community 

exceeds the amount that is removed by erosion and dissolution. If calcium carbonate 

production decreases, then reef-building and the constant supply of coral sediment 

will also decrease. Mass coral die offs in recent years has led to considerable erosion 

on some reefs; the Gala ́pagos reefs, for example, were formed over a period of 3000 

years, but were eroded away within a decade following the 1982-1983 coral bleaching event. Ocean acidification not only decreases calcification rates on reefs, it also 

increases dissolution rates, so that net reef building declines. Any reduction in 

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3Orr, J.C., Fabry, V.J., Aumont, O., et al. (2005) Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the 

twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms, Nature, 437, 681-686. 4 Yates, K.K. and R.B. Halley (2006) CO32- concentration and pCO2 thresholds for calcification 

and dissolution on the Molokai reef flat, Hawaii, Biogeosciences, 3, 357-369. 

calcium carbonate increases the potential for island erosion, particularly in the face 

of rising sea level. 

Based on present-day observations and the geological record, it seems certain that 

ocean acidification will alter our marine ecosystems. The rapid disappearance of marine calcifying organisms in some mass extinction events in Earth history has been 

attributed, at least in part, to ocean acidification. Unfortunately, the problem of 

ocean acidification is a relatively new discovery and we are just beginning to understand how far-reaching the effects may be. We have much work to do. 

Solutions 

Ocean acidification may be one of the greatest environmental risks we face if we 

continue to allow CO2 to build up in the atmosphere. The obvious solution is to reduce CO2 emissions; this will not only decrease ocean acidification, it will decrease 

many of the other problems associated with climate change. Although seemingly impossible now, should new technologies be developed to not only slow atmospheric 

CO2 increases, but actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere, the current acidification of the upper ocean would be reversed. It is true that much of the carbon absorbed by the oceans has been transported by ocean circulation to deeper depths, 

and will remain in the ocean for hundreds of years. The upper ocean, however, is 

in near equilibrium with the atmosphere, and removing CO2 from either the ocean 

or the atmosphere causes CO2 to diffuse across the air-sea interface (gas diffuses 

from the region of high concentration to low concentration). Thus, restoring the atmosphere to its preindustrial state would restore the surface ocean to its 

preindustrial pH. 

It is tempting to recommend some limit to how acidic the ocean can get before 

irreparable damage will occur. The ‘‘safest’’ value would be the maximum values experienced during the glacial interglacial cycles (essentially the preindustrial levels). 

Other values that have been proposed include: the value at which surface waters 

would become undersaturated with the minerals that organisms need to build shells 

(550 ppmv) 3; or the value at which coral reefs would begin to suffer net erosion 

(450-1000 ppmv) 4. However, these are only two of the many other potential thresholds that have not been measured, such as concentrations that: 1) impact fish species or their food resources, 2) impact larval survival and recruitment of important 

species of fish and shellfish, and 3) cause changes in community composition in 

ways that affect the ability of the oceans to recycle important nutrients such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. In reality, there are likely to be a continuum of 

thresholds, and predicting these is complicated by the problem of ‘‘multiple 

stressors’’ on marine ecosystems, such as pollution, poor land-use practices, and 

overfishing. 

As technologies to stabilize or reverse CO2 concentration in the atmosphere are 

developed, it is not only timely but urgent that we improve our understanding of 

how ocean acidification will affect marine life across molecular to ecosystem scales. 

Given the multiple stressors in our environment, actions should be taken to minimize additional stresses to organisms or ecosystems that are particularly vulnerable 

to ocean acidification (for example, reducing fishing quotas for species that experience lowered reproductive success). Acquiring the information needed to advise policy makers on these issues will require coordinated research across multiple institutes and government agencies. In some cases, even basic information on the distribution patterns of major groups of marine organisms is lacking and such information would greatly inform our ability to predict future biological responses. Existing 

efforts by NOAA and NASA should be expanded to improve monitoring and observations; but much of the key research needed is at the cellular to ecosystem levels and 

requires basic academic research through both NSF and EPA. 

Conclusions 

Ocean acidification is occurring now and in all oceans. pH of the surface ocean, 

where the bulk of ocean production and biodiversity exist, is changing in lock-step 

with changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration. The long-term effects of ocean 

acidification on species and ecosystems are consistent with recent observations that 

tie mass extinction events of Earth’s history to ocean acidification. Evidence from 

multiple scientific disciplines points to the same conclusion: ocean life is sensitive 

to changes in ocean pH, and will be increasingly affected by ocean acidification. 

Many calcifying species are likely to be affected by a decreased capacity to grow and 

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1Loa ́ ciga, HA. (2006) Modern-age buildup of CO2 and its effects on seawater acidity and salinity, Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L10605, doi:10.1029/2006GL026305, 2 Caldeira K, D Archer, JP Barry, RGJ Bellerby, PG Brewer, L Cao, AG Dickson, SC Doney, 

H Elderfield, VJ Fabry, RA Feely, J-P Gattuso, PM Haugan, O. Hoegh-Guldberg, AK Jain, JA 

Kleypas, C Langdon, JC Orr, A Ridgwell, CL Sabine, BA Seibel, Y Shirayama, C Turley, AJ 

Watson, RE Zeebe (in press) Comment on ‘‘Modern-age buildup of CO2 and its effects on seawater acidity and salinity’’ Geophysical Research Letters. 

maintain their shells and skeletons. Many other species may be affected physiologically, simply by changes in their internal pH. Because ocean acidification is likely 

to affect such a broad array of marine organisms, we can expect to see significant 

changes in marine ecosystems, including those that support commercial fishing. 

Ocean acidification is an emerging scientific issue, but it is also one of high environmental risk. Because of that, I am deeply grateful for this opportunity to address 

this Subcommittee, and I look forward to answering your questions. 

Response to questions submitted for the record

by Dr. Joanie Kleypas 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE MADELEINE BORDALLO, CHAIRWOMAN 

1. How sure are we about the chemistry of ocean acidification? Is there 

debate on this point? 

The chemistry of ocean acidification is complicated, but it is well understood and 

predictable. Because carbon dioxide concentration is the main factor determining pH 

of the surface ocean, predictions of the degree of ocean acidification in the future 

are well known. There are also secondary factors that affect the concentration of 

carbon dioxide, such as the degree of temperature rise or changes in biological activity in the ocean. However, none of these significantly affect the ocean acidification 

process. 

There is strong consensus among scientists that ocean acidification is occurring 

and will continue to occur in concert with increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide 

concentration; and to my knowledge, there is no debate about whether ocean acidification is happening. There is one published paper that attempted to assert that the 

biological impacts of ocean acidification would be small 1, but this paper failed to acknowledge a decade’s worth of studies on the biological impacts of ocean acidification 2. 

2. Given that reductions in carbon emissions are not going to be eliminated tomorrow, can you talk more about the steps that managers can 

take now to help marine ecosystems be more resilient in the fact of climate change and ocean acidification? For instance, how might they 

want to change their approach to the management of wetlands and 

coastal areas? 

Climate change and ocean acidification are two very important stressors on coastal and marine ecosystems, but there are many other factors as well. During this period where we are committed to some degree of climate change, the first management approach is one that concentrates on removing stresses that can be controlled. 

Some of these actions are obvious, such as reducing overfishing, pollution, and landbased activities (e.g., deforestation) that negatively affect the marine environment. 

A healthy ecosystem is simply more resilient to climate change than one that is already stressed. 

A second strategy would be to identify those regions that are least/most vulnerable to climate change and other stresses. Which regions will benefit the most from 

conservation, and where should we concentrate our conservation efforts? Which regions are most likely to remain viable during our committed period of climate 

change? What are the best factors (e.g., biodiversity, size, protection from other 

stressors) for determining such resilience? 

Finally, because the responses of ecosystems are inherently difficult to predict, 

management activities need to become more adaptive in two ways. First, managers 

will need to adjust their management strategies to incorporate new findings and information about their particular regions. Second, there needs to be geographic flexibility in managing ecosystems and associated watersheds, because they will need to 

migrate with temperature change and with sea level change. 

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3Orr, JC, VJ Fabry, O Aumont, L Bopp, SC Doney, RM Feely, A Gnanadesikan, N Gruber, 

A Ishida, F Joos, RM Key, K Lindsay, E Maier-Reimer, R Matear, P Monfray, A Mouchet, RG 

Najjar, G-K Plattner, KB Rodgers, CL Sabine, JL Sarmiento, R Schlitzer, RD Slater, IJ 

Totterdell, M-F Weirig,Y Yamanaka, A Yool (2005) Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the 

twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms, Nature, 437(7059): 681-686. 

3. What about the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, are those ecosystem 

particularly threatened by climate change and ocean acidification? 

I am not an expert on polar ecosystems, but I will state what I do know. Polar 

ecosystems will experience the greatest temperature changes, and changes in sea ice 

extent, thickness and duration will doubly affect many organisms. Polar regions are 

also the first areas where ocean acidification will cause chemical changes that lead 

to surface waters that are actually corrosive to calcium carbonate shells and skeletons 3. (Deep ocean waters are naturally corrosive to calcium carbonate, but the 

surface ocean everywhere on the globe is not acidic enough to dissolve shells. If atmospheric CO2 concentration continues to increase at the present rate, within a few 

decades ocean acidification will cause surface waters in some polar regions to become acidic enough to dissolve organisms’ shells. We do not yet know if non-shell 

forming organisms will be affected by this change.) 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE PATRICK KENNEDY 

Regardless of whether or not we take actions to control and reduce green 

house gas emissions, wildlife and wildlife habitat and the ocean environment are going to change and adapt, often unpredictably, to a 

warming climate. Consequently, we should take steps now to develop 

strategies to allow for the future conservation of biodiversity and the 

maintenance of a healthy and resilient environment. 

1. Keeping in mind that any transition to a new ‘‘Green Economy’’ will take 

decades to achieve and that most Members of Congress will want to 

limit unnecessary disruptions of social and economic systems, can you 

be more specific on what practical types of adaptive management strategies we should consider to mitigate the negative effects of climate 

change on our collective wildlife and ocean resources? 

We all wish to avoid decisions that lead to a collapse of either our economy or 

our ecosystems—in reality they depend on each other. Although other scientists can 

speak to parts of this question in more detail, there are certainly some logical steps 

that can be taken to help mitigate negative effects of climate change on both terrestrial and marine resources. These steps fall into three categories: 

a) Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to ecologically ‘‘safe’’ levels. This might include increasing energy efficiency, shifting our reliance on fossil fuel-based 

energy to cleaner technologies, and promoting human behavioral changes. 

b) Identifying key areas for conservation. Sound conservation strategies are based 

on a better understanding of which regions are least/most vulnerable to climate change and other stresses. Which regions will benefit the most from conservation, and where should we concentrate our conservation efforts? 

c) Concentrating on removing stresses that we can control, such as reducing overfishing, pollution, and land-based activities (e.g., deforestation) that negatively 

affect the marine environment. Marine organisms and ecosystems will thus 

have a better chance at managing the effects of climate change and ocean acidification. 

d) Adopt economic evaluations that include of the value of ‘‘ecosystem services.’’ 

Most ecosystems services are taken for granted: water purification, nutrient recycling, protection of our coastlines, supporting fisheries, etc. Rarely are these 

services taken seriously in economic evaluations, which may benefit some, but 

generally hurts all of us. 

2. Should we be doing more to re-evaluate our current policies for land use 

planning and public acquisition of land for wildlife habitat? Should we 

be adopting a broader landscape and ecosystem-based approach for protecting wildlife? 

Yes and yes. As stated above, the more we can reduce the manageable stresses 

on wildlife and ecosystems, the better they will be able to handle the less-manageable effects of climate change and ocean acidification. We can also do a better job 

at including climate change predictions in making these policies. Ecosystem-based 

management, particularly when it provides a means for species and ecosystems to 

migrate in response to climate change, is proving to be a sound means for protecting 

wildlife and the wild ecosystems that support them. 

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4 Barnett, TP, DW Pierce, KM AchutaRao, PJ Gleckler, BD Santer, JM Gregory, and WM 

Washington (2005) Penetration of human-induced warming in to the World’s oceans. Science 

309: 284-287. 5Levitus, S, J Antonov, and T Boyer (2005), Warming of the world ocean, 1955-2003, Geophys. 

Res. Lett., 32, L02604, doi:10.1029/2004GL021592. 6Gouretski, V, and KP Koltermann (2007), How much is the ocean really warming?, Geophys. 

Res. Lett., 34, L01610, doi:10.1029/2006GL027834. 

3. Finally, how might such ideas be applied to the ocean and coastal environment and the wildlife therein? 

While policy-making is outside my expertise, in my opinion, our current policies 

for land use planning could be improved to focus more on habitat preservation rather than species preservation. This approach has been used increasingly in both the 

terrestrial and marine environments with good success. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE HENRY BROWN, MINORITY 

RANKING MEMBER 

1. Dr. Kleypas, in your written testimony you state that restoring the levels 

of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels would restore the surface layers of the ocean to its pre-industrial state. How 

achievable or feasible is it to go back to pre-industrial carbon dioxide 

levels? 

At the moment, this is not feasible, because it would require technology to remove 

CO2 from the atmosphere. Such technology actually does exist, but it is not yet energetically efficient. 

This point in my testimony was meant to highlight two points: 

A) CO2 diffuses across the air-sea interface from the air to the sea when atmospheric concentration of CO2 is higher, but it diffuses from the sea to the air when 

the oceanic concentration of CO2 is higher. Were we able to draw down the atmospheric concentration of CO2, then CO2 would exit the ocean into the atmosphere, 

thereby reversing the ocean acidification process. 

B) While it presently seems infeasible to draw down CO2 from the atmosphere, 

it should not be deemed impossible. In 1920, it was infeasible to put a man on the 

moon, but less than 50 years later, the U.S. achieved this remarkable feat. There 

are many other examples where the U.S. has demonstrated leadership and ingenuity that has greatly accelerated scientific and social progress. 

2. Predicting specific aspects of global warming has been very difficult. 

Climate models predicted a global temperature increase of 1.5 degrees 

Celsius by the year 2000, six times more than that which has taken 

place. Modelers, at the time, argued that the heat generated by their 

claimed ‘‘greenhouse warming effect’’ were stored in the deep oceans. 

Has this theory been proven to be correct? 

Based on observational data, the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculated a trend of 0.4-0.8°C increase in 

global surface temperature for the period 1901 to 2000. The most recent IPCC Assessment Report recalculated the trend for 1906-2006 to be 0.56-0.92°C. 

Analysis of ocean temperature observations taken since the 1960’s indicates that 

the oceans are warming at the surface (absorbing some of the heat from the atmosphere), and ocean currents are transporting some of that heat to deeper parts of the 

ocean. Comparisons of model predictions with observations indicate that the warming signal in the oceans is well-represented in several global climate models 4. One 

estimate of the increased heat content of the oceans between 1955 and 1998 (14.5 

x 1022 J) would account for some 84% of the increase in heat content for the total 

Earth system 5; another estimate of the increase in ocean heat content between the 

decades 1957-66 and 1987-96 is somewhat less (12.8 ± 8.0 • 1022 J) 6. 

3. The March 30, 2007, issue of Science contains a research article that 

shows calcifying coral species, in the absence of conditions supporting 

skeleton building, maintained basic life functions as skeleton-less forms 

and returned to skeleton building when conditions returned to normal. 

Is this research promising with regard to the survival of corals over the 

long-term? 

Yes and no. This research supports previous studies that predicted that some 

coral species (those most closely related to a coral-like group of organisms that do 

not have skeletons) may have the ability to survive as ‘‘naked’’ corals, and also that 

this is what allowed some species to survive the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction 

event (the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago). 

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7Sarmiento, JL and N Gruber (2002) Sinks for anthropogenic carbon, Physics Today, 55(8), 

30-36, 2002.

However, the survival of such ‘‘naked corals’’ in the wild is questionable, because 

the functions of the skeleton (protection from currents and predation; ability to grow 

upward toward the light; extension above the substrate; etc.) would be lost. Even 

if some species were able to survive such skeletal loss, they would no longer build 

reefs, so that the ecosystem itself would lose its ability to support many other species or the ecosystem services that coral reefs provide (please see the response to 

Congressman Brown’s question 23 for some examples of these services). 

4. It has been reported that sea water expands when warm. How much of 

the sea level rise predictions take into account thermal expansion of sea 

water? (10 percent of the sea level rise estimated to be from glacial runoff). 

I am not an expert on sea level rise, and I will answer only briefly. Because the 

warming of the ocean lags behind atmospheric CO2 concentration increases, sea 

level rise from thermal expansion would continue for centuries after atmospheric 

CO2 concentrations are stabilized, because of the time required to transport heat to 

the deeper parts of the ocean. That is, as rising air temperatures from increased 

CO2 in the atmosphere warm an ever increasing volume of sea water at greater 

depths, this growing volume of warmer water will continue to expand, thus contributing to ongoing sea level increases. This also means that the contribution of thermal expansion to overall sea level rise changes over time; but in general, thermal 

expansion accounts for an estimated one-third to one-half of the observed sea level 

rise. Projections of sea level rise take into account estimates of future thermal expansion, as well as contributions from melting glaciers and ice caps, the Greenland 

ice sheet, and the Antarctic ice sheet. Recent apparent accelerations of the rate of 

ice discharge from the Greenland ice sheet are also taken into account in the current projections of sea level rise in the IPCC AR4, though our understanding of this 

process is limited since we have just recently begun to see such apparent accelerations. Therefore, the IPCC AR4 concludes that larger values of sea level rise cannot 

be excluded. 

5. It has been reported that the typical breakdown of carbon dioxide in the 

atmosphere is 57 percent from the ocean, 19 percent from decaying vegetation, and 19 percent from plant and animal respiration. Do you agree 

with this breakdown? If not, what is it? 

I am not sure what this question is asking, so I have included a figure 7 that illustrates the relative sizes of the carbon reservoirs, as well as the fluxes of carbon between those reservoirs. From this information one can derive the relative importance of the reservoirs and fluxes to the atmospheric concentration. 

Figure: GLOBAL CARBON CYCLE: Arrows show the fluxes (in pentagram of carbon per year) between the atmosphere and its two primary sinks, the land and 

ocean, averaged over the 1980s. Anthropogenic fluxes are in red; natural fluxes in 


34670.019.eps
106

black. The net flux between reservoirs is balanced for natural processes, but not for 

anthropogenic fluxes. Within the boxes, black numbers give the preindustrial sizes 

of the reservoirs and red numbers denote the changes resulting from human activities since preindustrial times. For the land sink, the first red number is an inferred 

terrestrial land sink whose origin is speculative; the second one is a decrease due 

to deforestation. Numbers are slight modifications of those published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change. NPP is net primary production. From 

Sarmiento and Gruber (2002). 

6. It has been reported that current carbon dioxide levels are 370 parts per 

million and pre-industrial revolution levels of carbon dioxide were 280 

parts per million. Do you agree with these levels? Interpretations of past 

geological levels of carbon dioxide have been reported to be 1000 parts 

per million without adverse effect on species. Do you agree? If 1000 

parts per million were not cause of adverse effects, how is 370 parts per 

million a problem? 

Current carbon dioxide levels are 383 parts per million (ppm). I agree with the 

estimate that the pre-industrial level was 280 ppm, and that atmospheric CO2 levels 

were much higher (e.g. 1000 ppm) in the geological past. Whether such high CO2

levels caused adverse effects on species depends on several factors, but mainly on 

whether atmospheric CO2 was rising and if so, how fast. 

Your question is a good one. It is a common point of confusion and one that requires a brief explanation in ocean chemistry. Ocean pH, or acidity, is determined 

not only by CO2 concentration, but also by ocean alkalinity. Ocean alkalinity is in 

simplest terms, the concentration of positively charged ions of calcium, potassium, 

sodium, etc., that accumulate in the ocean from the weathering of rocks. An increase 

in ocean alkalinity causes pH to increase, and vice-versa. During those geologic periods when CO2 levels were maintained at much higher levels, it is likely that ocean 

alkalinity was also elevated. This is because the rates of weathering (the breakdown 

and dissolution of rocks) would have increased. On land, rates of weathering would 

increase because of 1) a warmer climate, and 2) elevated atmospheric CO2 levels 

would have caused rain to be more acidic which would dissolve rocks more quickly. 

In the ocean, increases in ocean acidity cause calcium carbonate sediments in the 

deep sea to dissolve. Both the land and ocean weathering processes deliver more alkalinity to the oceans. While CO2 levels can increase rapidly (such as through rapid 

onset of volcanic activity, a rapid release of methane, or fossil-fuel burning), weathering processes can increase ocean alkalinity only slowly. Thus, a gradual increase 

in atmospheric CO2 is matched by an increase in alkalinity, but a rapid increase 

in CO2 causes an increase in ocean acidity (i.e., pH decreases) until weathering 

brings the system back into balance. These balancing feedbacks occur on long 

timescales (thousands of years) and help maintain stable acidity in the ocean. 

Aside from the present, we know of at least one period in Earth history when 

ocean acidification has happened before. Fifty-five million years ago, a rapid increase of carbon to the atmosphere was accompanied by a rapid decrease in calcium 

carbonate deposition in the oceans. This was accompanied by dramatic dissolution 

of calcium carbonates in the deep ocean, as well as by changes in ocean biota (some 

species apparently went extinct, but the changes in ocean biology during this event 

have not been well examined). After about 50 thousand years, ocean pH appeared 

to have recovered to the levels that had occurred before the rapid CO2 increase. 

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8Stanley, GD and DG Fautin (2001) The origins of modern corals, Science, 291(5510): 1913-

1914. 9Medina, M, AG Collins, TL Takaoka, JV Kuehl, JL Boore (2006) Naked corals: skeleton loss 

in Scleractinia, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. U.S.A., 103: 9096-9100. 10Fine, M and D Tchernov (2007) Scleractinian coral species survive and recover from decalcification. Science, 315: 1811. 11Stanley, G.D. (ed.) 2001. The History and Sedimentology of Ancient Reef Systems, Vol. 17, 

Topics in Geobiology, Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York, 458 pp. 

7. It is generally agreed upon that modern-day corals first started to appear about 200 million years ago. During the past 200 million years, 

many large-scale changes have occurred to the earth and its climate—

continents have drifted about, sea levels have risen and fallen by several 

hundreds of feet, ice sheets have come and gone, carbon dioxide levels 

have fluctuated from below today’s levels to as much as 10 times as high 

as today and the earth’s temperatures have fluctuated by 10 or more degrees Fahrenheit—and many of these types have changes have, from 

time to time, occurred rapidly (for example, sea level and temperature 

changes at the termination of ice ages). Yet through it all, high acid 

oceans/low acid oceans, warm oceans/cold oceans, high sea levels/low sea 

levels, corals and coral reefs have persisted—as evidenced by there 

existence today. They seem rather responsive and adaptive. Is it possible 

that the reason you find that coral appear to be very sensitive to climate 

change is that many studies have taken place in the laboratory under 

carefully controlled conditions that do not well-capture the vast array 

and complexity of the conditions (including diversity across species as 

well as genetic diversity within species)? 

It is true that the ancestors of ‘‘modern-day’’ corals (taxonomic order Scleractinia) 

did appear around 240 million years ago. There is also evidence that skeletonbuilding in these corals may have waxed and waned with fluctuations in seawater 

chemistry over geologic time 8, 9. The study mentioned in Congressman Brown’s 

question 3 10 is one example of experimental evidence that skeletal formation in corals is sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry. This result is consistent across dozens 

of such experiments, and across dozens of species. But we agree that the experiments are limited and should be conducted on many more species and under more 

natural conditions. So far, there has been limited funding to do this but there is 

a growing call from the scientific community to conduct more such experiments. 

The evidence that at least some corals can survive without skeletons is good news 

when considering their potential to survive ocean acidification. However, given that 

their skeletons provide some function, these corals will not be functioning within the 

ecosystem as they are in skeletonized form. If we are to assume the corals will 

change their existence to being in anemone-like, then the basis for reef ecosystems 

and reef building will be lost nonetheless (also see the response to Congressman 

Brown’s question 3). 

Other lines of evidence—not just laboratory experiments—support the hypothesis 

that skeletal growth in corals as well as reef-building will decline as ocean acidification proceeds. The present-day distribution patterns of both tropical reefs and cold 

water corals. While tropical corals can and do occur outside the tropics and subtropics, they apparently do not produce enough skeletal material to build reefs. Cold 

water corals are related to tropical corals, but these also seem restricted to waters 

above the zone where their skeletons would dissolve. Finally, the geologic record illustrates the persistence of corals through geologic time but also illustrates that corals waxed and waned in concert with changing environmental conditions, suffered 

mass extinctions, and re-evolved. The evolutionary history of corals does extend 

back several hundred thousand years, but modern-day corals evolved from a few 

species that survived the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction 65 million years ago. 

The coral record was also interrupted by long intervals (millions of years) where corals were few and did not build reefs. Corals did not gain status as major reef-builders for several million years after the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction. 

8. How can you explain the persistence of coral species and coral reefs 

over the course of the large and sometime rapid climate changes that 

have occurred over the past 200 million years? 

Please see the response to Congressman Brown’s question 7. 

In short, coral species and reefs have waxed and waned over geologic time in concert with changes in climate. Indeed, reef ecosystems seem to be the first to collapse 

during a mass extinction event and the last to recover 11. Scleractinian corals were 

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not the dominant reef builders until the Late Triassic (> 200 million years ago), and 

experienced major extinctions around 100 million years ago, and again 65 million 

years ago. While some species did survive these extinction events, reefs did not redevelop for millions of years. As stated by Stanley (2001) ‘‘The public may fail to 

be concerned about the predicted reef decline, pointing to the fact that throughout 

their history, reef ecosystems have inevitably recovered. It is relevant, however, to 

be reminded of the magnitude of time. Reef eclipse intervals of the Phanerozoic [540 

million years ago through the present] spanned millions of years, and millions of 

more years were need before reef ecosystems recovered.’’

9. How did coral manage during the times when atmospheric carbon 

dioxide concentrations were several times higher than they are today—

conditions that existed for many million of years? 

A common misconception is that carbon dioxide concentration is the only variable 

controlling ocean pH, and that when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in 

the past were several times higher than they are today, then the ocean pH would 

have been correspondingly low. As explained in the response to a previous question 

6, ocean alkalinity is also a factor that controls ocean pH. Increased atmospheric 

CO2 leads to increased weathering rates on land which leads to higher alkalinities 

in the ocean, therefore buffering the effects of increased CO2. In the ocean, increases 

in ocean acidity are similarly buffered by the dissolution of calcium carbonates in 

the deep ocean. Both of these weathering processes require thousand to millions of 

years. For those periods when atmospheric CO2 concentrations remained much higher than today for millions of years, then the carbonate chemistry of the ocean probably maintained pH at a constant equilibrium value, or changed slowly enough for 

organisms to adapt. 

10. Are there not scientific studies which suggest that present day corals 

are far more adaptive to both changes in temperatures (and coral 

bleaching events) and to changes in ocean acidification then you 

assume, and that indeed, rising temperatures may in fact lead to faster 

coral growth? That corals can respond to rising temperatures and 

resist bleaching by changing their algal relationships? That some corals 

can also adapt to changing ocean acidification by altering the way that 

they produce their shells? Isn’t it likely, based simply upon the 

evidence that coral exist today that the real world is far more adaptive 

and changeable than can be gathered through limited observations and 

controlled experiments in laboratories? 

As you suggest, there is evidence that skeletal growth in corals is also enhanced 

by increases in temperature. In fact, sclerochronological records (analogous to tree 

rings) from some corals indicate an increase in skeletal growth as sea surface temperatures have warmed. However, temperature-induced increases in skeletal growth 

are considered short-lived for two reasons. First, the calcification rate in a coral is 

highest near the maximum temperature that the particular coral experiences. At 

temperatures lower or higher than this maximum, the calcification rate declines. 

That is, as temperatures approach this maximum, the coral calcification rate will 

increase, but once the temperature exceeds that maximum, the rate will decline. 

Second, increasing sea surface temperatures, at least at the current rates of increase, cause coral bleaching that is often followed by coral death. Calcification rates 

in bleached corals usually ceases altogether. 

This ‘‘adaptive bleaching hypothesis’’ is based on the observation that algae that 

repopulate bleached corals can different from the original algae and can be more 

temperature tolerant. This is believed to be a mechanism by which symbiont-bearing corals (most corals on tropical reefs) can adapt to environmental change. This 

has been observed in the lab and the field, but it has not been proven as an effective 

adaptation, at least at the current rate of temperature increase. The strongest evidence of the limited efficacy of adaptive bleaching is the observation that coral 

bleaching has occurred repeatedly in many regions, often within the same coral colonies. 

To my knowledge, there is no evidence that corals can effectively adapt to ocean 

acidification by altering the way that they produce their skeletons. 

The evidence that corals survive today is not testament that the real world is 

more adaptive than what laboratory experiments show. The environmental changes 

that corals are experiencing today are much greater than they have experienced for 

hundreds of thousands to millions of years. 

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12Precht, WF and RB Aronson (2004), Climate flickers and range shifts of reef corals. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 2:307-314. 13Pandolfi, JM and JBC Jackson (2006) Ecological persistence interrupted in Caribbean coral 

reefs, Ecology Letters, 9(7): 818-826. 

11. How do your future ocean acidification scenarios and time lines related 

to the rates of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations 

compare to the actual observed rates of carbon dioxide concentration 

increase? 

My main assumption regarding future increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide is 

that carbon dioxide concentrations will reach double the preindustrial concentrations by the end of this century. This is well within the suite of predictions of atmospheric CO2 concentration assuming the ‘‘business as usual’’ scenario as well as the 

suite of SRES scenarios. Even if the growth in atmospheric CO2 is held at 0.5% per 

year, atmospheric CO2 concentration will reach 560 ppm (i.e., double preindustrial 

levels) by the year 2085. 

Because the surface ocean is in direct contact with the atmosphere, and because 

the concentration of CO2 in the surface ocean takes only about a year to equilibrate 

with the atmospheric concentration, I assume that ocean acidification tracks atmospheric CO2 concentration. I also account for the effect of ocean warming on ocean 

acidification; for example, I assume that the surface ocean will be 2δC warmer 

under doubled preindustrial concentrations. 

12. Is the current distribution of corals and coral reefs more limited by 

cold water or warm water? If the oceans warm up, won’t corals expand 

their ranges into waters that were previously too cold? Are there any 

regions of the world’s oceans that are too warm for corals? In previous 

periods during the past 200 million years, the most of which was warmer than today, was the range of corals more limited or more expansive 

than today? 

The current distribution of tropical coral reefs shows that reef development is limited to regions that remain above about 18δC year round. As ocean temperatures 

warm, we can expect some corals to expand their geographic distribution. There is 

at least one documented case of a coral species expanding its range northward along 

the Florida coast 12. We do not know of any regions that are too warm for corals. 

Corals in the Red Sea, for example, are adapted to temperatures warmer than elsewhere. This adaptation to such high temperatures is believed to have occurred over 

evolutionary time scales. But even these corals have bleached in recent years when 

warming exceeded the temperatures to which they are adapted. Bleaching can occur 

anywhere, in both the coolest and warmest waters of the tropics, if temperatures 

exceed what the local corals are used to. 

The geographic distribution of scleractinian corals has changed over geologic time, 

probably due to many factors (temperature, salinity, the concentrations of calcium 

and magnesium in seawater, competition with other species, etc). For example, corals were the dominant reef-builders during the early Cretaceous Period (one of the 

periods thought to have very high CO2 levels), but gradually declined near the midCretaceous, and by the late-Cretaceous appeared to have been eliminated from 

equatorial regions. It is unclear whether they were limited more by environmental 

factors (e.g. temperature, nutrients) or by competition with a particular type of bivalve that was widespread during the Cretaceous but went extinct along with the 

dinosaurs. Certainly, corals have expanded their ranges during warm periods of the 

past, but because temperature is not the only factor that limits corals, it is impossible to generalize the relationship between global temperature and coral distribution patterns. 

13. How did corals and coral reefs survive the rapid and large climate 

changes that have characterized that past 4 or 5 ice ages? What percentage of the world’s distribution of coral reefs are located along the 

U.S. coasts? 

Relative to the predictions of sea level rise for this century, sea level changes of 

the past 4-5 ice ages were far more dramatic, including a total sea level rise of some 

120 m. Coral reefs managed these changes with apparently very little change in 

their species make-up 13. Coral reefs have typically thrived during periods of sea 

level rise. One reason is that once a reef reaches the surface, water circulation becomes restricted and coral growth is then limited to the edges of the reef. The sea 

level rise predicted for this century is not considered an important threat to coral 

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14 Barrows, TT and s Juggins (2004) Sea-surface temperatures around the Australian margin 

and Indian Ocean during the Last Glacial Maximum, Quaternary Science Reviews 24: 1017-

1047. 

reefs, except in areas where reefs grow in close proximity to areas where flooding 

will result in decreased water quality. 

Current and predicted rates of temperature change in the tropics, however, were 

much more rapid than those during the ice-age fluctuations. During the peak of the 

last ice age (about 20 thousand years ago), sea surface temperatures in the tropics 

were probably about 1-4°C colder than today 14. The warming of the tropical ocean 

to near the present-day temperatures occurred over several thousand years. The 

current and predicted rates of ocean warming are several δC over a few decades, 

which is much faster rate of change than occurred during the ice ages. In summary, 

the absolute change in temperature is not as important as the rate of that change. 

The current rate of warming exceeds the rate at which corals and other organisms 

can adapt. 

I believe that around 5% of the world’s coral reefs exist in U.S. waters. 

14. Aren’t there are whole lot of factors that can cause coral reef decline? 

Factors such as pollution, sedimentation, over fishing, boating and 

shipping injuries—that are often the case of overdevelopment and poor 

land use planning and oversight? 

Yes. All of these factors can and do cause coral reef decline. And as you state, 

many of these are due to poor land use planning and oversight. This is why many 

coral reef scientists and managers recommend doing more in terms of mitigating 

these controllable impacts. 

There is little doubt, however, that the current warming trends in the ocean are 

affecting coral reefs, because many reefs that are relatively pristine and isolated 

from the direct impacts listed above have experienced coral bleaching. Please see 

the response to Congressman Brown’s question 15 for more on this topic. 

15. Oftentimes, the effects of global warming are cast as potentially being 

the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back when it comes to 

coral reefs? Do you think that placing restrictions on carbon dioxide 

emissions in the United States in an effort to modify global climate that 

in turn may perhaps lighten the load of a camel that is primarily 

owned and overloaded by other countries is a fair and/or effective 

strategy? If coral reefs along U.S. coastlines are currently limited because our coastal waters are too cold, then would a slight warm-up be 

good for attracting coral reefs (and all the benefits that accompany 

them, as you all outlined fisheries, tourism, etc.) to the U.S. coastal 

areas? 

Even if other stressors on coral reefs are eliminated, coral bleaching and ocean 

acidification will continue to affect them. Some of the world’s most pristine reefs 

have suffered high mortality from coral bleaching. This does not mean that we 

shouldn’t reduce the other stressors that are mentioned in Question 14, because it 

appears that following significant mortality (either from bleaching, hurricanes, or 

some other acute damage), coral reef recovery is more likely in regions without 

these additional stressors. 

16. You testify that coral reef ecosystems are ‘‘among the most diverse and 

biologically complex ecosystems on Earth...’’. If they are so diverse, is 

it realistic to assume that a change in water temperature of just one 

degree will wipe out all coral reefs? 

I agree with the statement that coral reef ecosystems are ‘‘among the most diverse 

and biologically complex ecosystems on Earth...’’ I am not familiar with the assumption that ‘‘a change in water temperature of just one degree will wipe out all coral 

reefs.’’ Based on the current rate of bleaching-related coral loss, there is certainly 

evidence that a 1δC change in temperature, at least at the current rate of the increase, will adversely impact coral reefs. The temperature increase that will cause 

‘‘all coral reefs’’ to be ‘‘wiped out’’ depends both the rate of the warming, and the 

ability and rate at which corals can adapt. 

17. There is a lot of discussion about the detrimental effects of warm water 

on corals, yet corals have survived for millions of years. Are the corals 

becoming less resistant to water temperature changes? If so, why is this 

so? 

There is much discussion about the detrimental effects of warm water on corals 

because of the dramatic increase in coral bleaching events, almost all of which are 

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15Wilkinson, C. 2000. Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2000. Global Coal Reef Monitoring 

Network and Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Queensland, Australia, 363 pp. 

linked to increases in temperature. Corals have survived millions of years, but as 

discussed in several preceding questions, they have also suffered major extinctions. 

Corals are not becoming less resistant to water temperature changes, and indeed, 

they can adapt to changing temperatures (as evidenced by the fossil record). What 

is killing the corals is the rate of the temperature change. 

18. Are some species of corals more resistant to temperature change than 

others? Are these types of resistant corals likely to move into areas currently populated by less-resistant corals? 

Yes, some species are more tolerant of temperature changes. It is possible that 

some of the more temperature-tolerant corals will grow where others have died. It 

is also possible that non-coral species will grow in these areas. 

19. Some researchers have focused on the El Nino Southern Oscillation 

(ENSO) as a threat to corals. Isn’t ENSO a naturally-occurring event 

that has been documented for decades? If so, why is the threat considered so critical now? 

Yes, ENSO is a naturally-occurring event that has been documented for decades 

and probably for thousands of years (based largely on temperature records obtained 

from coral skeletons). ENSO events are considered a major threat to coral reefs now 

because: 

1) Climatic changes in temperature, wind patterns, cloud cover, circulation patterns, etc., can create conditions that are conducive to coral bleaching events. 

These conditions are further heightened by the background increase in sea surface temperature due to the greenhouse effect. 

2) While mass coral bleaching events are increasing in general, regardless of 

whether El Nin ̃ o conditions exist, coral bleaching during ENSO years are more 

widespread and deadly. During the 1997-1998 ENSO, for example, an estimated 16% of the world’s coral reefs were extensively damaged by bleaching 15. 

3) The ENSO events in 1982-83 and 1997-98 had major impacts on coral reefs 

worldwide. These two events were some of the strongest events on record. Models show that El Nin ̃ o events will continue in a future warmer climate (i.e. they 

won’t go away), but their future amplitudes and frequencies may become much 

less predictable. 

20. You state that NOAA has climate change time series that go back decades. Are fluctuations and regime shifts common in the ocean environment even in short time series (such as since the 1950s)? 

I believe this is a question for Dr. Eakin and NOAA, but I will briefly respond. 

Short time-series are usually not sufficient alone to determine whether ‘‘fluctuations 

and regime shifts’’ are common in the ocean environment. It depends on what kind 

of fluctuations one is interested in. Some organisms and ecosystems with rapid life 

cycles can undergo very rapid changes in populations, and or experience strong fluctuations in response to large-scale climate oscillations that occur over decades or 

less. Other ecosystems, such as coral reefs, are much more persistent. Cores taken 

through coral reefs that go back many thousands of years do not show the kinds 

of changes in coral communities as we have seen over the past 2-3 decades. We generally rely on many types of data, not simply the last few decades of time-series 

data, to determine whether a change in a marine ecosystem is natural or not. 

21. Are time series that show only a few decades really useful in determining historical patterns? 

Please see the response to question 20 above. Scientists tend to use information 

across multiple time-scales and multiple resolutions. High resolution records kept 

by humans are possible today, and provide valuable information regarding small 

changes in climate and over small spatial scales. We can also obtain records about 

climate from natural recorders of climate, such as ice cores, coral banding, tree 

rings, and sediment cores, to name a few. Reconstructions of climate beyond the 

human-kept record must rely on these natural records, so much effort is made to 

validate them with the human-collected record, and to cross-validate them with 

other historical records. No time-series has revealed coral reef ecosystem changes 

comparable to those of the last several decades. 

112

22. Weren’t there coral reefs where the Great Lakes now sit? What caused 

these coral reef populations to die off? 

I believe you are referring to the reef complexes of the Silurian (408-438 million 

years ago) and Devonian (360-408 million years ago) Periods. These reefs included 

some corals that were somewhat related to corals we have today, but were still quite 

different and are now extinct. The modern day corals had not yet evolved (see Congressman Brown’s question 7). The exact reasons for the major extinction at the end 

of the Devonian are not known; global cooling, sea level drop, and meteorite impacts 

have all been suggested as causes. 

23. Because coral reefs are so productive ecosystems, partially because 

they provide hiding places for other animals, can their functions be 

created artificially? 

Replacing coral reefs with artificial structures is like replacing a rainforest with 

artificial trees. Yes, some birds may sit in the trees (even if there is no food for 

them), but the services the rainforest provides to the functioning on this planet will 

be lost. 

The ecosystem services provided by coral reefs are often not obvious but they are 

many. Reefs provide not only spatial habitat for fish, but nutrition for those fish, 

cycling of nutrients, buffering of seawater chemistry, coastal protection (reefs are 

much better than man-made structures), sand production that maintains beaches 

and supports other important habitats such as seagrass beds and mangroves, biodiversity (which in turn supports ecosystem stability and holds promise for the discovery of many medicinal compounds), etc. 

The term ‘‘artificial reef’’ may be misleading in that it implies that coral reefs can 

be created artificially. In short, a structure can be artificially created, and at times 

this can stimulate natural colonization of corals and reef growth, but the structure 

alone does not replace the many coral reef functions. 

24. If sea surface temperatures rise, is it likely that some coral reefs will 

begin moving into deeper water where it is slightly cooler? How deep 

can corals reside and still make use of sunlight? 

Coral reefs will probably not ‘‘begin moving into deeper waters,’’ but those that 

currently exist in deeper waters may be less affected by coral bleaching than are 

shallow water reefs. Coral bleaching tends to affect shallow water corals more than 

deep corals, but this has not always been the case. 

The deepest records for light-gathering corals are about 120-140 m; these records 

are from a few individual corals from the clearest waters of the Red Sea. Normally, 

corals are limited to 30 m and less. The coral communities of Pulley Ridge off the 

west coast of Florida occur in waters 58 to 75m deep, but it is not clear whether 

the corals in these communities are reproductively viable, nor whether they contribute to reef growth or not. Coral reef productivity and reef-building capacity diminish greatly with depth, because light attenuates very rapidly with water depth 

(even in the clearest ocean water, only about 10% of light hitting the surface of the 

water reaches 90 m depth). So for corals that do exist in deeper water, their capacity to build coral reefs is low. Also, the types of corals that can persist in deeper 

waters tend to be different species than those in shallow water. For example, the 

most prolific ‘‘reef-building’’ coral in the Caribbean, the elkhorn coral (Acropora 

palmata), is restricted to about 10 m water depth, and so this important species 

would not be able to find refuge in deeper waters. 

25. Do you or have you (or your organization) received any funding from 

the Pew Charitable Trust or the David and Lucille Packard Foundation? If so, please elaborate. 

I was a co-author on two Pew Climate Change reports: 

Kennedy VA, RR Twilley, JA Kleypas, JH Cowan, Jr. and SR Hare (2002) Coastal 

and Marine Ecosystems and Global Climate Change: Potential Effects on U.S. 

Resources. Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Arlington, VA. 52pp. 

Buddemeier RW, JA Kleypas and R Aronson (2004) Coral Reefs and Global Climate 

Change. Potential Contributions of Climate Change to Stresses on Coral Reef 

Ecosystems, Pew Center for Global Climate Change. 42 pp. 

I was contracted through Stratus Consulting in Boulder, Colorado. For the first 

report I received $1800 for my contribution, and for the second, I received $3000. 

26. Are you currently a party to any law suit against the Department of the 

Interior or the Department of Commerce (or any of the agencies within 

these departments)? If so, please describe. 

No. 

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QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE WAYNE GILCHREST 

1. If paleo-records show that corals existed in the past under high atmospheric CO2 concentrations, why is it a problem now? 

Corals have existed in the past under high atmospheric CO2 concentrations. These 

conditions were warmer than today, but were not necessarily more acidic. Corals 

can and do adapt to warmer temperatures. Corals in the Red Sea, for example, can 

tolerate much warmer temperatures than most other corals. Their ability to tolerate 

warmer temperatures was probably acquired over long periods of time, say many 

centuries to millennia. Note, however, that even these temperature-tolerant corals 

experience bleaching when the local temperatures exceed the normal maxima. This 

means that their rate of adaptation to increasing temperature is exceeded by the 

rate of that temperature increase. In the past, corals that existed in high temperature waters were adapted to those temperatures. When temperature changes were 

too rapid for them to adapt, then they probably died. There are several periods in 

Earth history when corals suffered major extinction, indicating that they did not 

adapt to some environmental change. 

Even with much higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations in the past, the oceans 

may not have been more acidic than they are today. A common misconception is 

that carbon dioxide concentration is the only variable controlling ocean pH, and that 

when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in the past were several times 

higher than they are today, then the ocean pH would have been correspondingly 

low. As explained in the response to Congressman Brown’s question 6, ocean alkalinity is also a factor that controls ocean pH. Increased atmospheric CO2 leads to 

increased weathering rates on land which leads to higher alkalinities in the ocean, 

therefore buffering the effects of increased CO2. In the ocean, increases in ocean 

acidity are similarly buffered by the dissolution of calcium carbonates in the deep 

ocean. Both of these weathering processes require thousand to millions of years. For 

those periods when atmospheric CO2 concentrations remained much higher than 

today for millions of years, then the carbonate chemistry of the ocean probably 

maintained pH at a constant equilibrium value, or changed slowly enough for organisms to adapt. 

2. Among the various effects of climate change to wildlife and the oceans, 

are there issues that are more pressing than the others? Why? 

I will answer this from an ocean perspective. In my opinion, the two pressing effects of climate change are increasing temperature and ocean acidification. Increasing ocean temperature is obviously harming coral reefs directly by causing coral 

bleaching and massive die-offs. It is also indirectly affecting them by increasing 

their vulnerability to coral diseases. These are acute stresses on coral reefs. In contrast, ocean acidification is a chronic stress that does not kill coral directly, but 

rather changes their ability to function normally within a reef system. Both of these 

are becoming increasingly important over time. 

In other marine ecosystems, such as ice-dependent polar systems, increasing temperature is obviously a very important threat that affects marine organisms in both 

direct and indirect ways. While the effects of ocean acidification on many marine 

ecosystems are still poorly known, we do know that ocean acidification is occurring 

and will continue to occur in lock-step with increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. 

3. In the U.S., as plant and animal species migrate north and to higher elevations, what does that mean for the regions they leave behind? For instance, it has been said that some U.S. states that border Canada might 

actually benefit from the next few decades of climate change, but what 

will it mean for the states further to the South, and especially those on 

the coast? 

In the North American coastal marine environment, some species are migrating 

northward in response to warming temperatures. In some cases, there may be a simultaneous elimination of individuals from waters that are too warm (a range 

shift). In other cases some individuals are simply moving further away from the normal distribution (a range expansion). The main problem with any of these movements, particularly when many species are involved, is that normal ecosystem interactions are disrupted. This is commonly referred to as a ‘‘pulling apart’’ of ecosystems. We can expect the natural balances in these ecosystems to be upset 

(changes in predator-prey relationships, mismatches in timing of plant/animal interactions, exposure of some ecosystems to new species, etc.). Over the last few decades, we have several examples of single invasive species causing rather large and 

surprising changes in ecosystems. With climate change, the cumulative effects of 

multiple species moving into new territories, or the loss of multiple species from specific areas, will be even more difficult to predict. 

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16Zedler, JB and S Kercher (2005) Wetland resources: status, trends, ecosystem services, and 

restorability, Annual Review of Environmental Resources, 30: 39-74. 

4. How do shifts in habitat range of plants and animals affect human interests such as agriculture or the spread of invasive species and diseases? 

How can we adaptively plan for such changes? 

As mentioned in the previous question, shifts in the distributions of multiple species will both pull the normal species associations apart, and force new species to 

live together. Symbiotic and opportunistic relationships between species (e.g., bees 

pollinating flours, birds timing their nesting to coincide with pest outbreaks) and 

seem so natural that we take them for granted. But many of these have taken thousands to millions of years to evolve, and there is already evidence that climate 

change is disrupting some of these relationships. 

Adaptive planning for such changes requires close monitoring of these systems to 

detect if and when key ecosystem components will be threatened or key species relationships will be disrupted. Farmers and fisherman are often the first alarms when 

their ecosystems are experiencing change. Adaptive planning also means having 

strategies in place for dealing with such changes, such as effective means for controlling invasive species or diseases. Some of these plans should include geographic 

flexibility as well, to allow organisms to migrate with climate change. In coastal systems, the need for some ecosystems to migrate inland with sea level rise will conflict 

with human interests to protect property. 

5. The IPCC reports with 80% certainty that the changes in water temperatures, ice cover, salinity and ocean circulation are impacting the ranges 

and migration patterns of aquatic organisms. How will this affect management and use of these resources, and how can we prepare for any 

changes? 

This question is closely related to question 4 above, in which you mention the use 

of adaptive management. The best way to prepare for these changes is to have flexible management options in place that consider a wide range of factors in making 

decisions. I am not an expert on this topic, but there is a growing body of literature 

on this type of ecosystem management. 

6. In the Chesapeake Bay, we are losing marshland to rising sea levels. Can 

you talk about what is happening to coastal wetland areas in other 

areas of the country and what that is doing to their ecosystems and the 

local economies that depend upon these natural resources? 

I refer to my fellow panelists who are knowledgeable about marshlands to respond 

to this question. 

7. What role do marshlands play in sequestering carbon? Is marsh restoration a viable alternative in carbon sequestration? 

Although I have some familiarity with salt marsh ecosystems, I am sure that my 

colleagues will provide a more complete answer to your question. However, I refer 

you to a recent review of wetland resources by Sedler and Kercher 16. Wetlands store 

large amounts of carbon, particularly in their soils. Salt marshes and mangroves appear to be particularly good at carbon sequestration, because they rapidly accumulate C for long periods of time. Marsh restoration therefore seems to be a sound carbon sequestration option, particularly because it will simultaneously restore so 

many other ecosystem services that marshes provide. Because wetlands have accumulated so much carbon over time, their destruction can release large amounts of 

carbon to the atmosphere, so preserving them will prevent this carbon from being 

released to the atmosphere. 

8. The latest IPCC report warns that ocean acidification poses a threat to 

coral reefs and shell-forming organisms that form the base of the aquatic food chain. But the report says more study is needed to determine the 

full scope of the threat. What do we know about the potential impacts 

to U.S. coastal ecosystems today and how quickly is our understanding 

of acidification improving? What can Congress do to improve upon this 

understanding? Do we know enough to act? 

First, given the high risk of ocean acidification to marine organisms, in my opinion we do know enough to justify actions to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The 

effects documented so far are rarely benign and have been far-reaching. We know 

the most about the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs. Even if corals eventually adapt to lower pH (there is no evidence that they do), coral reefs will still lose 

their ability to maintain their structures because lower pH will cause them to disVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00118 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
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17Kleypas, JA and CM Eakin (2007) Scientists’ perception of threats to coral reefs: results of 

a survey of coral reef researchers, Bulletin of Marine Science 80: 419-436. 

solve faster. This type of ‘‘carbonate budget’’ problem may affect other benthic ecosystems as well, such as oyster banks and mussel beds. 

The body of ocean acidification research has grown slowly, mostly because it is 

a relatively new issue that has taken time to garner the necessary support from scientists. Ocean acidification was solidly put forth in the mid to late 1990’s, but such 

issues usually take a few years to be vetted by the scientific community. Now ocean 

acidification has broad scientific acceptance as a priority issue that warrants much 

more research. 

Congress can certainly speed the process of answering the many questions about 

ocean acidification and its impacts on coastal ecosystems by (1) supporting scientific 

research and observations in these areas, (2) supporting the training of the next 

generation of scientists who will take up this research topic, and (3) encouraging 

this research be coordinated across multiple agencies to reduce duplication of effort 

and to take advantage of existing ocean observation network and data bases. NSF, 

NOAA, NASA and the USGS are four such agencies that are interested in pursuing 

observations and research that will inform decision makers about the consequences 

of ocean acidification, and what can be done to protect our resources. In the short 

term, there is 

9. What additional resources or tools will the Fish and Wildlife Service and 

National Marine Fisheries Service need to adequately prepare and address the impacts of global warming on wildlife over the next decade? 

I believe this question is best posed to personnel at the Fish and Wildlife Service 

and the National Marine Fisheries Service. 

10. We’ve heard a lot about the polar bear and the petition to list the 

species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Opponents of listing 

claim that the effects of global warming are in fact unclear. What 

evidence is there that global warming is already having a dramatic effect on the species across its range? How will an ESA listing help polar 

bears? 

I am sure that some of the other panel members are better informed on this issue. 

From an ecological standpoint, I can say that the observed and predicted changes 

in the Arctic are so dramatic that it seems certain that the habitat supporting polar 

bears is declining both spatially and in quality, and will continue to do so. 

11. Are there factors that exacerbate the impacts of climate change on 

corals and coral reef ecosystems? 

Yes. Because coral reefs live in shallow water and often near coastlines, they are 

subject to a multitude of stresses. These have been well documented. Coral reef scientists that were surveyed about the various threats to coral reefs in their regions 

identified potentially controllable threats such as: overfishing, coastal development, 

sedimentation, nutrient enrichment, and mangrove destruction as major threats, 

but also identified such issues as the lack of laws, law enforcement, and education 

as major factors impacting coral reefs 17. Although climate change effects such as 

coral bleaching can affect even healthy reef systems, the chances of recovery after 

such damage are higher on reefs that are not stressed by other factors. A healthy 

ecosystem is simply more resilient to climate change than one that is already 

stressed. 

12. Are there things we can do, in addition to limiting greenhouse gas 

emissions, in management of these resources that will make them more 

resilient? 

Yes. Many of our natural ecosystems experience multiple stressors. Removing 

those stresses that we can control lessens the total stress on an ecosystem and increases its resilience to the less-controllable stresses associated with climate change. 

Management strategies to reduce stresses on our coastal ecosystems will vary considerably from region to region, depending on types and severities of the stresses, 

as well as social and economic issues. 

Ms. BORDALLO [presiding]. Thank you very much, Dr. Kleypas. 

The Chairwoman now recognizes Dr. Sharp to testify for five 

minutes. 

116

STATEMENT OF GARY SHARP, Ph.D., SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR, 

CENTER FOR CLIMATE/OCEAN RESOURCES STUDY 

Dr. SHARP. Thank you very much for inviting me. I hope that we 

can answer lots of your questions about different time scales, the 

different places on the planet where things are definitely going differently. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Sir, would you move up just a little closer so we 

can hear you better? There you go. 

Dr. SHARP. There is a clear record, yes indeed, that global warming has occurred. There is no question I think in any person who 

is an empiricist, and I claim to be an empiricist. 

The important thing is the changes since 1860 are those only for 

which we have real numerical measurements, observations and 

that sort of thing, so we have essentially 147 years of information 

we can put on a chart someplace and talk about degrees Fahrenheit or degrees Centigrade, depending on how fuzzy you want to 

get. 

The bad news is most of those measuring tools even today are 

not calibrated well, they are not intercalibrated well, and the technology changes all too frequently making for a very messy set of 

records. 

We do know that the major greenhouse gas by definition on our 

planet is actually a water vapor in the form of clouds and/or moisture in the atmosphere. We also know that since 1860 we have had 

a very nonlinear set of weather changes all over the world, and in 

fact if you do the averages and find numbers, from 1860 until 

about 1915 not much happened even though we were coming out 

of the Little Ice Age for quite a while. 

Between 1915 and 1945, temperature rose essentially .4 degrees 

Centigrade, a little less than half a degree. The period between 

1945 and 1965 the temperature dropped again. Meanwhile, CO2 is 

still kind of climbing along so there has to be some kind of a little 

bit of a problem trying to relate A to B to Z in that particular case. 

Around 1967 or so we began to see all sorts of changes in the 

coastal oceans, the most productive places in the oceans, because 

the updwelling communities were actually slowing down. The recruitment was going down. The animals who lived offshore in the 

warmer water were moving onshore and recolonizing coastlines. 

In this case what we are really seeing is in 1976 with the intensification of the El Nin ̃ o frequencies and other things we saw general northern hemisphere ocean warming that takes 10 to 15 years 

to work its way toward the poles in both directions. Every time 

there is an El Nin ̃ o you see these long-term processes going on. 

We keep seeing the pretty little movies of the thing running up 

and down the coastline, the waves and that sort of thing. That is 

the short-term phenomenon. The long-term phenomenon are the 

waves that bounce off the coastlines and finally take eight to 10 

years to get into the Bering Sea from the warm pool or around the 

corner into the South Atlantic and dissipated around the South 

Pole. 

Now, those processes are not built into these wonderful global 

climate models. That is a real frustration for those of us who are 

empiricists and have worked in this field for a long time. 

117

The other problem that I have made fairly clear here is that the 

human contribution to all greenhouses gases is less than .3 percent, .03 percent. You try to find that on your thermometer. It is 

very, very complicated to try to blame human contributions in that 

sense. 

What we do know is that there is an awful lot of information in 

the sciences that shows that the major phenomena caused by people are related to urbanization and land use changes, and one of 

the rules of society is when it warms humans swarm. In that same 

150 year period, 157 years, we went from one billion to 6.7 billion. 

It took an awful long time to get to that one billion, and we lost 

an awful lot of people every time it cooled down. 

I run a continuous, as I say, recording of these things on my 

website. It is called It Is All About Time, and it has a chronology 

essentially of the warming and cooling phenomena for the last 4.6 

billion years and their consequences in population, the human population, and ecological systems. 

When you look at that, warming has never been bad for humanity in the same sense that cooling is. Cooling in this sense can be 

a few decades or a major cooling event. Every winter we lose more 

people. Your obituary columns climb like crazy starting in November compared to the summer and the heat waves and all the rest 

of the stuff that goes with it. Pay very close attention to those little 

facts. 

The bottom line is I have been working in the international community for a long time. The Russian science, other things that are 

going on out there, we have wonderful ways of projecting what is 

going to go on in the marine environments. We have very clear 

records from old, long-time series that this has all happened before. 

There is nothing new going on right now, but there is definitely 

a trend that is really difficult to deal with, and that is the number 

of mouths we have to feed for the rest of our lives. 

When we think about that, I wrote a book a few years ago with 

some colleagues, a master fisherman and a social scientist. It is 

called Out of Fishermen’s Hands. I self-published it so I wouldn’t 

get in trouble with anybody. It is essentially a historical description 

of how human beings moved off into the oceans and around the 

world and how all of that came to pass. 

Our real problem is we cannot manage them because we don’t 

have the observing systems left, the monitoring systems left, because all that money has been spent on modeling for equilibrium 

theory, and that has been a complete throwaway and resulted in 

disasters in fisheries management. 

Two weeks ago I finished the English editing of the translation 

of the book in Russian by my colleague that I backed into in 1998 

that actually has forecasts and projections for most of the major 

fisheries in the world and where they are going and why they are 

going that way. 

We have a good, clear record that there is a 60-year cycle of coming and going of the major fisheries in the world, all around the 

world, and they have a certain amount of correlation or harmony. 

We are now in a null period. We are coming past the warm. We 

are actually seeing the cooling process happening. That is a major 

118

management issue, and that is what I have been working on for 

the last 25 or 30 years. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Sharp follows:]

Statement of Gary D. Sharp. PhD, Scientific Director,

Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, California 

What do we know about Climate Change, The Future and Humanity? 

We know for certain only two things. The first is a matter of history rather more 

than science: namely, that since about 1860, when accurate temperature records 

were first collected on a comprehensive basis, northern hemisphere temperatures 

have risen by about 0.6°C; and that this coincides with a steady growth in the 

amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a proportion of which is a consequence 

of industrial and other man-made emissions. 

The second is that our planet is kept from being too cold for life as we know it 

to survive by the so-called greenhouse effect, which traps some of the heat from the 

sun’s rays. This is overwhelmingly—somewhere between 75 and 95 per cent—caused 

by clouds and other forms of water vapor; and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 

accounts for much of the remainder. But so great is the uncertainty of climate 

science that it is impossible to say—and it is hotly disputed—how much of the modest warming that has been experienced since 1860 is due to the man-made increase 

in carbon dioxide. 

We also have some opinions that CO2 levels and Humanity are related——

What is poorly recognized is that Global Warming since the Little Ice Age period 

of extreme low temperatures promoted the growth of both human population—and 

CO2 levels—as will be shown. 

During the period since 1860, for which we have accurate temperature records, 

the picture is complicated. While the amount of man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has, since the industrial revolution, steadily increased, the corresponding 

temperature record is more cyclical, displaying four distinct phases: 1) Between 

1860 and 1915 there was virtually no change in northern hemisphere temperatures; 

2) between 1915 and 1945 there was a rise of about 0.4°C; 3) Between 1945 and 

1965 the temperature fell by about 0.2°C—and alarmist articles by various folks 

began to appear, warning about the prospect of a new ice age; and 4) between 1965 

and 2000 there was a further increase of about 0.4°C, thus arriving at the overall 

increase of 0.6°C over the 20th century. Although, so far this century, there has 

been nothing to match the high temperature recorded in 1998, it would be rash to 

assume that this latest upward phase has ended. We know, however, that CO2 will 

continue to rise—as human activities and their survival in general are still growing: 


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However, the human CO2 emissions remain a rather small component within the 

Global CO2 Cycle.

The IPCC Global Climate Change models assume that the recorded warming during the 20th century was entirely caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse 

gases, of which carbon dioxide is clearly the most important. This may be true; but 

equally it may not be. There are, for example, climate scientists who believe that 

the principal cause has been land-use changes, in particular urbanization (the socalled Urban Heat Island effect—as per Addendum 1—a note by James Goodridge, 

retired California State Climatologist—who has been collating the State Observations since the early 1950s), and to some extent forest clearance for farming. But 

much more important is the fact that the Earth’s climate has always been subject 

to natural variation, nothing to do with man’s activities. Again, climate scientists 

differ about the causes of this, although most agree that variations in solar influences play a key part. 

What is too often ‘‘buried’’ is the fact that water vapor, the dominant component 

of the Earth’s heat balance/transfer system, is affected by may variables, including 

the surface wind speed, Equatorial Deep Convection processes, linked to the higher 

latitudes via the atmospheric Hadley Circulation and related precipitation cycles, 

and the Earth’s rotation—which along with the vast complex of ocean circulation dynamics comprise the timetables of Earth’s Energy Balance System, little or none of 

which is under any specific control by humans, other than at very local scales, e.g. 

urban/farm environments.


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Human contributions to the Total ‘‘Greenhouse Effectors’’ are quite small.

Total Human contribution to Green House effect = ∼0.278% - not very great 

portion. 

Needless to say, these confusing issues are likely to enhance future problems, if 

not dealt with correctly, and the more appropriate empirically based science rather 

than over-parameterized modeling continued. In my own rather complex field of Applied Fisheries Oceanography—we have suffered a rather odd parallelism with Climate Change Science—as modeling has taken over empirical observation based approaches to forecasts—and has resulted in many poor management decisions. 

In February 2006, at the ASLO/AGU/CLIOTOP meetings in Hawaii I presented 

a lecture entitled - A Brief History of Applied Fisheries Oceanography - Part II - 

The Role Of CLIOTOP and TOPP in Revitalizing Ocean Sciences: In Short: ‘‘Underlying the basic responsibilities of resource management are very important questions requiring careful study, and long-term monitoring efforts in order to validate 

and upgrade conventional methodologies. While Ecosystem Modeling has become an 

academic field of general interest, the empirical observations necessary to build and 

implement effective models are rarely available, creating many examples of unreliable and unverified model results, that too often simply do not represent anything 

of real utility. E.G., Models that don’t reflect environmental contextual changes, directly, such as changes in thermal habitats, related production patterns, and direct 

species responses to well described known forces, other than simplistic Top-Down 

Trophic Energy Transfers, cannot reliably provide the needed insights necessary to 

either explain past changes, or project potential future changes. The last half century of poorly applied ’equilibrium-based’ theories, and collapse of most or all the 

important contextual variables into a single ’parameter’—often held constant—has 

resulted in the chaos that we see everywhere in stock assessments, management decisions, and resource collapses. A summary of historical efforts to move beyond ‘context-free’ management paradigms is provided. These many efforts have undergone 

several ‘bloom-and-bust’ cycles as generational changes in applied theory, and thus 

funding focus have been legislated over the years. The strong recent efforts to get 

back onto the oceans, working with knowledgeable commercial folks, and creating 

new technologies and better data sets from archival tags deployed on the various 

species has revolutionized ecological science, in general, but has yet to be integrated 

into the management procedures, or ocean science, in general. This is the future of 

applied fisheries oceanography.’’

In fact, I have been working on trying to resolve this problem by working with 

other on the issues in-situ in the eastern Pacific high seas fisheries since 1967, and 

then expanded westward into the southern Pacific, and then globally, since the late 

1970s. I worked closely with those individuals who had the capabilities to both map 

observational data, and create time series from which insights could be gained. I 

then applied my own experience in working with upper ocean thermal and O2 profiles in explanations of changes in animal behavior and the changes in vulnerability 

of a broad array of ocean species to various fishing gear types, and helped those in 

developing regions ‘‘optimize’’ their yield per unit effort, and minimize both their 

energy usage, and by-catch. 


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Eventually, on returning from my international efforts, to the USA in 1983—I discovered that our ocean observation programs were amongst the most devastated and 

poorly supported of the many fishing nations I had been working with. On the other 

hand, there were many related fields of science, from paleoclimatology to coping 

with regional weather that were well studied, and insights were shared routinely 

at various annual conferences, of which, I discovered the most eclectic (and often 

most irreverent) was the Pacific Climate Conferences held in Monterey Bay since 

1984—where I was invited in 1986 and showed the NOAA archived film of the 

GOES-E and GOES-W satellite imagery of the entire sequence of processes related 

to the El Nin ̃ o of 1982-83—starting with Pacific-wide coverage from January 1981—

until march 1983. My major contribution to this eclectic group was that I ran the 

sequence ‘‘backward’’, after asking the audience to chose their particular locale of 

interests—and allowed them to track any features that affected these locations back 

to its source, usually well away from the locale—in fact, half a world, and months 

away from what they were interested in. 

I soon found myself working closely with James D Goodridge, retired State Climatologist, on the source of the changes observed in the State of California, since 

records began in the later 1800s. Goodridge had learned about Anthropogenic Forcing of Urban Temperature Trends in California’’—from decades of changes he observed, since he started this research in the early 1950s—and has been updating 

those records routinely since he retired in 1983. (A brief statement of his in addendum 1) 

As we read both the news releases and ‘‘professional Journal’’ articles about the 

pending calamities related to Global Warming it is too often not made clear that 

these are merely hypotheses—not more than the results of computer calculations 

based on limited understanding of causalities, and modifiers on various time and 

space scales. One example, of many similar issues is the infamous Conveyor Belt 

dialog- which Carl Wunsch, of MIT, made very relevant statements about last year: 

Correspondence Nature 428, 601 (2004) - Gulf Stream safe if wind blows and 

Earth turns 

Quote - Sir - Your News story ‘‘Gulf Stream probed for early warnings of system 

failure’’ (Nature 427, 769 (2004)) discusses what the climate in the south of England 

would be like ‘‘without the Gulf Stream’’. Sadly, this phrase has been seen far too 

often, usually in newspapers concerned with the unlikely possibility of a new ice age 

in Britain triggered by the loss of the Gulf Stream. 

European readers should be reassured that the Gulf Stream’s existence is a consequence of the large-scale wind system over the North Atlantic Ocean, and of the 

nature of fluid motion on a rotating planet. The only way to produce an ocean circulation without a Gulf Stream is either to turn off the wind system, or to stop the 

Earth’s rotation, or both. 

Real questions exist about conceivable changes in the ocean circulation and its climate consequences. However, such discussions are not helped by hyperbole and 

alarmism. The occurrence of a climate state without the Gulf Stream any time 

soon—within tens of millions of years—has a probability of little more than zero. 

Carl Wunsch - Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, 

USA’’

And then—consider that many of us have been working on these issues for a long 

while, based on the early works of folk such as those trying to resolve the changes 

in marine ecosystems from the Baltic and Northeast Atlantic at the end of the 19th 

Century, E.G. 

The first president of ICES - the International Council for the Exploration of the 

Sea—spent decades researching the relationship between weather and fisheries: 

Pettersson, Otto, 1912, The connection between hydrographical and meteorological 

phenomena: Royal Meteorological Society Quarterly Journal, v. 38, p. 173-191. 

Pettersson, Otto, 1914a, Climatic variations in historic and prehistoric time: 

Svenska Hydrogr. Biol. Komm., Skriften, No. 5, 26 p. 

Pettersson, Otto, 1914b, On the occurrence of lunar periods in solar activity and 

the climate of the earth (sic). A study in geophysics and cosmic physics: Svenska 

Hydrogr. Biol. Komm., Skriften. 

Pettersson, Otto, 1915, Long periodical (sic) variations of the tide-generating force: 

Conseil Permanente International pour l’Exploration de la Mer (Copenhagen), Pub. 

Circ. No. 65, p. 2-23. 

Pettersson, Otto, 1930, The tidal force. A study in geophysics: Geografiska 

Annaler, v. 18, p. 261-322. 

More recently reviewed by Julia Lajus—a Russian Social Scientist: http://

www.meteohistory.org/2004pollinglpreprints/docs/abstracts/lajuslabstract.pdf 

122

Influence of weather and climate on fisheries: overview of emergence, approval 

and perception of the idea, 1850 ‘‘1950s. Julia A. Lajus St. Petersburg Branch of the 

Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 

and Centre for Environmental and Technological History, European University at 

St. Petersburg 

‘‘Fishermen have long known that fisheries appear and disappear in time. Such 

events were attributed to changes in fish migration routes, harmful growth in numbers of natural predators of fish, and to the human impact: overfishing and water 

pollution (Smith, 1994, pp. 21-34). To note that weather, especially the changes in 

wind direction, could influence fisheries, was easier than to suppose that large periods of fish abundance could be connected with the fluctuation of climate. For example, Karl Ernst von Baer, famous German zoologist, who worked in Russia and in 

addition to many diverse activities was a head of several expeditions which surveyed the state of fisheries in 1850-s, explained the severe decline of herring fisheries during several years in the eastern part of the Baltic Sea by very cold and 

windy springs occurred these years. He supposed that the winds pushed out the 

spawning herring from their usual spawning grounds (Baer, 1860). But at the same 

time he did not apply this kind of argumentation when he discussed the possible 

causes for the cessation of the very prosperous herring fisheries in Bohuslan region 

on the western coast of Sweden in the beginning of the 19th c. He supposed instead 

that it was the human-induces pollution due to fish oil production. For the first time 

the climatic explanation for the periodicity of these fisheries was suggested by Axel 

Ljungman in Sweden (Ljungman, 1882). He noted that the herring catches varied 

cyclically with a period of the fifty-year sunspot cycle and assumed that this relationship might be explained with changes in the weather. However, he was not able 

to propose the mechanism for that connection. 

When the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) formed its 

Committees in 1902, they were named according to the main problems, which understanding would provide the better knowledge of the reasons of fluctuation of 

catches in fisheries—Migration Committee and Overfishing Committee. 

Hydrographical Committee was established in 1905. While the importance of studies 

of the environment for understanding the distribution of marine life was the core 

idea which led to the foundation of the ICES, during several decades the 

interdisciplinarity of research efforts was proposed but not fully achieved. According 

to T.R. Parsons this dichotomy continued through the 1960s: fisheries biology concentrated mostly on population dynamics, excluding the role of environment in controlling the absolute abundance of various fish species (Parsons, 1980). The exception was the situation in Russian marine studies where fishery science was merged 

with oceanography several decades earlier, forming the fisheries oceanography. Interest to the environmental forces was very much pronounced in Russian biology at 

the expense of the development of population modelling. 

While it was ‘‘the struggle to link fish to their ocean environment’’ within the 

ICES (Rozwadowski, 2002, pp. 111 -145), to link fish with the climate was even 

more difficult task, as the relations between ocean and the atmosphere remained 

enigmatic. In 1910s Johannes Petersen from Denmark and Otto Pettersson from 

Sweden discovered connections between the water temperature in the North Atlantic and the position of the air pressure minimum (Icelandic low), but the nature of 

these connections were not obvious (Petersen, 1910, Pettersson, 1912). 

However, already the first ten years of studies under ICES umbrella had resulted 

in the discovering of the unexpectedly high variability in the ocean. As it was pointed out in the ICES Memorandum in 1923: ‘‘We started from the assumption that 

the hydrographic conditions, as well as the fishlife and the plankton of these tributaries of the Atlantic, seemingly so well separated both from each others and from 

the main basin of the Ocean by narrow channels and submarine thresholds, would 

remain on the whole stationary, subject only to seasonal influences from the atmosphere. Experience has led us to other views. There exists an interchange of waters 

of living marine animals and plants between the different parts of the Ocean on a 

far greater scale than our most experienced oceanographers and biologists considered to be possible twenty years ago’’ (Pettersson, Drechsel, 1923). The notion of far 

greater scale of variation in both physical and biological phenomena than it was 

considered as real or even possible was a main tendency in the discovering the environmental forces driving living organisms in general. It was especially true for the 

climate, which was perceived as much more stable than it occurred to be. For example, Russian biologist and geographer Leo Berg in his book ‘‘Climate and life’’ (Berg, 

1922) compared climate with a species and weather with an individual, arguing that 

weather is very changeable, while climate could changes only very slowly. The same 

was an opinion of Russian oceanographer Nikolai Knipowitsch who was the Russian 

delegate in ICES before the WWI. He considered the Gulf Stream system as a stable 

123

one and thus was extremely surprised when the significant increase of the water 

temperature in the Gulf Stream branches in the Barents Sea was discovered in 1921 

(Knipowitsch, 1921). In 1926 Otto Pettersson wrote a classical paper, in which he 

demonstrated very clearly the connections between catches of herring and winter 

temperatures in the Kattegat channel (Pettersson, 1926, see also Svansson, 1999). 

The significant warming in the North Atlantic which started in the 1920s and was 

more pronounced in the 1930s provided many new evidences of the influence of climate on fish distribution. The effect was especially visible at the north-west—in the 

Greenlandic waters and at the north-east—in the Barents Sea. A.S. Jensen and P. 

M. Hansen (1931) observed the expansion of cod and halibut along the west coast 

of Greenland in comparison with 1908 and the 1920s. The warming of the Barents 

Sea also was accompanied by the large changes in the distribution of stocks of commercial fishes. The tremendous amount of herring never seen before near the Russian coasts of the Barents Sea was observed in 1932-34. Herring was observed even 

in the mouths of large Siberian rivers (Esipov, 1938; Galkin, 1940). In the same 

years cod appeared in the quantities suitable for fisheries at the eastern parts of 

the sea and even near the Novaya Zemlia costs (Esipov, 1935). Thus ‘‘warming of 

the Arctic’’, which was noticed firstly by climatologists and oceanographers became 

an important issue for biologists. In Russia it was summarized in 1934 by Sergei 

Averintsev (Averintsev, 1934) for the Barents Sea and more generally by Leo Berg 

(1935). 

The perception of the rapid climatic changes and their influences on fish resources 

was rather contradictory. Most of the scientists considered this as the random event, 

others tried to discuss this in terms of the periodicity. Both considerations were very 

unfavorable for fishery managers who would like to have in hands the control sticks 

for the ruling of fish stocks while referring to the climatic factors moved them far 

away from this practical task. Contradiction between the supporters of the overfishing as a main factor influencing the fish stocks and scientists who believed more 

in the environmental forces was appeared very clear in the dispute between W. F. 

Thompson and Martin Burkenroad over the fate of the halibut stock in the Pacific 

(Smith, 1994, pp. 267-276). 

The marginal but interesting example came from the Soviet history: in 1930s it 

was a period when managers and authorities opposed the very idea of influence of 

climatic changes upon fish stocks, because it put serious limitations to the will of 

reconstruction of nature by the human voluntary. The paper by Averintsev mentioned above became a point of severe criticism, because the linkage between the 

warming of the Arctic and the increasing of the catches of herring and cod led to 

the assumption that when the warming will stop or the cooling will start (the climate is so uncertain and mysterious thing!) the catches undoubtedly will reduce. 

This pessimistic view was not appropriate for the optimistic position of the conquerors of nature and for the planned Soviet economy. 

Growing understanding of the importance of climate influence led to the organizing of special meeting on this subject in 1948 (ICES, 1948). H. W. Ahlmann in 

his introductory speech pointed out that extent of warming of the northern waters 

which was documented in 1930-1940s was part of a global change of larger scale 

pronounced by increasing of air temperature, receding glaciers, decreasing Arctic ice 

extent and thickness. From that time we could trace the formation of the interdisciplinary research program intended to the discovering of the mechanisms of the 

influences of climate changes on fish. The development of this research program 

which core was the assumption that the climate changes have significant influence 

on fish and fisheries was smoothed by the describing of several important phenomena such as the Great Salinity Anomaly, North Atlantic Oscillation and El 

Nino, which were connected with the dynamics of the fish populations (Drinkwater, 

2000). 

After summarizing book by D. H. Cushing (1982) the notion that climate change 

could influence the fish resources and therefore fisheries became a commonplace, 

but the question is still very important and new facts and correlations are discussing by fishery scientists in cooperation with climatologists (Cod and Climate 

Change, 1994 and many others). The real issue is whether there is a direct causal 

link, or these are merely correlated consequences of larger scale processes (Sharp, 

2003). 

References: 

Averintsev S. (1935). O poteplenii Arktiki i sviazannykh s etim iavleniiakh [About 

the warming of the Arctic and related phenomena] Za rybnuiu industriiu 

severa, 112: 15-17 (In Russian). 

124

Baer von K. E. (1860). Rybolovstvo v Chudskom i Pskovskom ozerakh i v Baltiiskom 

more [Fisheries in the Chudskoe and Pskovskoe lakes and in the Baltic Sea]. 

Issledovaniia rybolovstva v Rossii, 1. St. Petersburg. 

Berg L. S. (1922). Klimat i zhizn’ [Climate and Life]. Moscow: Gosizdat, 196 pp. (In 

Russian). 

Berg L. S. (1935) Rezente klimaschwankungen und ihr einfluss auf die 

geographische Verbreitung der Seefische. Zoogeographica 3: 1-15. 

Cod and Climate Change. A Symposium held in Reykjavik, 23-27 August 1993. 

(1994). ICES Marine Science Symposia, 198. 693 pp. 

Cushing D. H. (1982). Climate and Fisheries. London, New York: Academic Press. 

373 pp. 

Drinkwater K. F. Ocean climate: from regional variability to global change. 100 

Years of Science under ICES. A Symposium held in Helsinki 1-4 August 2000. 

ICES Marine Science Symposia, 215: 256-263. 

Esipov V. (1935). Treska u Novoi Zemli [Cod near the Novaya Zemlia] Za rybnuiu 

industriiu severa, 7: 14-15 (In Russian). 

Esipov, V. K. (1938). O malopozvonkovykh sel’diakh (Clupea harengus pallasi Val.) 

Barentseva i Karskogo morei [On low-vertebrate herring (Clupea harengus 

pallasi Val.]of the Barents and Kara Seas). Trudy PINRO (Proceedings of the 

Polar Research Institute for Fisheries and Oceanography), 2. (In Russian) 

Galkin, G. G. (1940). Malopozvonkovaia sel’d’ iz Obskoi guby [Low-vertebrate herring from the Ob’ Inlet]. Trudy nauchno-issledovatel’skogo instituta poliarnogo 

zemledelia, zhivotnovodstva i promyslovogo khoziaistva (Proceedings of the Research Institute forPolar Agriculture, Stock-Raising and Trade Economy), 10. 

(In Russian) 

ICES. (1949). Contributions to Special Scientific Meetings 1948. Rapports et 

Proces—Verbaux des Reunions du Conseil International pour l’Exploration de 

la Mer, 125. 96 pp. 

Jensen A.S., and Hansen P. M. (1931). Onvestigations on the Greenlandic cod 

(Gadus callarias L.) with an introduction on the history of the Greenlandic cod 

fisheries. Rapports et Proces—Verbaux des Reunions du Conseil International 

pour l’Exploration de la Mer, 72: 1-41. 

Knipowitsch N. M. (1921). O termicheskikh usloviiakh Barentseva moria v kontse 

maia 1921 goda. [About the thermic conditions in the Barents Sea in the end 

of May 1921]. Biulliuten’ Rossiskogo gydrologicheskogo instituta, 9: 10-12. 

Ljungman A. (1882). Contribution towards solving the question of the secular periodicity of the great herring fisheries. U.S. Comm. Fish Fisheries 7 (7): 497-503. 

Parsons T. R. (1980). The development of biological studies in the ocean environment. Sears Mary and Daniel Merriman, eds. Oceanography: The Past. Proceedings of the Third International Congress on the History of Oceanography, 

held at Woods Hole, Mass., 22-26 Sept. 1980. New York: Springer-Verlag. 

Petersen J. (1910). Unperiodische temperaturabschwankungen in Golfstrom und 

deren beziehung zu der luftdruckverteilung. Annalen der Hydrographie und 

Maritimen Meteorologie, 38: 397. 

Pettersson O. (1912). The connection between hydrographical and meteorological 

phenomena. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 38: 173-191. 

Pettersson O., Drechsel C.F. (1923). Memorandum on An International Expedition 

for Sea Research. Rapports et Proces-Verbaux des Reunions du Conseil International pour l’Exploration de la Mer, v. 32: 60-70. 

Pettersson O. (1926). Hydrography, climate and fisheries in the transition area. 

Journal du Conseil, 1, 4: 305-321. 

Rozwadowski H. (2002). The Sea Knows No Boundaries. A Century of Marine 

Science under ICES. Seattle&London: ICES in association with Univ. Washington Press. 410 pp. 

Sharp G. D. (2003). Future climate change and regional fisheries: a collaborative 

analysis. FAO Fisheries Technical paper. No 452. Rome, FAO. 75 p. 

Smith T. D. (1994). Scaling Fisheries: the science of measuring the effect of fishing, 

1855- 1955. Cambridge Univ. Press. 

Svansson A. Herring and Hydrography, Otto Pettersson and his ideas of the behaviour of the period herring. Swedish and International fisheries. Papers presented at the conference in Goteborg 1998 11-20-22. Ed. by Bertil Andersen. 

Goteborg: Rapport fran Ekonomisk- Historiska Instittutionen vid Goteborgs 

Universitet, 13: 22-36.’’

Meanwhile, back in 1987 I wrote the following essay: 

Averaging the Way to Inadequate Information in a Varying World 

‘‘At the Benguela 86 Symposium one of the participants decided to make a very 

strange recantation. There was sufficient evidence, in his view, to suggest that there 

125

was no reason to do the causal research in fisheries-related marine ecology, once the 

conventional average fishery information or parameter estimates were available. 

You could be right more often using average expectations in your data than if you 

used any three random variables with combined explanatory capabilities of up to 

75%. He then proceeded to exemplify his conclusions from his analyses. 

This statement came as a surprise—and disappointment—as it came from an exceptionally talented mathematical analyst. Perhaps doubly so, since among the several dozen other presentations at this symposium there were also very memorable 

contributions that evidenced the value of understanding the causal sequences of climatic to, oceanographic, to ecological events and patterns, that characterize the dynamic Benguela Current Ecosystem, in particular its periodic reversion from one 

quasi-stable state to another. 

I suspect that, once stated, such a position will make it more difficult to induce 

such ‘‘enlightened’’ folk to recognize the logical errors that lead to these wrong conclusions. As Jorge Csirke and I concluded after our 1983 review of the Changes in 

Abundance and Species’ Composition of Neritic Fish Resources, fisheries stock assessment would be in a very different state if the North Sea were subject to El Nin ̃ o events. 

In retrospect, I think that any argument for use of simple averages is a strong 

signal that it is about time for such analysts to be removed to the back seat, or 

somewhere that will minimize data fatigue. Recent decades have been the hey day 

for the near-miss regression/correlation approach to modeling environmental affects 

on resources populations. There is a subtle philosophical twist attendant to the failure of these partial models to forecast ad infinitum the patterns of any populations 

responses to regimes outside the models’ basis, of reference period. 

There is no reason to expect that the low-level modeling that we have accomplished could forecast any but past responses—That is ‘if’ the signals were strong 

enough to make projections from. Yet, we assume average responses without 

querying the potential for any other dominant variables to emerge.’’

The most important relevant realization that needs to be made is the 

following: 

THE AVERAGE FISH DIES WITHIN ITS FIRST WEEK OF LIFE! 

And - Where does this leave our mathematician? With a lot of surviving, not-soaverage fish. In fact the average conditions of the ocean will not support most fish 

life at all. Therefore, there must be some alternative way to organize the science 

if we are ever to reach the objective of forecasting even the less subtle aspects of 

marine populations such as relative abundance or distribution. I think that the solution is for fisheries researchers to go back to the basic questions of elementary biology. What mechanisms do the various populations have, and at what developmental 

stages, that allow them to survive local environmental perturbations? What are the 

conditions to which these individuals are adapted, and finally, what perturbs these 

conditions in time and space? 

We should no longer attribute meaning to the word ‘‘average’’ in the context of 

any marine population. There should be a sense of the basic fitness of individuals 

on local time and space scales, not of a median: or population mean. In the context 

of marine environments, there is neither a mean expectation, nor a sequence of biological responses that have proven to be inviolable. Once we throw away our averaged or Atlas concepts we can experience dynamic changes, be they merely subtle 

diel processes, lunar responses, onward to greater time and energy scales. 

Any given time period as short as man’s expected lifetime or less may not offer 

as great a spectrum of perturbations and responses as have been experienced by a 

particular population or ecosystem, particularly climate regimes. For example, the 

general heating trend that has been experienced in the eastern Pacific Ocean since 

the late 1960’s, which culminated with the 1982-83 El Nin ̃ o, not only returned the 

physical environment to a previous ‘‘normal’’ state for the epoch that ended some 

5,000 years ago, but many species that had somehow managed to retain ‘‘footholds’’ 

within the more recent habitat, that thrived in the other warmer state, bloomed, 

and replaced the more recent faunas for a short period. Where is the utility of the 

average concept in this context? 

Progress over the last two decades toward an integrated, ecologically based fisheries monitoring and management regime has resulted from the near kaleidoscopic 

variability of the marine environment in response to usual decadal and epochal 

scale climate variabilities—global and local phenomena that could not be ignored. 

Why has our mathematician given in? In the Benguela Current, recorded exploitation patterns of the fisheries have provided only short and incomplete information 

about these cyclic and aperiodic processes. The stability of the anchovy production 

since the collapse of the sardine population in that system may be completely 

artifactual, yet it lulls those interested only in the analyses of fisheries production 

126

into a sense of security which is likely to be short-lived. While it is plausible that 

averages could provide adequate protection in a system which experiences only subtle perturbations, I doubt that the Benguela or any other Eastern Boundary Current 

would qualify. 

Fisheries management should be about tesselations; careful analysis of not only 

man’s harvests, but also the causal physical-climatic-oceanic processes, near and remote, that initiate ecological perturbations. 

Emanating from this cascade of physical and biological signals are the unique experiences of surviving individuals, not the deadly averages. For Example: 

Addendum 2—my article in 1981 ICES Report, 178:158-160. COLONIZATION IN 

FISHES—SOME INFERENCES CONCERNING REQUIREMENTS AND OPPORTUNISM IN THE SEA ‘‘

Twenty years later I encountered the works of Leonid Klyashtorin, and had him 

introduced to my colleagues at FAO Fisheries Department in Rome. He was invited 

to come and present his work, and then asked to write a Technical Report—for 

which I was asked to do the final English editing for publication, Klyashtorin L.B. 

2001.Climate change and long-term fluctuations of commercial catches: the possibility of forecasting. FAO Fisheries Technical Report No.410, 98pp. FAO of the 

United Nations, Rome. which is available online via this link: 

http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2787E/y2787e01.htm#TopOfPage 

I followed up on this work, and my collaborations with Joseph Fletcher and others, and wrote another technical report - ‘‘Future climate change and regional fisheries: a collaborative analysis’’—available from FAO Library via this link: 

<ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/006/y5028e/y5028e00.pdf>

In which you can read my views on the consequences of future climate change 

on regional fisheries around the globe. 

I have just finished editing the English translation of Leonid Klyashtorin and 

Alexey Lyubushin’s 2005 Russian language 234 page book on ‘‘Cyclic Climate 

Changes and Fish Productivity’’—a long overdue re-introduction to the means for 

coping with the comings and goings of major fisheries populations. It will be available soon from the VNIRO Publisher in Moscow. 

There are far more relevant bits and pieces of historical phenomena and observation-based research on library shelves in non-English language cultures than has 

been appreciated by many western scientists—and these need to be brought into the 

light so that western science might ‘‘catch up’’—and move forward. More observations are needed and should receive priority over wasteful modeling ventures ‘‘

Enough said. 

Addendum 1

ON GLOBAL WARMING

A CALIFORNIA PERSPECTIVE

BY JIM GOODRIDGE—CALIFORNIA STATE CLIMATOLOGIST (RETIRED)

CLIPS FROM PRESENTATIONS MADE IN 8/2006

There are two schools of thought on Global Warming. One is based on the concept 

attributed to Richard Feynman ‘‘Shut Up and Calculate’’. This is the concept was 

apparently used by Jim Hansen et al of NASA. He and others, who would average 

all the temperature records together, praying that the rising trends would average 

out the declining trends and yield a true idea of the actual long term trends. This 

reflects the consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: that global temperatures are increasing due to anthropomorphic causes. In the words of Sam 

Harris ‘‘While consensus among like minds may be the final arbiter of truth, it cannot constitute it.’’

Another school of thought is to look at each temperature record individually and 

consider the influences that are acting on each record separately. When the trend 

is strongly upward, the influence of land use changes in the area of the measurement station needs to be considered. 

About half of California’s temperature records are from urban areas. They show 

a strong rising trend. The rural records show a nearly flat or no increase. The neutral trend in the rural areas is completely overwhelmed by the massive upward increase of the urban temperature trend. When the urban and rural records are averaged together the grossly distorted urban trends prevail. 

About half of California’s temperature records are from urban areas. They show 

a strong rising trend. The rural records show a nearly flat or no increase. The neutral trend in the rural areas is completely overwhelmed by the massive upward increase of the urban temperature trend. When the urban and rural records are averVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00130 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
127

aged together the grossly distorted urban trends prevail. There are vast areas with 

no temperature records. 

Needless to say the areas around the urban temperature measuring stations have 

experienced severe land use modifications during the period of temperature measurement. This corresponds to the period of unprecedented population growth. These 

land use changes translate to increasing amounts of heat storage in pavement and 

in heated buildings. These changes result in large amounts of the recent thermal 

pollution the temperature records with respect to the early part of those same 

records. 

The urban heat island affect was extensively described by Helmut Landsberg in 

his book The Urban Climate. The urban heat island is caused by urban waste heat 

and land use modification. This reflects solar heat storage in pavement and concrete 

for release during the night, added to radiation from urban waste heat sources. 

The large increasing mean daily temperatures in urban areas are driven by the 

sharply rising trend in the minimum daily temperatures. This is in response to 

nightly release of heat stored in pavement and concrete. Maximum daily temperatures do not reflect the same rising trends.


34670.016.eps
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From a solar viewpoint the energy output of the sun or ‘‘Solar Constant’’ has been 

found to vary directly as the historic sunspot numbers. These were at lowest values 

of the recent millennium during the period from 1660 to 1710. This was the time 

of the Maunder Minimum of sunspot activity, with few or no sunspots. This also 

corresponded to the time when England’s River Thames froze over. The ice supported a series of Ice Fairs mid river, just up stream from London Bridge. 

The period 1300 to 1850 is referred to as the Little Ice Age. It was preceded by 

a warm period when Greenland was colonized over a thousand years ago. Earth’s 

temperatures are still recovering from the cold times of the Little Ice Age, hence 

the retreating glaciers.


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Anthropomorphic global warming remains one of the ‘‘lies that bind’’ us to distorted view of a causal mechanism. To follow Feynman’s suggested ‘‘Shut Up and 

Calculate’’ is to ignore the flaw of averages. Anthropomorphic global warming concept was ‘‘formed with inadequate evidence and can therefore be rejected with inadequate evidence’’ to again paraphrase Sam Harris. 

There is a basic dishonesty using the concept of anthropomorphic global warming 

to justify conservation of natural resources. The conservation of natural resources 

is still an important and noble aim. The unprecedented numbers of the human population has inflicted an unprecedented demand on the natural resources as they are 

consumed for food, fiber, fuel and shelter. This human population explosion is inflicting unprecedented havoc on much of the natural area of California and of our 

planet. 

List of State High and Low temperatures: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Listloflallltimelhighlandllowltemperatureslbylstate 

Theodore Landscheidt (d2006) final (correct) ENSO Prediction for 2006-2007: 

http://www.john-daly.com/theodor/new-enso.htm 

Website—Its All About Time - A Chronology of Events, Places, Ecological and Societal Impacts 

< http://sharpgary.org/>

Addendum 2

Rapp. P.-v. Wen. Cons. int. Explor. Mer, 178:158-160. COLONIZATION IN 

FISHES - SOME INFERENCES CONCERNING REQUIREMENTS AND OPPORTUNISM IN THE SEA—Gary D. Sharp, FAO, Fishery Resources and Environment 

Division, Via delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy 

Some of the least considered topics in fisheries research have been the initial colonizations and range extensions of species. The significance of these processes is obvious in proliferation of subspecies, and speciation and population cycles in fishes. 

All aspects have been treated, but a full appreciation of the spectrum of possibilities 

has yet to be made. The cosmopolitan species represent one extreme situation. A 

fundamental requirement is that there be a high degree of nomadism, with cohesion 

and sexual parity (similar stages of development) in the various nomadic elements 

(schools or shoals). The data providing insight into this process in cosmopolite species is the high degree of kinship in genetic sampling of highly mobile oceanic species (two species of tunas) (Sharp, 1978). For proliferation of the oceanic scale there 

must also be continuous ‘‘search and sample’’ processes in which the reproductive 

success rate is relatively high. Location of appropriate patches for larval development in oceanic species, particularly the cosmopolites, must be exemplary of opportunism in the most stringent sense. Many of the cosmopolitan species are not very 

long-lived, and their reproductive behaviour is relatively ‘‘cryptic’’. Their reproductive behaviour is different from the most discussed pelagic groups, the clupeids and 

engraulids, which are typically harvested most intensely during or just prior to their 

reproductive period due to their strong shoaling behaviour during this time. Localization of these reproductive aggregations is indicative of the tendency for these species to home on geographic phenomena which have historically provided them with 

successful conditions for reproduction. These conditions are just recently being subjected to vigorous examination required for determination of cause and effect relationships (Vlymen, 1977; Beyer and Laurence, this volume; Owen, this volume). 

Resident or homing subspecies, races, or behavioural components in contrast to 

nomadic opportunists can be observed on all scales. In the California Current system, the anchovy and the sardine before its decline have been shown to have at 

least three geographic racial components with significant overlap between any contingent pair of genetic units (Vrooman and Smith, 1971). There is extreme racial 

complexity in the less mobile of the tropical tunas (e.g., yellowfin tuna in the eastern Pacific Ocean) and ocean scale population complexity of the more migratory cosmopolites such as skipjack tuna (Sharp, in preparation, Fujino, 1970). There are numerous indications of similar processes in the North Atlantic pelagics. Recolonization of fishing grounds where commercial quantities of one species or another have 

diminished to nil is exemplified by the Japanese sardine which has begun a slow 

march from its last bastion in the eastern pelagic zone of Japan to the Sea of Japan 

around the southern tip of Japan, nearly back to the historic range of distribution 

during the peak years of its exploitation (Kondo, 1978). This long slow march is 

characteristic of fishes with limited nomadic tendencies and exemplifies the relatively slow procession of colonization by such species in contrast to the more migratory oceanic species and forms. 

130

The qualities of habitat which determine the population distribution are entirely 

distinct from those which truly determine recruitment. The larval habitat clearly 

has a more complex series of constraints, on smaller scales and geometries, than the 

adult or more mobile stages. The limited mobility, small size, and relative sensitivity of fish larvae to micro scale parameters places them in jeopardy at all stages. 

The homing species invest considerable energy in placing their eggs into the home 

habitat. If this home habitat has shifted or ceased to be appropriate for larval survival there is no hope for reproduction. Where the population habitat boundaries 

shift there is generally an effective reduction or increase in the potential larval 

habitat which directly influences reproduction success and realization of potential. 

Where the adult population habitat is shrinking one would predict a decrease in realization of reproductive potential. Where the adult habitat is expanding, if the 

adult population is not relatively nomadic, there is a tendency to under-utilize the 

larval habitat potential, yielding slower population growth than one could expect. 

In non-nomadic species, active transport by currents, wind stress field effects, diffusion, and sheer chance ultimately determines their rates of increase in both numbers and area. 

Intermediate to these cases are species whose reproduction is not localized per se, 

but tends to be concentrated geographically due to the requirements of the larvae, 

whereas the adults and juveniles may be quite diffusely distributed and/or highly 

migratory, resulting in very different distributions at different life stages. In this 

situation species can even arrive at a ‘‘cosmopolitan’’ distribution. 

If one concludes that the egg to larval transformation period is the greatest potential ‘‘bottleneck’’ period for a fish population, then one can also conclude that the 

complexities of the following life stages represent an evolutionarily successful egg’s 

way of getting itself reproduced and redeposited in an appropriate environment. The 

subtle generation to generation responses to environmental trends and anomalies 

selects for either geographic flexibility, as observed in the nomadic opportunists, or 

numerical swarming as observed in the clupeids and engraulids, which is restricted, 

for success, to areas of relative year to year stability. The rise and fall of these localized populations is probably more characteristic and dramatic than the year to year 

biomass or number variations in the opportunistic nomadic forms. For example 

Table I shows the relative abundance (catch) variations in 25 local or regional pelagic fisheries from the years 1970 to 1977. All these examples have varied by more 

than 5 times during this period. No oceanic fisheries exhibited this level of apparent 

abundance variation within this period, apart from a few cases where political or 

economic factors other than resource availability have affected the total landings 

(FAO, 1977).


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Plus and minus signs in the Table represent directions of trends during the reference period. Changes in both directions in the order indicated. The indication --

+ implies sharp changes in both directions, in the order indicated. 

The apparent relative stability of the biomass of the broad ranging opportunist 

populations is due to both contributions of local populations and the shared risks 

taken by the large nomadic portions of these populations in coursing over their 

ranges in search of feeding grounds and hospitable spawning habitats. The dependence of local populations of oviparous fish on the stability or continuity of local processes conducive to larval survival is well recognized. Our ability to identify many 

of the ‘‘critical’’ characteristics is developing. Until these characteristics are identified and monitored there is little hope that it will be possible to logically predict 

recruitment trends. 

REFERENCES 

Beyer, J., and Laurence, G. C. Aspects of stochasticity in modelling growth and 

survival of clupeoid fish larvae (this volume). 

FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations). (1978) 1977 Yearbook of fishery statistics: Catches and landings. Vol. 44, Food and Agricultural 

Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy. 

Fujino, K. 1970. Immunological and biochemical genetics of tunas. Trans. Am. Fish. 

Sec. 99(1): 152-178. 

Kondo, K. 1978, How has the stock of the Japanese sardine recovered? Biological 

basis of stock Size fluctuations. ICES Symposium on the biological basis of pelagic fish stock management. Aberdeen, Scotland, 3-7 July 1978. 

Owen, R. W. Microscale plankton patchiness in the larval anchovy environment 

(this volume). 

Sharp, G. D. 1978. Behavioral and physiological properties of tuna and their effects 

on vulnerability of fishing gear, pp. 397 450. In G. D. Sharp and A. E. Dizon 

(eds.), The physiological ecology of tunas. Academic Press, New York, San Francisco, London. 

Sharp, G. D. A population study of some tropical Pacific tunas. In preparation. 

Vlymen, W. 3, 1977. A mathematical model of the relationship between larval anchovy (Engraulis mordax) growth, prey microdistribution and larval behaviour. 

Env. Biol. Fish. 2(3): 211-233. 

Vrooman, A. M., and Smith, P. E. 1971. Biomass of the subpopulations of northern 

anchovy, Engraulis mordax Girard. Cal. Coop. Oceanic Fish. Invest. Rep. IS: 49-

51. 

Response to questions submitted for the record

by Dr. Gary Sharp 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE PATRICK KENNEDY 

Regardless of whether or not we take actions to control and reduce green 

house gas emissions, wildlife and wildlife habitat and the ocean environment are going to change and adapt, often unpredictably, to a 

warming climate. Consequently, we should take steps now to develop 

strategies to allow for the future conservation of biodiversity and the 

maintenance of a healthy and resilient environment. 

1. Keeping in mind that any transition to a new ‘‘Green Economy’’ will take 

decades to achieve and that most Members of Congress will want to 

limit unnecessary disruptions of social and economic systems, can you 

be more specific on what practical types of adaptive management strategies we should consider to mitigate the negative effects of climate 

change on our collective wildlife and ocean resources? 

Step One is all about re-establishing the efforts to develop an efficient and clean 

energy source. This issue has been dragged out of the public perspective for decades 

by selfish individuals and laboratory interests, as per the following history: 

The concept of releasing fusion energy by igniting small pellets with intense 

beams of high energy heavy ions (HIF) was declared to have no fatal flaws in 1976. 

Comprehensive delegations from all the relevant USA laboratories with heads of 

laboratories, heads of the appropriate research programs, and Nobel Prize winners 

announced that the ‘‘brand X’’ laser that had been the object of an intense search 

for a technology that could ‘‘drive’’ inertial fusion power plants was in fact found 

in heavy ion beams. The systems to produce the ignition beams were feasible based 

on already demonstrated and understood technology. The existing Head of DOE’s 

Office of Inertial Confinement Fusion, Dr. C. Martin Stickley, said in his summation 

132

address to the Workshop on Heavy Ion Beam Fusion, the first of two decades of annual workshops, that the prospects for HIF warranted jump-starting the program 

with an initial facility in the $100million range. 

No such funding ever materialized. While the positive facts of the technology were 

immutable, the negative facts of structural institutional differences were equally so. 

The laboratories conducting sub-nuclear particle research, and developing the required high energy particle accelerator technology, constituted a separate community from the laboratories whose historical mission was the development of nuclear 

weapons. HIF challenged the hegemony of the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, 

and Sandia Laboratories over the program to achieve fusion energy by repetitive ignition of small fusion explosions. 

While the Argonne and Brookhaven laboratories that had initiated HIF worked 

to define the technology path for the program and conducted demonstrations to validate key technological parameters involved in applying the technology of proton accelerators to accelerators of heavy ions, the DOE dragged its feet, and an untested 

accelerator concept promoted by the Lawrence Berkeley laboratory gained politically 

motivated adherents. 

After three productive, albeit underfunded, years of the HIF program, a special 

committee led by Dr. Lee Teng of Fermilab was designated to vet the current accelerator-driver configurations at the Fourth Annual HIF Workshop in 1979. Teng’s 

committee found that Berkeley’s accelerator technology was high risk, as it had only 

been used to accelerate electrons, and noted that the HIF program had been systematically underfunded. Never the less, in the closing summation, Dr. Burton Richter 

declared that the Berkeley technology was the way to go. Contemporaneously with 

the 4th Workshop, the Authorization Committee in Congress was writing the death 

knell of the first effort at producing fusion energy from HIF. Regarding the DOE’s 

budget for inertial fusion research, the Committee wrote ‘‘None of these monies 

shall be used for heavy ion fusion research.’’

A rump program continued with funding from the Office of High Energy and Nuclear Programs, but leadership of the program was transferred to Livermore and 

Los Alamos, neither of which had been contributing significantly to developing the 

HIF program plans. Livermore would oversee the Berkeley program and Los Alamos 

would oversee the Argonne and Brookhaven programs. The kernel that caused and 

justified the excitement about the HIF program was thrown away: the accomplishments of high energy particle accelerators were dismissed and the untested Berkeley concept would take the consolation prize funding to begin at square zero. Their 

endeavor would be to re-accomplish with a new technological approach what had already been accomplished from many decades of stellar accomplishments by the community descended from the pre-Manhattan Project founders of the modern physics 

enterprise. After 30 years, the diversion has proved to be the dead-end that was 

foreseen by most at the time. 

The domestic HIF program was shattered, and the international community was 

dumbfounded. Where USA researchers had independent fiscal means, they continued to pursue the original HIF approaches, and worked with the international community, especially in Europe, until the permanence of the USA policy took its toll. 

Like the originators of the overall nuclear energy programs, the founders of HIF 

have aged and new generations are confused about the history of this program. But 

the report of the last effort by the European community in 1997 reiterated the consistent validation of the technology, and included the first thorough-going assessment of a basic concept added by Argonne in 1978 to increase the technological margins and reduce the cost. 

Here the program sits. The fact of its feasibility cannot be changed. The need for 

fusion energy is increasingly clear. Unlike the concept of magnetically confined fusion, inertial confinement fusion offers solutions to the multiple materials problems 

associated with the high energy fusion neutrons. Heavy Ion Fusion capitalizes on 

all the advantages of the inertial confinement approach and the wealth of accelerator technologies to present the unimagined prospect for a timely solution to the 

world’s energy dilemma. The technologies are even more ready now than they were 

in 1979. Heavy Ion Fusion is capable of a man-on-the-moon experience, as announced by President Kennedy: ‘‘Before this decade is out.’’ This endeavor would be 

characteristically American, and once again give to the World a gift such as have 

made the USA the light of the World for the past century. This gift of the energy 

source for all time will be, factually, eternal. While the fundamental technologies 

are shared, USA leadership is essential. This is within our reach. 

The premier contact person from which these facts and many contacts with the 

surviving ‘‘bright’’ generation of physicists can be further developed is Robert J. 

Burke—who lives in Santa Cruz, CA and e-mail address follows: (rjburke@

earthlink.net) 

133

The world has waited far too long for the solution to this primary issue. 

2. Should we be doing more to re-evaluate our current policies for land use 

planning and public acquisition of land for wildlife habitat? Should we 

be adopting a broader landscape and ecosystem-based approach for protecting wildlife? 

There are innumerable criteria that are needed if we are to make rational decisions about what lands/habitats that need greater protection and basic protection 

from human activities. These are only available/accessible from compilations of the 

various identified species that for whatever reasons warrant concern, and following 

up by learning which plant/animal species groups make up their diet, and which 

habitats provide these—given that all will be affected by climate changes on all time 

scales. 

This all requires more empirical science, and careful ecosystem-based evaluations 

of likely scenarios—not mere lat-long block modeling, but 3-D real world scales and 

careful attention to local/regional historical weather patterns—drought, flooding, 

seasonality, etc. over as long a times series as possible. 

All these issues were taken into account when Dr. Everett and I worked out the 

first NOAA Ecosystem-based Resource Management PDPs—submitted to Congress 

in 1988—and shelved as mere ‘‘funding enhancement efforts’’—and still unacted 

upon—20 years later. The Report is available here: <http://sharpgary.org/EcoSysBasedFMP.pdf>

On request, several of the Regional Fisheries Management Councils had created 

their own specific PDPs—all of which were buried upon entry of Bush I and his new 

appointees within NOAA NMFS. 

3. Finally, how might such ideas be applied to the ocean and coastal environment and the wildlife therein? 

There is no question that the ‘‘sensible approach’’ would entail re-thinking how 

the nation’s natural resources: water resources, watersheds, and waterways are 

managed—as well as how to minimize conflicts and delays due to the vast numbers 

of competitive agencies, Environmental organizations and the public interests—not 

easy tasks. For example, today, in Central California—if there is a water quality 

issue—over twenty agency/institutional/public interest groups show up—claiming 

authority -delaying progress by years to decades, if anything really happens at all. 

The California Wildlife protection Act has helped move things along—but the upland watershed scale issues remain in the quagmire of too many agencies etc that 

claim authority—and too few ‘‘problem solvers’’ to get things working. 

In the more well managed oceanic regions, organizations have been charged with 

doing the job right—and these work based on unique efforts to cope with normal 

climate variabilities—inter-annual perturbations e.g., ENSO Warm/Cold Events, 

and all the associated comings and goings of resources—as well as the issues due 

to human extractions. The Eastern Pacific Tuna Fisheries have been under such 

management since the 1950s, and the western Indian ocean since the 1980s—both 

exhibit limited examples of overfishing—although there are clear examples of small 

regions within these large domains in which local practices that are not under the 

jurisdictions of the larger high seas management bodies have suffered depletions, 

etc. 

Along the U.S. Atlantic coastlines and inland waterways—anywhere there are 

large human population there are distinct signs of habitat loss, pollution-related 

aquatic population consequences ranging from basic genetic perturbations to oxygen 

depletion events, and mass contamination with by-products from body lotions to 

birth control agents. These have been well described and poorly responded to—

despite the efforts of NOAA’s Milford Connecticut lab’s studies of Long Island Sound 

since the 1950s, and multiple agency and institutional research along the east U.S. 

coast—and Chesapeake Bay in particular—for decades. 

Along the west Coast, there are several sub-regional issues—starting with the 

Southern California Bight—which extends from about Point Conception southward 

into Baja California—a re-circulating marine environment that receives the rainwater runoff, industrial and sewage by-products from over 20 million people, creating a truly yucky environment for all associated marine organisms, and anyone 

foolish enough to catch and eat them. Then there are the ‘‘Events’’ that keep on happening such as the January 29, 1969, environmental oil-related nightmare in Santa 

Barbara, California—which I happened to fly over on my way to San Francisco—

well Described here:<http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/jeff/sbl69oilspill/69oilspilllarticles

2.html>

From Pt. Conception northward into the Monterey-Half Moon Bay region—there 

are far fewer people and industries to have major effects on the environment, except 

134

for seasonal agricultural run-off—But from the north, flowing southward along the 

coastline from San Francisco Bay is a nearly steady stream of human pollutants and 

nitrogen over-loaded run-off that has direct consequences on some of the more coastal resources—Again, given California’s geological history and the ‘‘natural’’ sources 

of both mercury and selenium—the question is not so much about human issues, 

but must also consider these and other ‘‘natural’’ potential toxins and their roles 

within the regional food webs. 

California is hardly alone in these issues—but there are far more people directly 

exposed to the potential threats than most locations. 

Despite the well meaning efforts of environmental groups, and their campaigns 

to ‘‘save’’ critical habitats such as tidal basins and wetlands, their understanding 

of the roles of wetland bacteria in the conversion of metallic mercury into methyl 

mercury—the real toxin—that affects all the higher trophic levels, and humans in 

particular, as we tend to prefer carnivorous fishes, that have concentrated these toxins... And we suffer. 

As one proceeds northward along the west coast, into Alaska—we shift toward 

woodland environments—and except for the various populations associated with 

major river outlets and harbors—the aquatic environments are in reasonably good 

shape—plus or minus the occasional oil spills. 

Alaska’s coastlines are exceptional—as there are few really dirty or polluting industries, except for the worst cases of Oil pipeline leaks and just plain ‘‘disasters’’ 

as on March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, 

Alaska spilling 267,000 barrels of crude oil. The spill posed a severe threat to the 

valuable ecosystem of Prince William Sound and surrounding areas. Literally billions of dollars have been spent trying to clean up afterward, and monitor the consequences—but... 

Meanwhile, the Hawaiian Islands (and all other sites of naval shipyards, present 

or past) are a morass of wreckage, pollutants and contaminated living resources. 

Given the local dependence upon marine resources for food, etc., one wonders how 

to improve things for future generations? 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE HENRY BROWN, MINORITY 

RANKING MEMBER 

1. Do you or have you (or your organization) received any funding from 

the Pew Charitable Trust or the David and Lucille Packard Foundation? 

If so, please elaborate. 

NO! 

2. Are you currently a party to any law suit against the Department of the 

Interior or the Department of Commerce (or any of the agencies within 

these departments)? If so, please describe 

NO! 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE WAYNE GILCHREST 

1. If paleo-records show that corals existed in the past under high atmospheric CO2 concentrations, why is it a problem now? 

The question is of primary concern—and needs to be answered carefully, once the 

missing studies have been accomplished. 

Most of Nature is subject to a phenomenon known as ‘‘HORMESIS’’—or additive 

stress syndrome—which simply means that that most any living organisms that are 

subjected to more than one stressor—will exhibit distinctly unexpected but common 

responses—and despite thee not being any single ‘‘lethal’’ dose—eventually the additive consequences can/will result in the organism’s death. 

THE PHENOMENON WAS BEST STUDIED AND WELL DESCRIBED BY ARD 

STEBBINGS, OF THE UK INSTITUTE FOR MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH (IMER) IN PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND. He used a colonial hydroid species 

as an indicator/assay of environmental stressors—in the field, after years of laboratory study. The initial response of most organisms to low level stressors is an enhanced metabolism, faster growth and early maturation—a phenomenon that is well 

known and taken advantage of by egg farms (more eggs, earlier) and most livestock 

growout establishments (faster growth for less feed). 

As I stated at my testimony—much of the coral bleaching observed occurs in regions where human effluents and other stressors are well documented—if only at 

sublethal levels—but add a few degrees F—and the symbiotic algal zooxanthellae—

depart their coraline homes—and head for cooler, cleaner environments. The world’s 

most complex reefs are found in the warmer regions—such as the Indo-Pacific Warm 

Pool—where water temperatures are highest—but are quite limited in that when 

they warm beyond 27.5C, they generate huge Deep Convection water vapor colVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00138 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
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umns—ejections of the warmest surface water into the upper atmosphere—creating 

the basis of the Hadley Circulation and general poleward transfer of heat energy 

and precipitation. These cloud cover formations reflect incoming IR and solar 

energy—maintaining a cooler upper ocean as the evapo-transpiration caused by the 

winds below continue to cool the upper ocean waters. 

Why are the major coral structures found in these warm oceans? 

All aspects of organismal physiology are accelerated—and for the micro-organisms 

that form coral structures, they are more efficient, and responsive. Remember that 

the majority of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is now situated over regions that were 

well above sea level only 20 thousand years ago- when humans walked from Asia 

onto Australian terrain. It is also arrayed over many tens of degrees latitude, from 

the equatorial region, southward into the subtropical latitudes—and if warming continues, will spread southward with its preferred water temperature. 

2. Among the various effects of climate change to wildlife and the oceans, 

are there issues that are more pressing than the others? 

Almost all the so-called ‘‘threatened’’ terrestrial wildlife are in direct competition 

for resources and habitat with humans, Species such as the polar bear and other 

predators are usually quite well adapted—and as such, have occupied their extreme 

environments since the warming began that ended the last Ice Age—Their prey are 

also moving out in front—as these changes occur—such that all their lower trophic 

level forage needs are the real source of their presences—in these extreme environments. 

There is far more plasticity in these many species’ pre-adaptations—selected over 

millennia—than we poor humans happen to share. 

Removal of options, e.g. limiting access to waterways, shorelines, or open ocean 

access are the major concerns that I see need careful consideration, so that options 

remain that will help sustain all the players, not just one or another ‘‘cute’’ species. 

Why? 

We tend to over-value human interests—and forget that the majority of species 

that we are concerned with are dependent upon others—their supporting ecosystems 

and options for access. 

3. In the U.S., as plant and animal species migrate north and to higher 

elevations, what does that mean for the regions they leave behind? For 

instance, it has been said that some U.S. states that border Canada 

might actually benefit from the next few decades of climate change, but 

what will it mean for the states further to the South, and especially 

those on the coast? 

The expansion of species ranges northward has been ongoing for over 20 thousand 

years, as the last Ice Age ended and glacier coverage declined. 

Every thing from migratory birds, fresh water fishes, and their predators took advantage of these changes—and what you see is what you get. 

Literally thousands of rivers, streams, and ponds, lakes etc., are now inhabited—

colonized by these well-adapted mobile species. Of course, don’t forget that the forests and grasslands—even tumbleweeds—took advantage of the changes in options, 

as the ice disappeared, the wetlands and waterways emerged—and habitats 

expanded—then we had a few cold epochs—and humans that had also recolonized 

and prospered were back in competition for living space and resources—hence the 

European expansion westward and out onto the oceans—see my book, available via 

my website—‘‘Out of Fishermen’s Hands...’’ for a review of history of all these climate-related human issues. Nothing new going on today. 

4. How do shifts in habitat range of plants and animals affect human interests such as agriculture or the spread of invasive species and diseases? 

All available in history books—as per my note above... 

How can we adaptively plan for such changes? 

Don’t assume ‘‘everything will stay the same’’—if we do nothing. 

That is the fallacy of the ‘‘Global Warming is Bad’’ mob—Humans have always 

been better off during Warm Epochs than Cold epochs—and if you pay attention to 

your local newspaper obituaries—you will note that there are far more deaths during the cool months than during the warm months—evening Europe over the recent 

decades. 

Coping strategies should include careful development of more energy efficient 

transportation and power generations, with fewer pollutants—and toxins—of which 

136

CO2 is not a concern, as it is the basis of plant life and all primary production, on 

land and in the seas, 

5. The IPCC reports with 80% certainty that the changes in water temperatures, ice cover, salinity and ocean circulation are impacting the 

ranges and migration patterns of aquatic organisms. How will this affect management and use of these resources, and how can we prepare 

for any changes? 

Yawn! This is a misleading understatement—as all ocean species undergo routine 

and regular responses to the always changing environment—on all time and space 

scales. They have plenty of experience, and long-selected preadaptations to these 

changes—unless for one reason or another, their access to supportive habitat has 

been limited or removed, as per dams or filling in of habitat for other uses. 

6. In the Chesapeake Bay, we are losing marshland to rising sea levels. 

Can you talk about what is happening to coastal wetland areas in other 

areas of the country and what that is doing to their ecosystems and the 

local economies that depend upon these natural resources? 

Few if any regions are economically dependent upon their coastal wetlands—as 

these are by definition quite unstable, always dynamic environments. For those few 

locations that are experiencing rapid sea level rises—they were already nearing this 

status over a Century ago—as the total sea level rise has been about 10 inches per 

Century for Millennia—except in those regions where oil and gas removals and related continental subsidence are the main/dominant causes. Natural geological subsidence is also common, and yet, sea level rise is steady over the recent thousand 

or more years for the majority of the main continents—and will continue until the 

next Ice Age occurs—some millennia away. 

Too many wild speculations about sea level rise are based on very unusual locations and their trends. 

7. What role do marshlands play in sequestering carbon? Is marsh restoration a viable alternative in carbon sequestration? 

Little or none, as these environments do not ‘‘store’’ biomass—and NO! 

8. The latest IPCC report warns that ocean acidification poses a threat to 

coral reefs and shell-forming organisms that form the base of the aquatic food chain. But the report says more study is needed to determine 

the full scope of the threat. What do we know about the potential impacts to U.S. coastal ecosystems today and how quickly is our understanding of acidification improving? What can Congress do to improve 

upon this understanding? Do we know enough to act? 

Again, What we know is based upon rather shaky data sets taken over the years, 

that used very different technologies—My main concern based on my own experience, is that the instrumental inter-calibrations that are necessary for a truly powerful scientific investigation have not been adequate to make any realistic statements about the relative contributions of anthropogenic CO2 to pH changes that 

have been posted. A pH change of 0.015 over a decade is simply within the noise 

range of the pH measuring tools—In the Good Olde days—we calibrated the instruments aboard ship daily—but each pH meter had it’s own ‘‘personality’’ thus the 

error range was greater than the numbers given above as ‘‘the recently observed 

changes’’. 

9. What additional resources or tools will the Fish and Wildlife Service 

and National Marine Fisheries Service need to adequately prepare and 

address the impacts of global warming on wildlife over the next decade? 

Lots of satellite archival tagging effort, along with in situ monitoring and calibration activities, as recently begun within NOAA & NASA working with the Census 

of Marine Life (CoML) Tagging of Pelagic Predator(TOPP) projects. Terrestrial 

projects are ongoing that compare well. 

Both environments are being better monitored given these new technologies than 

ever—but the programs ]need to be enhanced globally. 

137

10. We’ve heard a lot about the polar bear and the petition to list the species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Opponents of listing 

claim that the effects of global warming are in fact unclear. What evidence is there that global warming is already having a dramatic effect 

on the species across its range? How will an ESA listing help polar 

bears? 

This is an ENGO Scam—as the Canadian polar bear experts have already pointed 

out—and they have survived many such warmings over their species’ history—and 

warming to a greater extent than today only 4-6 thousand years ago. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Sharp. 

The Chairwoman now recognizes Dr. Everett to testify for five 

minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN EVERETT, Ph.D.,

OCEAN ASSOCIATES, INC. 

Dr. EVERETT. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Members of 

the committee. 

My written statement presents the results of the work I led for 

the IPCC from 1988 to 2000. This is still the most thorough, comprehensive and broadly reviewed work on the oceans and fisheries 

subjects that has been published. 

I led IPCC work on five impact analyses. For fisheries I was convening lead author; polar regions, co-chair; oceans, a lead author; 

and oceans and coastal zones, on two reports I was co-chair. In 

1996, I received the NOAA Administrator’s Award for accomplishments in assessing the impacts of climate change on global oceans 

and fisheries. 

Since leaving NOAA I have been an IPCC reviewer and have 

talked to many individuals and groups and have maintained these 

subjects on climate change on the U.N. Atlas of the Oceans at 

OceansAtlas.org where I am the chief editor and project manager. 

Professionally, I am also president of Ocean Associates, Inc., an 

oceans and fisheries consulting business, and two web-based businesses. OceansArt.us sells and shares ocean-related photos, and 

TechnologySite.org provides information and photos about inventions. Last, I have a website where I try to keep track of all the 

latest information about the soldiers in the climate change wars, 

and that is ClimateChange Facts.info. 

I think it is time for a reality check. The oceans and coastal 

zones have been far warmer and colder than is projected in the 

present scenarios of climate change. Over millennia, marine life 

have endured and responded to CO2 levels well beyond that have 

been projected and temperature changes that put coral reefs and 

tropical plants closer to the poles or had much of our land covered 

by ice more than a mile thick. 

The memory of these events is built into the genetic plasticity of 

the species on this planet. Biological impacts will be determined by 

this plasticity and the resiliency of organisms to find suitable habitats. In the oceans, major climate warming and cooling is a fact of 

life whether it is over a few years, as in an El Nin ̃ o, or over decades as in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or the North Atlantic Oscillation. 

Currents, temperatures, salinity and biology changes rapidly to 

the new state in months or a couple years. These changes far 

138

exceed those expected with global warming and occur much faster. 

The one degree Fahrenheit rise since about 1860, indeed the same 

as the amount since the year 1000, has brought the global average 

temperature from 56.5 to 57.5 degrees. This is at the level of noise 

in this rapidly changing system. 

Sea level has been rising since the last glaciation lost its grip, 

and temperatures rose by 10 to 20 degrees, a mere 10,000 years 

ago. It is only some few thousand years since Georges Bank was 

part of the mainland. It is now 60 miles offshore of Provincetown. 

Its trees and the shells of its oysters that flourished on its shores 

still come up in dredges and trawls in now very deep water, with 

the oysters looking like they were just shucked yesterday. 

In the face of all these natural changes and those that we are 

here to consider, some species flourish while other diminish. These 

considerations were well understood in all the IPCC groups in 

which I participated. 

I have some concerns about some few species near the margins 

of their suitable habitat range, such as polar bears, but I would 

much rather have the present warm climate and even further 

warming than the next ice age that would bring temperatures 

much colder than even today. 

The NOAA PaleoClimate Program shows us on their website that 

when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, the earth was much warmer. The CO2 levels were two to four times higher than today, and 

coral reefs were much more expansive. The earth was so productive 

then that we are still using the oil, coal and gas it generated. 

More of the warming, if it comes, will be during winters and at 

night and toward the poles. For most life in the oceans, warming 

means faster growth, reduced energy requirements to stay warm, 

lower winter mortalities and wider ranges of distribution. Warming 

is not a big deal and is not a bad thing in the oceans. 

No one knows whether the earth is going to keep warming or 

since reaching a peak in 1998 we are at the start of a cooling cycle 

that will last several decades or more. Whichever it is, our actions 

should be prudent. 

Our fishing and maritime industries compete in a world market 

and are vulnerable to government actions to reduce CO2 emissions. 

We already import most of our seafood, and our competitors do not 

need further advantages. Our ocean research should focus on 

things we need to do and to know to wisely manage our resources, 

our industries and our coastal areas no matter which way the wind 

blows in the years to come. 

I also would be pleased to answer questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Everett follows:]

Statement of Dr. John T. Everett, President and Consultant,

Ocean Associates, Inc. 

Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me 

to appear before you today. I am John Everett. I am not here to represent any particular organization, company, nor special-interest group. I have never received any 

funding to support my climate change work other than my NOAA salary, when I 

was employed there up to five years ago, in various positions over a 31-year career. 

I will present the results of the work I led for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 1988 to 2000, while an employee of NOAA. This is still the most 

thorough, comprehensive, and broadly reviewed work on the subjects that has been 

published. The reports were reviewed by hundreds of government and academic 

139

scientists as part of the IPCC process. My work included five impact analyses: Fisheries (Convening Lead Author), Polar Regions (Co-Chair), Oceans (Lead Author), 

and Oceans and Coastal Zones (Co-Chair/2 reports). Since leaving NOAA I have 

kept abreast of the literature, have talked to many individuals and groups and have 

maintained these subjects in the UN Atlas of the Oceans, where I am the Chief Editor and Project Manager. While I will present the results from IPCC documents I 

led or helped write, all opinions are mine alone, and are at the end. 

Background. 

I was assigned the climate change duties when I was the National Marine Fisheries Service Division Chief for Fisheries Development in the 1970s. The agency was 

very concerned about the impact of climate change on the United States fisheries 

and fishing industry. Global cooling. would be devastating to our fisheries and aquaculture. About 1987, the momentum shifted to fears of global warming and with my 

background, I was tasked to lead our efforts dealing with it. In 1996 I received the 

NOAA Administrator’s Award for ‘‘accomplishments in assessing the impacts of climate change on global oceans and fisheries.’’

Taking only information from IPCC reports, essentially verbatim, I first present 

a summary, then more detail. The full reports are listed in the endnotes and have 

all the supporting text (about 60 pages) and hundreds of citations, which do not appear here. 

Summary of Impacts 

Fisheries 

• Freshwater fisheries and aquaculture at mid to higher latitudes should benefit 

• Saltwater fisheries should be about the same 

• Fishery areas and species mix will shift 

• Changes in abundance more likely near ecosystem boundaries 

• National fisheries will suffer if fishers cannot move within and across national 

borders (Subsistence/small scale fishermen suffer most) 

• Climate change impacts add to overfishing, lost wetlands and nurseries, pollution, UV-B, and natural variation 

• Inherent instability in world fisheries will be exacerbated by a changing climate 

• Globally, economic and food supply impacts should be small. In some countries, 

they could be large 

• Overfishing is more important than climate change today; the relationship 

should reverse in 50-100 years (as overfishing is controlled) 

Oceans 

• Temperature changes will cause geographical shifts in biota and changes in biodiversity, and in polar regions the extinction of some species and proliferation 

of others. 

• A temperature rise in high latitudes should increase the duration of the growing period and the productivity of these regions. 

• Increased coral bleaching will occur as a result of a predicted 2°C increase in 

average global atmospheric temperature by 2050. 

• The Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route of Russia likely will be opened 

for routine shipping. 

• Sea-level changes will occur with regional variations. 

• Changes in coastal pollutants will occur with changes in precipitation and runoff. 

• Changes in circulation and vertical mixing will influence nutrient availability 

and primary productivity, affecting the efficiency of carbon dioxide uptake by 

the oceans. 

• The oceans’ uptake and storage capacity for greenhouse gases will be affected 

by changes in nutrient availability resulting from other changes in precipitation, runoff, and atmospheric deposition. 

• Freshwater influx from movements and melting of sea ice or ice sheets may 

lead to a weakening of the global thermohaline circulation, causing unpredictable instabilities in the climate system. 

• Reduced yields of desirable fish species will occur if primary productivity decreases. 

• Marine mineral extraction, except for petroleum hydrocarbons and the marine 

pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries, is insensitive to global climate 

change. 

140

Polar Regions 

• Major physical, ecological, sociological, and economic changes are expected in 

the Arctic, but much smaller changes are likely for the Antarctic. • Substantial loss of sea ice is expected in the Arctic ocean. If there is more open 

water, there will be a feedback to the climate system of northern countries by 

moderating temperature and increasing precipitation. • Polar warming probably should increase biological production, but may lead to 

different species composition. In the sea, marine ecosystems will move 

poleward. Animals dependent on ice may be disadvantaged. • Human communities in the Arctic will be affected by the physical and ecological 

changes. Effects will be particularly important for indigenous peoples leading 

traditional lifestyles. • There will be economic benefits and costs. Benefits include new opportunities 

for shipping across the Arctic Ocean, lower operational costs for the oil and gas 

industry, lower heating costs, and easier access for tourism. Increased costs can 

be expected from several sources including disruptions caused by thawing of 

permafrost and reduced transportation capabilities across frozen ground and 

water. • Sea ice changes in the Arctic have major strategic implications for trade and 

defense. 

The Impact of Climate Change. 

The oceans and coastal zones have been far warmer and colder than is projected 

in the present scenarios of climate change. Marine life has been in the oceans nearly 

since when they were formed. During the millennia they endured and responded to 

CO2 levels well beyond anything projected, and temperature changes that put tropical plants at the poles or had much of our land covered by ice more than a mile 

thick. The memory of these events is built into the genetic plasticity of the species 

on this planet. IPCC forecasts are for warming to occur faster than evolution is considered to occur, so impacts will be determined by this plasticity and the resiliency 

of affected organisms to find suitable habitats. In the oceans, major climate warming and cooling is a fact of life, whether it is over a few years as in an El Nin ̃ o 

or over decades as in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or the North Atlantic Oscillation. Currents, temperatures, salinity, and biology changes rapidly to the new state 

in months or a couple years. These changes far exceed the changes expected with 

global warming and occur much faster. The one degree F. rise since 1860 is virtually 

noise in this rapidly changing system. Sea level has been inexorably rising since the 

last glaciation lost its grip a mere 10,000 years ago. It is only some few thousand 

years since trees grew on Georges Bank and oysters flourished on its shores. Their 

remains still come up in dredges and trawls in now deep water, with the oysters 

looking like they were shucked yesterday. In the face of all these natural changes, 

and those we are here to consider, some species flourish while others diminish. 

These considerations were well understood in all the IPCC groups in which I participated. 

The following text is taken from IPCC reports that I led. The text is left 

intact, with a very few edits to make complete sentences after deletion of 

portions irrelevant for this Hearing, such as some terrestrial impacts in the 

Arctic. Most background information has been deleted, but all these summary statements are fully supported in the cited references. 

FISHERIES1

Convening Lead Author: John T. Everett, USA. Lead Authors: A. Krovnin, Russia; D. Lluch-Belda, Mexico; E. Okemwa, Kenya; H.A. Regier, Canada; J.-P. Troadec, 

France 

Summary. Climate-change effects interact with those of pervasive overfishing, diminishing nursery areas, and extensive inshore and coastal pollution. Globally, marine fisheries production is expected to remain about the same; high-latitude freshwater and aquaculture production are likely to increase, assuming that natural climate variability and the structure and strength of ocean currents remain about the 

same. The principal impacts will be felt at the national and local levels as species 

mix and centers of production shift. The positive effects of climate change—such as 

longer growing seasons, lower natural winter mortality, and faster growth rates in 

higher latitudes—may be offset by negative factors such as changes in established 

reproductive patterns, migration routes, and ecosystem relationships. 

• Globally, under the IPCC scenarios, saltwater fisheries production is hypothesized to be about the same, or significantly higher if management deficiencies 

are corrected. Also, globally, freshwater fisheries and aquaculture at mid- to 

higher latitudes could benefit from climate change. These conclusions are deVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00144 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
141

pendent on the assumption that natural climate variability and the structure 

and strength of wind fields and ocean currents will remain about the same. If 

either changes, there would be significant impacts on the distribution of major 

fish stocks, though not on global production (Medium Confidence). • Even without major change in atmospheric and oceanic circulation, local shifts 

in centers of production and mixes of species in marine and fresh waters are 

expected as ecosystems are displaced geographically and changed internally. 

The relocation of populations will depend on properties being present in the 

changing environments to shelter all stages of the life cycle of a species (High 

Confidence). • While the complex biological relationships among fisheries and other aquatic 

biota and physiological responses to environmental change are not well understood, positive effects such as longer growing seasons, lower natural winter mortality, and faster growth rates in higher latitudes may be offset by negative factors such as a changing climate that alters established reproductive patterns, 

migration routes, and ecosystem relationships (High Confidence). • Changes in abundance are likely to be more pronounced near major ecosystem 

boundaries. The rate of climate change may prove a major determinant of the 

abundance and distribution of new populations. Rapid change due to physical 

forcing will usually favor production of smaller, low-priced, opportunistic species 

that discharge large numbers of eggs over long periods (High Confidence). However, there are no compelling data to suggest a confluence of climate-change impacts that would affect global production in either direction, particularly because relevant fish population processes take place at regional or smaller scales 

for which general circulation models (GCMs) are insufficiently reliable. • Regionally, freshwater gains or losses will depend on changes in the amount 

and timing of precipitation, on temperatures, and on species tolerances. For example, increased rainfall during a shorter period in winter still could lead to 

reduced levels in summer in river flows, lakes, wetlands, and thus in freshwater 

fisheries. Marine stocks that reproduce in freshwater (e.g., salmon) or require 

reduced estuarine salinities will be similarly affected (High Confidence). • Where ecosystem dominances are changing, economic values can be expected to 

fall until long-term stability (i.e., at about present amounts of variability) is 

reached (Medium Confidence). National fisheries will suffer if institutional 

mechanisms are not in place that enable fishing interests to move within and 

across national boundaries (High Confidence). Subsistence and other small-scale 

fishermen, lacking mobility and alternatives, often are most dependent on specific fisheries and will suffer disproportionately from changes (Medium Confidence). • Because natural variability is so great relative to global change, and the time 

horizon on capital replacement (e.g., ships and plants) is so short, impacts on 

fisheries can be easily overstated, and there will likely be relatively small economic and food supply consequences so long as no major fish stocks collapse 

(Medium Confidence). 

• An impact ranking can be constructed. The following items will be most sensitive to environmental variables and are listed in descending order of sensitivity (Medium Confidence): 

Æ Freshwater fisheries in small rivers and lakes, in regions with larger temperature and precipitation change 

Æ Fisheries within Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), particularly where accessregulation mechanisms artificially reduce the mobility of fishing groups and 

fleets and their capacity to adjust to fluctuations in stock distribution and 

abundance 

Æ Fisheries in large rivers and lakes 

Æ Fisheries in estuaries, particularly where there are species without migration 

or spawn dispersal paths or in estuaries impacted by sea-level rise or decreased river flow 

Æ High-seas fisheries. 

• Adaptation options with large benefits irrespective of climate change (Medium 

Confidence): 

Æ Design and implement national and international fishery-management institutions that recognize shifting species ranges, accessibility, and abundances 

and that balance species conservation with local needs for economic efficiency 

and stability 

Æ Support innovation by research on management systems and aquatic 

ecosystems 

Æ Expand aquaculture to increase and stabilize seafood supplies, help stabilize 

employment, and carefully augment wild stocks 

142

Æ In coastal areas, integrate the management of fisheries with other uses of 

coastal zones Æ Monitor health problems (e.g., red tides, ciguatera, cholera) that could increase under climate change and harm fish stocks and consumers. 

Oceans2

Convening Lead Author: Venugopalan Ittekkot, Germany. Principal Lead Authors: Su Jilan, China; E. Miles, USA; Lead Authors: E. Desa, India; B.N. Desai, 

India; J.T. Everett, USA; J.J. Magnuson, USA; A. Tsyban, Russian Federation; S. 

Zuta, Peru 

Summary. Global warming as projected by Working Group I of the IPCC will 

have an effect on sea-surface temperature and sea level. As a consequence, it is likely that ice cover and oceanic circulation will be affected, and the wave climate will 

change. The expected changes affect global biogeochemical cycles, as well as ecosystem structure and functions, on a wide variety of time and space scales; however, 

there is uncertainty as to whether extreme events will change in intensity and frequency. We have a high level of confidence that: • Redistribution of temperatures could cause geographical shifts in biota as well 

as changes in biodiversity, and in polar regions the extinction of some species 

and proliferation of others. A rise in mean temperature in high latitudes should 

increase the duration of the growing period and the productivity of these regions if light and nutrient conditions remain constant. 

• Sea-level changes will occur from thermal expansion and melting of ice, with 

regional variations due to dynamic effects resulting from wind and atmospheric 

pressure patterns, regional ocean density differences, and oceanic circulation. 

• Changes in the magnitude and temporal pattern of pollutant loading in the 

coastal ocean will occur as a result of changes in precipitation and runoff. 

We can say with a lesser degree of confidence that: 

• Changes in circulation and vertical mixing will influence nutrient availability 

and primary productivity, thereby affecting the efficiency of carbon dioxide uptake by the oceans. 

• The oceans’ uptake and storage capacity for greenhouse gases will be affected 

further by changes in nutrient availability in the ocean resulting from other 

changes in precipitation, runoff, and atmospheric deposition. 

• Freshwater influx from the movements and melting of sea ice or ice sheets may 

lead to a weakening of the global thermohaline circulation, causing unpredictable instabilities in the climate system. 

The most pervasive effects of global climate change on human uses of the oceans 

will be due to impacts on biotic resources; transportation and nonliving resource exploitation will be affected to a lesser degree. We can say with a high level of confidence that: 

• Increased coral bleaching will occur as a result of a predicted 2°C increase in 

average global atmospheric temperature by 2050. 

• Expanded dredging operations will be necessary to keep major ports open in the 

Northern Hemisphere, which will increase costs. 

• The Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route of Russia likely will be opened 

up for routine shipping. 

• Growth in the marine instrumentation industry will occur as the need for research and monitoring of climate change increases. 

We can say with a lesser degree of confidence that: 

• Reduced yields of desirable fish species will occur if average primary productivity decreases. 

• If the frequency of tropical storms and hurricanes increases, adverse impacts 

will be generated for offshore oil and gas activities and for marine transportation in the tropics. 

• Marine mineral extraction, except for petroleum hydrocarbons and the marine 

pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries, is insensitive to global climate 

change. 

Adaptation to the impact of climate change on oceans is limited by the nature of 

these changes, and the scale at which they are likely to occur: 

• No adaptive responses to coral bleaching, even on a regional scale, will be available if average global temperature increases 2°C by 2050. However, reductions 

in land-based pollution of the marine environment, combined with reductions in 

habitat degradation/ destruction, would produce benefits for fisheries, aquaculture, recreation, and tourism. 

• Adaptation options will be available for the offshore oil, gas, and shipping industries if the frequency of tropical storms and hurricanes increases. The options include improved design standards for offshore structures, national and 

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international regulations for shipping, and increased technological capabilities 

to provide early warning at sea. Governments also can increase attention to institutions for planning and responding to disasters and emergencies. • Where climate change generates positive effects, market-driven needs will create their own adaptation dynamic. However, adaptation policies will be required 

to control externalities that are market failures. For instance, opening up both 

the Northwest Passage and the Russian Northern Sea Route for up to 100 days 

a year—while a boon to international shipping and consumers in East Asia, 

North America, and Western Europe—will have to be accompanied by policies 

designed to limit the total burden of pollutants entering the Arctic environment 

from ports, ship operations, and accidents. 

A combination of human activities (e.g., overfishing, pollution of estuaries and the 

coastal ocean, and the destruction of habitat, especially wetlands and seagrasses) 

currently exerts a far more powerful effect on world marine fisheries than is expected from climate change. 

In contrast to model projections, observations over large parts of the tropical Atlantic between 1947 and 1986 have shown an increase in the trade winds. Bakun 

suggests that the greenhouse effect will enhance the seasonal warming of continents—leading to a decrease in the pressure over land, an increase in the land—

sea pressure difference, and increased alongshore winds. Binet has observed such 

effects along the coast of northwest Africa. It appears likely that the strength of 

both oceanic and coastal upwelling mechanisms could change under conditions of 

global warming, with profound impacts upon fish species and their production as 

well as on the climate of the immediate coastal zone. 

Although ENSO is a natural part of the Earth’s climate, a major question is 

whether the intensity or frequency of ENSO events might change as a result of global warming. Historical and paleorecords reveal that ENSO events have changed in 

frequency and intensity in the past on multidecadal to century timescales. It is unclear whether ENSO might change with long-term global warming. 

Sea ice covers about 11% of the ocean, depending on the season. It affects albedo, 

salinity, and ocean-atmosphere thermal exchange. The latter determines the intensity of convection in the ocean and the timescale of deep-ocean processes affecting 

CO2 uptake and storage. 

Projected changes in climate should produce large reductions in the extent, thickness, and duration of sea ice. Major areas that are now ice-bound throughout the 

year are likely to have major periods during which waters are open and navigable. 

Some models even predict an ice-free Arctic. Melting of snow and glaciers will lead 

to increased freshwater influx, changing the chemistry of those oceanic areas affected by the runoff. There is no convincing evidence of changes in the extent of 

global sea ice. Studies on regional changes in the Arctic and Antarctic indicate 

trends of decadal length, often with plausible mechanisms proposed for periodicities 

of a decade or more. Longer data sets are needed to test if a genuine long-term 

trend is developing. 

Winds and waves are the major forcing factors for vertical mixing; the degree of 

mixing depends on the vertical density structure. In the past 40 years, there has 

been an increase in the mean wave height over the whole of the North Atlantic, although it is not certain that global change is the cause of this phenomenon. 

Metabolic rates, enzyme kinetics, and other biological characteristics of aquatic 

plants and animals are highly dependent on external temperatures; for this reason 

alone, climate change that influences water temperature will have significant impacts on the ecology and biodiversity of aquatic systems. The capability of some species to adapt genetically to global warming will depend on existing genetic variation 

and the rapidity of change. Species remaining in suboptimal habitats should at least 

experience reductions in abundance and growth well before conditions become severe enough for extinctions to occur. The resilience of an ecosystem to climate 

change will be determined to a large extent by the degree to which it already has 

been impaired by other human activities. 

Coastal ecosystems are especially vulnerable in this context. They are being subjected to habitat degradation; excessive nutrient loading, resulting in harmful algal 

blooms; fallout from aerosol contaminants; and emergent diseases. Human interventions also have led to losses of living marine resources and reductions in biodiversity 

from biomass removals at increasingly lower trophic levels. The effects on biodiversity are likely to be much less severe in the open ocean than in estuaries and wetlands, where species in shallow, restricted impoundments would be affected long before deep-oceanic species. 

The chief biotic effects on individuals of an increase in mean water temperature 

would be increased growth and development rates. If surface temperatures were correlated positively with latitude, and temperature increased, one would expect a 

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poleward shift of oceanic biota. While this may be the general case, there could be 

important regional variations due to shifts in atmospheric and oceanic circulation. 

The resulting changes in predator-prey abundance and poleward shifts in species’ 

ranges and migration patterns could, in the case of marine fisheries, lead to increased survival of economically valuable species and increased yield. Such cases 

have been observed as a result of the large and intense 1983 El Nin ̃ o. In high latitudes, higher mean water temperature could lead to an increase in the 

duration of the growing period and ultimately in increased bioproductivity in these 

regions. On the other hand, the probability of nutrient loss resulting from reduced 

deep-water exchange could result in reduced productivity in the long term—again 

highlighting the importance of changes in temperature on patterns of circulation. 

Global warming could have especially strong impacts on the regions of oceanic 

subpolar fronts, where the temperature increase in deep water could lead to a substantial redistribution of pelagic and benthic communities, including commercially 

important fish species. 

Most migratory organisms are expected to be able to tolerate changes, but the fate 

of sedentary species will be dependent on local climate changes. Some corals would 

be affected (as in the 1983 and 1987 bleaching events), but it is expected that other 

stresses (e.g., pollution, sedimentation, or nutrient influx) may remain more important factors. Intertidal plants and animals, such as mangroves and barnacles, are 

adapted to withstand high temperature, and unless the 1.5°C increase affects reproduction, it will have no effect. Similarly, only seagrass beds already located in thermal-stress situations (i.e., in shallow lagoons or near power plant effluents) are expected to be negatively affected by the projected temperature rise. One cannot rule 

out, however, the possibility of significantly greater tropical warming than 1.5°C. 

For example, some investigators argue that tropical warming was approximately 

5°C from the last glacial maximum to today. If this value is correct, current GCMs 

probably underestimate tropical sensitivity. 

Changes in temperature and salinity are expected to alter the survivorship of exotic organisms introduced through ballast water in ships, especially those species 

with pelagic larval forms. Introduction of exotic species is a form of biological pollution because, from a human perspective, they can have adverse impacts on ecosystems into which they are introduced and in some cases pose hazards to public 

health. A classic recent example of the spread of an introduced exotic species is that 

of the zebra mussel (Dressena polymorpha), which was transported to the Great 

Lakes via transatlantic shipping from the Baltic sea. Changes in temperature could 

enhance the potential for the survival and proliferation of exotic species in environments that are presently unfavorable. 

Changes also can be expected in the growth rates of biofouling organisms that settle on means of transport, conduits for waste, maritime equipment, navigational 

aids, and almost any other artificial structure in the aquatic environment. Their 

species distributions often are limited by thermal and salinity boundaries, which are 

expected to change with regional changes in temperature and precipitation. Areas 

that experience warming and reduced precipitation (i.e., salinity increases) likely 

will have increased problems with biofouling. 

Predicted climate change also may have important impacts on marine mammals 

such as whales, dolphins, and seals, and seabirds such as cormorants, penguins, 

storm petrels, and albatross. However, it is presently impossible to predict the magnitude and significance of these impacts. The principal effects of climate change on 

marine mammals and seabirds are expected from areal shifts in centers of food production and changes in underlying primary productivity due to changes in 

upwelling, loss of ice-edge effects, and ocean temperatures; changes in critical habitats such as sea ice (due to climate warming) and nesting and rearing beaches (due 

to sea-level rise); and increases in diseases and production of oceanic biotoxins due 

to warming temperatures and shifts in coastal currents. 

Ice plays an important role in the development and sustenance of temperate to 

polar ecosystems because it creates conditions conducive to ice-edge primary production, which provides the primary food source in polar ecosystems; it supports the 

activity of organisms that ensure energy transfer from primary producers (algae and 

phytoplankton) to higher trophic levels (fish, marine birds, and mammals); and, as 

a consequence, it maintains and supports abundant biological communities. 

One of the possible beneficial consequences of global warming might be a reduction in the extent and stability of marine ice, which would directly affect the productivity of polar ecosystems. For example, the absence of ice over the continental shelf 

of the Arctic Ocean would produce a sharp rise in the productivity of this region, 

provided that a sufficient supply of nutrients is maintained. Changes in water temperature and wind regimes as a result of global warming also could affect the distribution and characteristics of polynyas (ice-free areas), which are vital to polar 

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marine ecosystems. In addition, changes in the extent and duration of ice, combined 

with changes in characteristics of currents—for example, the circumpolar current in 

southern latitudes—may affect the distribution, abundance, and harvesting of krill. 

Krill are an important link in the ocean fauna in the Southern Ocean. It is important to understand how, when, and where productivity in the Southern Ocean will 

change with global warming. 

A number of marine organisms depend explicitly on ice cover. For example, the 

extent of the polar bear’s habitat is determined by the maximum seasonal surface 

area of marine ice in a given year. The disappearance of ice would threaten the very 

survival of the polar bear, as well as certain marine seals. Similarly, a reduction 

in ice cover would reduce food supplies for seals and walruses and increase their 

vulnerability to natural predators and human hunters and poachers. Other animals, 

such as the otter, could benefit by moving into new territories with reduced ice. 

Some species of marine mammals will be able to take advantage of increases in prey 

abundance and spatial/temporal shifts in prey distribution toward or within their 

primary habitats, whereas some populations of birds and seals will be adversely affected by climatic changes if food sources decline or are displaced away from regions 

suitable for breeding or rearing of young. 

Animals that migrate great distances, as do most of the great whales and 

seabirds, are subject to possible disruptions in the distribution and timing of their 

food sources during migration. For example, it remains unclear how the contraction 

of ice cover would affect the migration routes of animals (such as whales) that follow 

the ice front. At least some migrating species may respond rapidly to new situations. 

While the impacts of these ecological changes are likely to be significant, they cannot be reliably forecast or evaluated. Climate change may have both positive and 

negative impacts, even on the same species. Positive effects such as extended feeding areas and seasons in higher latitudes, more-productive high latitudes, and lower 

winter mortality may be offset by negative factors that alter established reproductive patterns, breeding habitat, disease vectors, migration routes, and ecosystem relationships. 

Polar Regions: Arctic/Antarctica3

Convening Lead Authors: J.T. Everett (USA) and B. Blair Fitzharris (New Zealand) 

Lead Author: Barrie Maxwell (Canada) 

Summary. Direct effects could include: ecosystem shifts, sea and river ice loss, 

and permafrost thaw. Indirect effects could include positive feedback to the climate 

system. There will be new challenges and opportunities for shipping, the oil industry, fishing, mining and tourism, infrastructure, and movement of populations, resulting in more interactions and changes in trade and strategic balance. There will 

be winners and losers. As examples, a reduced and thinning ice cover will disadvantage polar bears, while sea otters will have new habitats; communities on new shipping routes will grow while those built on permafrost will have difficulties. Native 

communities will face profound changes impacting on traditional lifestyles. 

• Major physical, ecological, sociological, and economic changes are expected in 

the Arctic, but much smaller changes are likely for the Antarctic, over the period of this assessment. 

• Substantial loss of sea ice is expected in the Arctic ocean. If there is more open 

water, there will be a feedback to the climate system of northern countries by 

moderating temperature and increasing precipitation. If warming occurs, there 

will be considerable thawing of permafrost leading to changes in drainage, increased slumping and altered landscapes over large areas. 

• Polar warming probably should increase biological production, but may lead to 

different species composition. In the sea, marine ecosystems will move 

poleward. Animals dependent on ice may be disadvantaged. 

• Human communities in the Arctic will be affected by these physical and ecological changes. Effects will be particularly important for indigenous peoples leading traditional lifestyles. 

• There will be economic benefits and costs. Benefits include new opportunities 

for shipping across the Arctic Ocean, lower operational costs for the oil and gas 

industry, lower heating costs, and easier access for tourism. Increased costs can 

be expected from several sources including disruptions caused by thawing of 

permafrost and reduced transportation capabilities across frozen ground and 

water. • Sea ice changes in the Arctic have major strategic implications for trade and 

defense. 

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Marine Ecological Systems. If warming should occur, there will be an increase 

in growth and development rates of non-mammals. In general, productivity should 

rise. Risks include the loss of sea ice cover upon which several marine mammals 

depend for food and protection. Also, Arctic shipping, oil exploration and transport, 

and economic development could bring risks to many species. • Ice. If there is warming, the Arctic could experience a thinner and reduced ice 

cover, including that in Arctic lakes and streams. In contrast, the vast Antarctic 

is so cold that any warming within the IPCC scenarios should have little impact 

except in the Dry Valleys and on the Antarctic Peninsula. In fact, ice could accumulate through greater snowfall, slowing sea level rise. • Permafrost. Permafrost underlies as much as 25% of the global land surface. 

Considerable amounts will disappear, causing major changes in ecosystem 

structure and in human impacts. • Fisheries. Warming could lead to a rise in production, unless changes in water 

properties would disrupt the spawning grounds of fish in high latitudes. There 

could be a substantial redistribution of important fish species. Fisheries on the 

margin of profitability could prosper or decline. Fishing seasons will lengthen, 

but most stocks are already fully exploited. • Navigation and Transport. If sea-ice coverage is reduced, coastal and river 

navigation will increase. Opportunities for water transport, tourism, and trade 

will increase. The Arctic Ocean could become a major trade route. Seasonal 

transport across once frozen land and rivers may become difficult or costly. Offshore oil production should benefit from less ice. • Arctic Settlements. If the climate ameliorates, conditions will favor the northward spreading of agriculture, forestry, and mining, with an expansion of population and settlements. More infrastructure such as marine, road, rail, and air 

links would be required. Changes in the distribution and abundance of sea and 

land animals will impact on traditional lifestyles of native communities. 

WORLD OCEANS AND COASTAL ZONES4

Co-Chairs: John. Everett USA; Alla Tsyban (Russia); Jim Titus (USA) 

World Oceans And Coastal Zones: Ecological Effects5

Co-Chairs: John. Everett USA; Alla Tsyban (Russia); Martha Perdomo (Venezuela) 

These two report’s findings were incorporated into subsequent reports and are included above, with the possible exception that these made a stronger case for the 

impacts of sea level rise. Since the projected amount of rise has now been rolled 

back in the latest scientific assessment due to a lack of acceleration in sea level rise, 

these findings are no longer relevant. Some of their adaptation recommendations 

are included below. 

Research Needs 

Information is most valuable if there are institutions and management mechanisms to use it. Research on improved mechanisms is needed so that fisheries can 

operate more efficiently with global warming as well as in the naturally varying climate of today. There is relatively little research underway on such mechanisms. 

Knowledge of the reproductive strategies of many species and links between recruitment and environment is poor. 

The following items are needed specifically because of climate change. Other types 

of research, which are prerequisites for dealing with such concerns but which support the day-to-day needs of fisheries managers or relate more to understanding 

how ecosystems function, are not included. • Determine how fish adapt to natural extreme environmental changes, how fishing affects their ability to survive unfavorable conditions, and how reproduction 

strategies and environments are linked. Link fishery ecology and regional climate models to enable broader projections of climate-change impacts and improve fishery management strategies. • Implement regional and multinational systems to detect and monitor climate 

change and its impacts—building on and integrating existing research programs. Fish can be indicators of climate change and ecological status and 

trends. Assemble baseline data now so comparisons can be made later. • Develop ecological models to assess multiple impacts of human activities. • Determine the fisheries most likely to be impacted, and develop adaptation 

strategies. 

• Assess the potential leaching of toxic chemicals, viruses, and bacteria due to 

sea-level rise and how they might affect both fish and the seafood supply. 

• Determine institutional changes needed to deal with a changing climate. Such 

changes are likely the same ones needed for mastering overfishing and coping 

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with the variability and uncertainty of present conditions. Improved institutions 

would probably reduce stock variability more than climate change would increase it. 

• Study the historical ability of societies to adapt their activities when their resources are impacted by climate changes. 

• Research activities to better understand processes in the oceans, in particular 

the role of the oceans in the natural variability of the climate system at seasonal, interannual, and decadal to century timescales. 

• Long-term monitoring and mapping of: water-level changes, ice coverage, and 

thermal expansion of the oceans; sea-surface temperature and surface air temperature; extratropical storms and tropical cyclones; changes in upwelling regimes along the coasts of California, Peru, and West Africa; UV-B radiation, 

particularly in polar regions, and its impact on aquatic ecosystems; regional effects on distribution of species and their sensitivity to environmental factors; 

changes in ocean biogeochemical cycles. 

• Socioeconomic research activities to document human responses to global 

change 

Adaptation Options 

• Establish management institutions that recognize shifting distributions, abundances and accessibility, and that balance conservation with economic efficiency 

and stability 

• Support innovation by research on management systems and aquatic ecosystems 

• Expand aquaculture to increase and stabilize seafood supplies and employment, 

and carefully, to augment wild stocks 

• Integrate fisheries and CZ management 

• Monitor health problems (e.g., red tides, ciguatera, cholera) 

• Coastal planners and owners of coastal properties and infrastructure should 

carefully consider projected relative sea level changes when evaluating new or 

reconstruction projects. 

• Coastal planners and environmental decision-makers should consider that a 

healthy environment is a prerequisite for coral reefs, mangroves and sea 

grasses to keep pace with a rising sea and to continue their coastal protection 

benefits 

Understanding Climate Change in Order to Assess Impacts—My View 

My specialty that is relevant to this hearing is in impacts assessment, not the 

science of climate change. However, to determine impacts correctly, one must understand the nature of change and its likelihood to continue. In the IPCC structure, 

the science has been led by the UK and U.S. scientists, and they used modeling as 

their primary tool, with some paleoclimate analysis coming later. The Impacts Assessments were led by the Russians, who had an intense distrust of modeling. They 

viewed paleoclimatology as the most valid tool: if you want to know what will happen when CO2 rises or the temperature changes, look at the history of the earth. 

As an American, working with the Russian teams, I was often caught in the middle 

of both camps. I learned to listen to both views, and continue to do so. In particular, 

we learned to distrust any science literature or impacts assessment that did not consider all data available, whether modeling, the instrumented record back into the 

1800s and/or the paleo and historical temperature reconstructions. If the data are 

truncated, there is likely an agenda. 

In this light I view with grave concern the two latest IPCC Summary for Policy 

Makers which use truncated data in text and graphics to misrepresent the amount 

of warming, causing undue alarm. For example, from the most recent SPM, ‘‘The 

Working Group I Fourth Assessment concluded that most of the observed increase 

in the globally averaged temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due 

to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations... ’’ This is 

a red flag. It begs the question of why the restriction ‘‘since the mid-20th century’’. 

What is wrong with the full data set back into the 1800s? Is it restricted to ‘‘mid20th century’’ because it is too difficult to explain the prior decades of falling temperatures in the face of rising CO2? This demonstration (and there are many others) 

is typical of what has led many disagreeing scientists to not be invited to IPCC anymore, and others to lose interest. Over 20 years the core IPCC-participating scientists have become more homogeneous. The consensus has become stronger as dissenting scientists have moved to become the ‘‘other consensus’’, usually called climate skeptics. 

The source of the warming or cooling is of little importance to an impacts assessment, except where it provides a clue as to future trends. Most people agree that 

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there has been a warming of 1 degree Fahrenheit in the instrumental record of 150 

years. Those in the ‘‘IPCC-oriented consensus’’ believe it is due to mankind’s increased CO2 and other gas emissions; therefore temperatures are likely to rise as 

more humans inhabit the earth and economies grow. This is important information 

to a specialist in assessments. Also important, though, is staying in touch with other 

views. Scientists in the ‘‘other consensus’’ believe that, even if the 1 degree change 

is accurate (and is not just ‘‘noise’’), the CO2 rise can, at most, explain a piece of 

the temperature rise. Many believe that increased water vapor, solar variations in 

radiation and magnetic flux, our relative position in the solar system, the tilt of our 

planet’s axis, the clearing of our atmosphere of pollutants which allows more sunlight to reach the ground, or our position in the Milky Way galaxy that affects the 

amount of radiation reaching our atmosphere and affecting cloud formation, are also 

important and are not (and cannot be yet) adequately considered in the computer 

models used by the IPCC consensus. Many believe CO2 may not be the culprit. 

Concluding Remarks 

Personally, I do not know whether the earth is going to continue to warm, or that 

having reached a peak in 1998, we are at the start of a cooling cycle that will last 

several decades or more. Whichever it is, our actions should be prudent. Our fishing 

industry, maritime industry and other users of the ocean environment compete in 

a world market and are vulnerable in many ways to possible governmental actions 

to reduce CO2 emissions. We already import most of our seafood and many of the 

nations with which we compete do not need further advantages. Our research 

should focus on those ecosystem linkages we need to understand in order to wisely 

manage our fisheries, and this includes the ability to incorporate natural climate 

variability along with long term changes. Institutionally, we should work with our 

neighbors to pre-determine what should happen when one of our major fish stocks 

ignores the international boundary. Lastly, I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to the testimony of Dr. Steven Murawski, of NMFS, at a hearing on Projected and Past Effects of Climate Change: a Focus on Marine and Terrestrial Ecosystems before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, 

Subcommittee on Global Climate Change and Impacts, on April 26, 2006. I think 

it is well done, although I would quibble with some minor points.. 

References: 

1. Everett, J.T., E. Okemwa, H.A. Regier, J.P. Troadec, A. Krovnin, and D. LluchBelda, 1995: Fisheries. In: The IPCC Second Assessment Report, Volume 2: 

Scientific-Technical Analyses of Impacts, Adaptations, and Mitigation of Climate Change (Watson, R.T., M.C. Zinyowera, and R.H. Moss (eds.)]. Cambridge 

University Press, Cambridge and New York, 31 pp 

2. Ittekkot, V., Su Jilan, E. Miles, E. Desa, B.N. Desai, J.T. Everett, J.J. Magnuson, A. Tsyban, and S. Zuta, 1995: Oceans. In: IPCC Second Assess. Report, 

Volume 2: Scientific-Technical Analyses of Impacts, Adaptations, and Mitigation of Climate Change (Watson, R.T., M.C. Zinyowera, and R.H. Moss (eds.)]. 

Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge and New York, 20 pp 

3. Everett, J.T. and B.B. Fitzharris, 1998: Polar Regions: Arctic/Antarctica. In: 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Regional Impacts of Climate Change [Watson, R.T., M.C. Zinyowera, and R.H. 

Moss (eds.)]. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge and New York. 

4. Everett, J.T., E. Okemwa, H.A. Regier, J.P. Troadec, A. Krovnin, and D. LluchBelda, 1995: Fisheries. In: The IPCC Second Assessment Report, Volume 2: 

Scientific-Technical Analyses of Impacts, Adaptations, and Mitigation of Climate Change (Watson, R.T., M.C. Zinyowera, and R.H. Moss (eds.)]. Cambridge 

University Press, Cambridge and New York, 31 pp 

5. Everett, J.T., A. Tsyban and M. Perdomo. 1992. Climate Change: World Oceans 

and Coastal Zones: Ecological Effects. In IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on 

Climate Change),. Climate Change, The IPCC Impacts Assessment, Australian 

Government Publishing Service, 268 pp. 

Response to questions submitted for the record

by Dr. John Everett, 13 May 2007

Dear Chairwoman Bordallo, 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in the hearing and to provide responses to the follow-up questions. 

I worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from 1988 

to 2000 on five impact analyses: Fisheries (Convening Lead Author), Polar Regions 

(Co-Chair), Oceans (Lead Author), and Oceans and Coastal Zones (Co-Chair/2 reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00152 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
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ports). Since leaving NOAA, I have remained an Expert Reviewer within the IPCC 

system. 

I support the IPCC process. It is a reasonable way to coordinate the development 

of policy advice on global issues. However, there does appear to be ‘‘cherry picking’’ 

of science and results to advance some agendas. The growing body of scientists outside the IPCC process often come to different conclusions based on the same science, 

and their concerns are not fully considered. Having difficulty myself in ferreting out 

the facts, I have kept track of information from both camps, eventually putting it 

on a website so I could access it anywhere. I have recently made it available to everyone at http://www.ClimateChangeFacts.info. 

I believe we are on the wrong path. The worst-case impacts, from worst-case scenarios, that have been run through an under-achieving model are insufficiently discounted in the IPCC reports vis-a`-vis better analyses. The result is a gross exaggeration of impacts in the press. We do not hear about minor impacts and benefits, 

only the ‘‘newsworthy’’ elements. To do realistic impact assessments, I have to sort 

through the science and projections. A summary of considerations that shaped my 

written statement and this response to your questions are that: 

• The Earth’s natural processes also contribute, and remove, CO2. Since plants 

first appeared on the Earth, they have converted nearly all available CO2 to oxygen, fossil fuels, and to other long-term storage. Today, less than 4/10 of 1% 

(379 ppm) of our atmosphere is CO2, a small amount relative to other periods 

in Earth’s history. Some popular IPCC scenarios include rising CO2 (2%/year) 

from an increasing supply of fossil fuels for 100 years, yet we know that this 

is improbable. Production will soon peak (if not already) and prices are rising. 

• The projected temperature rise defies logic, given that the USA and global temperatures have risen by (at most) only 1 deg F (.5 C) in 100 years (NOAA, May 

2007), during the height of industrial expansion. This is a trivial amount in the 

natural variation of the Earth, and to suggest the rise would accelerate 5 fold 

(IPCC best estimate) in this century is incredible. NOAA’s new data set, released on May 1, addressed some of the urban heat island issues, dropping the 

warming 44% (below IPCC 2007), but significant other data issues still remain. 

Also, the Earth was much warmer in the prior interglacial, just 125,000 years 

ago. 

• The IPCC 2007 rate of sea level rise adds 1 mm/year to the 1-2 mm/year that 

has been happening in recent centuries. This additional amount is only 4 inches 

over 100 years. 

• Other projections, such as for hurricanes, rainfall, and snow cover, are not significantly different than under natural variability, and most will advance more 

slowly than the decadal oscillations. With regard to ocean acidity, shell formation problems should have shown up already in areas where there are naturally 

high levels of CO2. They have not. 

Above all, the IPCC Impact Assessment discounts the benefits that come with a 

warming climate and accentuates the negatives. Most negatives lie within the unrealistic worst case climate scenarios. Whether a fish in the ocean, a shrimp in a pond, 

or a bean on a vine, it will grow faster when it is warmer, all things being equal. 

Humans will be quick to take advantage of a warmer climate. More crops grow 

where it is warm than in frozen ground, and CO2 is a primary food of plants—basic 

facts that seem lost in this discussion. However, the impact is visible to NASA satellites, which have detected a 6% greening of the Earth in the last 2 decades from 

a warmer, wetter, higher-CO2 Earth (NASA 2003). Findings like this are rarely 

highlighted in IPCC SPM documents. 

Supporting details for the above and for my responses are on my website. I would 

be pleased to elaborate further, if requested.

Sincerely,

Dr. John T. Everett 

President 

Ocean Associates, Incorporated 

4007 N. Abingdon Street 

Arlington, Virginia USA 22207

JohnEverett@OceanAssoc.com 

On the web at http://www.OceanAssoc.com, and 

http://www.ClimateChangeFacts.info 

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QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE MADELEINE BORDALLO, CHAIRWOMAN 

In your testimony you note that a combination of human activities including overfishing, pollution of estuaries and the coastal ocean, and the 

destruction of habitat-particularly wetlands and seagrasses-currently 

exert a far more powerful effect on world marine fisheries than is expected from climate change. 

1. Do you think we are currently doing enough to address those problems 

here in the United States? If not, can you elaborate on what we should 

be doing differently? 

I think we are putting about the right amount of resources into these issues, but 

we could do more if we weren’t hampered by our institutional arrangements. I think 

the people in NOAA, the states, EPA, the Corps, and all the other bodies are working hard towards achieving the correct goals, but that institutional barriers are 

more of a hindrance than lack of funding. For a dozen years I was Director of NMFS 

Policy and Planning. I was also a Senate staffer and during that time I led the negotiations on behalf of both Houses on the first reauthorization of the FCMA. I also 

have been closely affiliated with FAO since 1999. These are some of the experiences 

underlying my view. We have had over 30 years to get it right and we are not there 

yet. This, alone, serves as a reality check for the merits of the system we have established. 

I have always said that if I were Prince of Fish, I would do things much differently. Our problem in managing fisheries is that we live in a democracy where 

authority is diffuse and nearly everything requires negotiation. This may lead to a 

better solution, but everything takes a long time to accomplish and the driving force 

is usually some disaster, whether a crashed stock or some ecosystem imbalance 

which disrupts normal function, such as sharks replacing codfish. Sometimes there 

are stalemates that may prevent rational management. 

The different entities involved in resource management, such as communities, 

counties, states, tribal organizations, state commissions, Councils, international 

treaty bodies, and bilateral organizations all complicate the process. As much as I 

admire our system of government, I think it sometimes brings chaos to resource 

management. Imagine for a moment having one agency (or a Prince) responsible for 

all fisheries throughout their range, able to cut across all agency fiefdoms. There 

would be no hiding behind some perceived failure of somebody else. If there is mismanagement, we know who is responsible and if something needs to be done, we 

know who gets the task. So, if we want to do something dramatic, that reduces the 

cost and inefficiencies in the existing system, I think we should start with a clean 

slate, design an ideal system, then modify our institutions to accommodate it. This 

will require a very heavy hand indeed. 

2. Dr. Everett, like Bill McKibben, you acknowledge that a changing climate will produce winners and losers. Yet unlike Mr. McKibben, who 

views climate change as an opportunity to transform our society into a 

21st Century ‘‘Green Economy’’ which will produce many more winners 

than losers, you seem satisfied to tinker around the edges the status quo 

to avoid taking potentially unnecessary changes to address the problem. 

I support moving towards a Green Economy, and working to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is a valid objective within this ideal. However, it may or may 

not be important to the Earth’s climate system. Let us not forget that just a few 

years ago, many of the same NGOs who are alarmed about warming and CO2 emissions, were arguing with the same fervor that our fossil fuels were running out. 

Many still are. It can’t be both ways—using more for decades and running out in 

a few years. There are probably not enough fuels left in the ground to allow the 

forecast acceleration of their consumption. We are seeing some price increases now, 

across all fuels, and even for corn, driven by the shortage of fossil fuels. I believe 

this will continue and will accelerate remarkably in the decades to come, greatly restricting CO2 emissions. The market place and the finite resources will largely reduce consumption, but we should also subsidize research to clean up coal (and other 

difficult fuels) consumption throughout the world. I was alarmed by some of my fellow panelists who advocated cessation of coal production. We hold the world’s largest inventories of coal and it is a major competitive advantage. We need to make 

it more environmentally friendly and use it. 

The green economy goal is excellent and I agree with it, but it cannot be reached 

in one country alone because there is a world marketplace. When there are equal 

or lower costs, this is great for all of us. If we move to wind power by legislative 

fiat, on the other hand, and the production costs in our factories rise, our jobs will 

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migrate overseas even faster than at present. Thus, we run the very real risk of 

having far more losers than winners in the USA if we respond to this threat in an 

unwise way. 

I am glad you consider me to be ‘‘tinkering’’. Tinkering is good, provided you have 

established goals. It is one of the best strategies for dealing with a complex problem 

such as this (Lindblom, 1959) where the issue is fuzzy at best, the correct course 

of action is uncertain, and a wrong course is perilous. We do not know enough to 

put all our eggs in the global warming catastrophe basket. Any eggs we put there 

should be refundable and of value on other objectives, such as energy independence 

and efficiency, and leaving some fossil fuels in the ground for use by future generations. 

I grew up as a fisherman, learning from my father the need to put the little clams 

and lobsters back gently, and to protect them from predators while we could. I am 

very conscious of our role as a good steward of the Earth and have practiced stewardship all my life. 

I am concerned we are at the verge of a potential colossal public policy failure 

that will damage our economy. This is a similar situation to that of several decades 

ago when uninformed hysteria led to halting the growth and technological advancement of our nuclear power industry. Other nations, such as France, with no significant fossil fuels, continued on the nuclear path, soon replacing us as exporters of 

nuclear technology and gaining clean electrical power that is largely from nuclear 

sources. We were left only with a fossil fuels option and now we are in a catch-up 

mode. 

3. Your position seems contrary to our Nation’s history of boldly confronting new challenges. Why are you advocating for a more cautious 

and incremental approach? Do you believe that our Nation is not up to 

this daunting task? 

The daunting task is to keep ourselves informed and cautious in the face of seemingly overwhelming evidence that global warming is man-induced and that it is 

harmful. I am not convinced either is true. In fact both are probably mostly false. 

Therefore, we must move cautiously on things that will cost us competitive advantage in the marketplace, but expeditiously on things that make sense in their own 

right. This is an adaptive, incremental approach following the teachings of Charles 

Lindblom, 1959. If there is warming, things will be different, not worse, just as they 

are different whenever the Atlantic Oscillation and the Pacific Oscillation and the 

ENSO (El Nin ̃ o Southern Oscillation) change phase, with far greater (and immediate) temperature and wind changes than are forecast by IPCC models. The easiest 

way to see this is to consider what might happen if the temperature were to be falling, which it just might be since reaching the latest peak in 1998. Just a slight cooling would largely destroy our agriculture (as we know it)—yet a slight warming 

would mean faster growth, and longer, more productive seasons. This is evident 

from NASA satellites showing a 6% increase over the last 20 years in the greenness 

of the earth. Further, the Earth’s temperature has been higher and the CO2 has 

been higher many times in the past, certainly during the last time we were between 

ice ages, and perhaps since the last one ended just 10,000 years ago. 

On my website (http://www.ClimateChangeFacts.info), I explain this in considerable detail, providing the claims of scientists who think we are having unprecedented warming and that it is caused by humans. I also have the non-trivial counter 

claims by those who disagree on both aspects, with links to resources supporting all 

the views and ideas. I also have a series of items I believe we should do whether 

the Earth is warming or cooling and whether or not mankind’s small contribution 

to the total CO2 budget matters or not. I also have a series of items we should not 

do. Since these latter items are more important, for the present discussion, I will 

start with them first. 

What Actions Should We Not Take to Respond to Climate Change? 

We must respond prudently to the threats from climate change. We live in a global economy, much of it with lower production costs than our own in the developed 

world. Whether we live in the USA, Japan, Australia, New Zealand or the EU, we 

know our job losses are draining our countries, making it more difficult to support 

our retirement programs, health benefits, schools, and even our national defense. 

We must not exacerbate the high costs of our products and services. So we——

• Should not commit to actions that put us at a competitive disadvantage in the 

world market for goods and services, whether it is through the Kyoto protocol 

or some other vehicle; 

• Should consider that if a taxing regime is implemented to discourage use of fossil fuels, it must separate production uses (such as manufacturing, agriculture, 

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and fishing) from personal consumption such as in home heating, and for personal cars used for discretionary travel. We should not place taxes on inputs 

to production and services that will hurt our ability to compete in the global 

market place. • Should not forget that the most valuable things we have are our health, our 

lives, and our family, and we should not place them at risk by driving, or riding 

in, vehicles that put ourselves at risk in order to save energy or other costs. • Should not stop breathing even though it would be one of the most immediate 

steps to slow CO2 emissions. • Should not do things without thinking. There are many ideas that may not have 

merit. For example, buying local vegetables to reduce transportation costs may 

actually increase energy use if the far off producer is more fuel efficient. Another example is in using biofuels that have a high fossil energy input in fertilizer or machinery, or planting trees to reduce CO2, but finding out they also 

absorb solar radiation (heat) more than what they replace. 

What Actions Should We Take to Respond to Climate Change? 

We should respond prudently to the threats from climate change. Our actions 

should include things that make sense in their own right and which will be important whether the Earth warms or cools in the near future, or continues about the 

same until the next ice age arrives some 30,000 years or so in the future, according 

to our present knowledge of solar variability and orbital mechanics (IPCC 2007). We 

should aim to reduce the production costs in our industries and, at the consumer 

level, our living expenses, while at the same time ‘‘cleaning up our act’’ in the 

amount and type of energy we consume. Here is what we should do now: 

• Lead by personal example. One way to check progress? Look at your household 

energy consumption. It should be dropping steadily over the years through 

Æ household maintenance and upgrading of insulation 

Æ appliance replacement and replacing light bulbs with fluorescents (all lights 

on timers, for example, should be fluorescents. 

Æ adjusting the thermostat for when nobody is home or awake 

Æ limiting our shower from being just a little too long 

Æ getting a watt-hour meter and seeing what each home appliance, electronics, 

and plug-in light costs to run. 

Æ reducing the number of parasitic loads. If a TV or VCR or Cable TV Box is 

sitting in the basement, and is rarely used, put it on a powerstrip and shut 

everything off when you leave the room. 

Æ getting an energy audit, particularly if it is free from the power company. 

Æ considering energy efficiencies on all appliances and vehicles. 

Æ check our home’s water heater, or the pipes leaving it. If hot, insulate them. 

It is not just a loss of energy, but in the summer, the heater is fighting the 

air conditioner. 

Æ Shut off the light when it is not being used. Put your computer to sleep or 

shut it off (and all the peripherals). 

Æ Use fans and open windows for cooling. 

Æ When the air conditioner is on, be extra careful about adding heat that then 

has to be removed, doubling the amounts of energy used, and often at the 

higher ‘‘summer rate’’. 

• Build our reliance on domestic energy sources. This includes the green technologies of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, and tidal and recycling sources such as 

biogas and municipal solid waste. It also includes fossil fuels (from the time the 

Earth was really warm and productive), coal, oil, and gas—but in as clean a 

mode as possible. We need to be mindful that wind and solar are intermittent 

sources and require a backup supply AND a larger electrical grid (with more 

transmission lines and towers) than any other source. 

• Conserve our energy through efficiency in all we do. This includes mundane 

things such as multipurpose trips when we run our errands or visit our clients. 

• Make mass transit more extensive, more economical, and user friendly. 

• Review building codes to ensure new homes and buildings are constructed to 

be more energy efficient, perhaps having different grading levels (with payback 

periods estimated) so purchasers can choose how far above a threshold value 

they wish to go. Standards for commercial buildings need to consider the global 

economy and whether production costs will be increased. Innovative ideas, such 

as using waste water from restroom sinks, or laundry machines, to flush toilets 

on lower floors, need to be considered. 

• Implement consumer education programs at all levels, particularly within commercial establishments that produce goods and services. For example: provide 

energy saving tips, and management advice and software to truck and autoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00156 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
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mobile fleet owners, to fishing vessel and maritime vessel owners, and highway 

designers. • Develop and disseminate practical energy conservation packages for the general 

population and for industry sectors such as agriculture, trucking, airline, fishing, mining, refining, warehousing. These packages should contain reasonable 

energy reduction targets, milestones and estimates of savings if achieved. • Review traffic flow measures that cause vehicles to stop and go, or wait unnecessarily for non-existent pedestrians or intersecting traffic. • Vehicles: share rides in a car pool; inflate tires properly; time for a tuneup with 

new sparkplugs?; air filter dirty?; unnecessary weight in the trunk? • Pay or subsidize research on all the above energy forms, particularly big ticket 

items such as nuclear and coal and on efficiencies in how we use power. • Conserve our energy through less use of machinery. Examples are using clothes 

lines for drying, walking or riding a bike to work or for neighborhood errands 

and visits, using the stairs instead of elevators, forgetting about motorboats and 

buying sail boats, and putting down the leaf blower and picking up the rake. • Make it easy everywhere for excess energy to be added to the electricity grid 

by consumers and industry with permanent or temporary excess power, such as 

from wind, methane, hydro, and solar—and at reasonable rates, at or near the 

highest rate tier actually being used at the time. This provides incentive to 

oversize individual production systems, leading to extra robustness in the overall grid. 

• Foster new residential and commercial construction near mass transportation 

hubs, such as subway and railroad stations, airports, and bus terminals. 

• Ensure that all our communities have safe routes where people can walk or 

bike to work, or at least use motorbikes safely. Highway and bridge rebuilding 

projects should provide dedicated lanes with appropriate separation of pedestrians and bicycles from motor vehicle traffic. 

• All jobs should be reviewed by employers to determine if it makes sense to allow 

telecommuting one or more days per week. 

• State extension agents (e.g., agricultural agents) should be trained in energy 

conservation approaches and benefits. 

• Increase taxes on energy consumption that is not used for production of goods 

and services. This is not a blind ‘‘carbon tax’’, but a tax aimed at consumer level 

consumption. 

• Recycle items as much as is worthwhile. Sometimes this can be counterproductive if there is not enough volume or recycling requires too much energy 

or cost. 

• Conduct research on the effect of any these actions on wildlife and on human 

health, and on the economic vitality of our nation. 

• Increase the amount of our business done electronically to minimize travel and 

transportation and the use of paper. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE PATRICK KENNEDY 

Regardless of whether or not we take actions to control and reduce green 

house gas emissions, wildlife and wildlife habitat and the ocean environment are going to change and adapt, often unpredictably, to a 

warming climate. Consequently, we should take steps now to develop 

strategies to allow for the future conservation of biodiversity and the 

maintenance of a healthy and resilient environment. 

1. Keeping in mind that any transition to a new ‘‘Green Economy’’ will take 

decades to achieve and that most Members of Congress will want to 

limit unnecessary disruptions of social and economic systems, can you 

be more specific on what practical types of adaptive management strategies we should consider to mitigate the negative effects of climate 

change on our collective wildlife and ocean resources? 

There are a series of steps that we should do whether or not the warming (1 deg. 

F) of the last 150 years continues or, having reached a peak in 1998, continues to 

decline, or stays at the new plateau. 

I will address oceans and fisheries, because I have greater knowledge in this area. 

We need better information at the ecosystem level on how organisms interact with 

their environment. Information is most valuable if there are institutions and management mechanisms to use it. Research on improved mechanisms is needed so that 

fisheries can operate more efficiently with global warming, as well as in the naturally varying climate of today. There is relatively little research underway on such 

mechanisms. Knowledge of the reproductive strategies of many species and links between recruitment and environment is poor. 

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The following items are needed specifically because of climate change. Other types 

of research, which are prerequisites for dealing with such concerns but which support the day-to-day needs of fisheries managers or relate more to understanding 

how ecosystems function, are not included. • Determine how fish adapt to natural extreme environmental changes, how fishing affects their ability to survive unfavorable conditions, and how reproduction 

strategies and environments are linked. Link fishery ecology and regional climate models to enable broader projections of climate-change impacts and improve fishery management strategies. • Implement regional and multinational systems to detect and monitor climate 

change and its impacts—building on and integrating existing research programs. Fish can be indicators of climate change and ecological status and 

trends. Assemble baseline data now so comparisons can be made later. • Develop ecological models to assess multiple impacts of human activities. • Determine the fisheries most likely to be impacted, and develop adaptation 

strategies. • Assess the potential leaching of toxic chemicals, viruses, and bacteria due to 

sea-level rise and how they might affect both fish and the seafood supply. • Determine institutional changes needed to deal with a changing climate. Such 

changes are likely the same ones needed for mastering overfishing and coping 

with the variability and uncertainty of present conditions. Improved institutions 

would probably reduce stock variability more than climate change would increase it. • Study the historical ability of societies to adapt their activities when their resources are impacted by climate changes. • Research activities to better understand processes in the oceans, in particular 

the role of the oceans in the natural variability of the climate system at seasonal, interannual, and decadal to century timescales. • Long-term monitoring and mapping of: water-level changes, ice coverage, and 

thermal expansion of the oceans; sea-surface temperature and surface air temperature; extratropical storms and tropical cyclones; changes in upwelling regimes along the coasts of California, Peru, and West Africa; UV-B radiation, 

particularly in polar regions, and its impact on aquatic ecosystems; regional effects on distribution of species and their sensitivity to environmental factors; 

changes in ocean biogeochemical cycles. • Socioeconomic research activities to document human responses to global 

change 

Adaptation Options 

• Establish management institutions that recognize shifting distributions, abundances and accessibility, and that balance conservation with economic efficiency 

and stability • Support innovation by research on management systems and aquatic ecosystems • Expand aquaculture to increase and stabilize seafood supplies and employment, 

and carefully, to augment wild stocks • Integrate fisheries and CZ management • Monitor health problems (e.g., red tides, ciguatera, cholera) • Coastal planners and owners of coastal properties and infrastructure should 

carefully consider projected relative sea level changes when evaluating new or 

reconstruction projects. • Coastal planners and environmental decision-makers should consider that a 

healthy environment is a prerequisite for coral reefs, mangroves and sea 

grasses to keep pace with a rising sea and to continue their coastal protection 

benefits 

2. Should we be doing more to re-evaluate our current policies for land use 

planning and public acquisition of land for wildlife habitat? Should we 

be adopting a broader landscape and ecosystem-based approach for protecting wildlife? 

I do not feel qualified to provide guidance in this area and defer to more landbased people. 

3. Finally, how might such ideas be applied to the ocean and coastal environment and the wildlife therein? 

This is addressed above. In essence, we need to stop our species-by-species approach to management and embrace the ecosystem-based management concept we 

have been discussing for more than 30 years. In some fisheries and protected species, we are closing in on the amount and types on information necessary, but major 

155

changes will be needed in how society and resource managers view these interactions. Not all is as it appears to be. Over fishing is blamed for problems that likely 

are rooted in ecosystem imbalances among species and in environmental effects that 

are just beginning to be understood, as was pointed out in the testimony of Dr. Gary 

Sharp. Further background is available at his website at http://sharpgary.org. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE HENRY BROWN, MINORITY 

RANKING MEMBER 

1. Do you or have you (or your organization) received any funding from 

the Pew Charitable Trust or the David and Lucille Packard Foundation? 

If so, please elaborate. 

None. 

2. Are you currently a party to any law suit against the Department of the 

Interior or the Department of Commerce (or any of the agencies within 

these departments)? If so, please describe 

No. 

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE WAYNE GILCHREST 

1. If paleo-records show that corals existed in the past under high atmospheric CO2 concentrations, why is it a problem now? 

I do not believe it is a problem. I think we will run out of easily-available oil, 

gas, and coal before the oceans become so acidic that there is a significant problem. 

I understand that many of the same coral genera were present during the mid-cretaceous period when CO2 was 2-4 times higher and coral reefs much more expansive, per the NOAA paleo website. If the corals and other animals with shells that 

cannot form due to high CO2 concentrations are impeded, their ecological niche apparently becomes filled by other organisms, some with silica based shells. Things 

will be different, but life continues. 

2. Among the various effects of climate change to wildlife and the oceans, 

are there issues that are more pressing than the others? Why? 

For fisheries, the most important issue is the movement of centers of fisheries 

production to new locations, perhaps across a national border. Institutions and communities are not set up to deal with this. At present the El Nin ̃ o and the Atlantic 

and Pacific Oscillations give us an indication of what will happen. 

Also, near the top of the priorities list is a decision whether to encourage or retard 

opening of the Northwest passage to shipping, and secondly, how do we deal with 

the possible pollution effects, and the eased migration of whales and other mammals 

between the oceans. This Arctic ice has probably been blocking exchange for about 

120,000 years. There are a myriad of important questions, such as; Do we want the 

gene pool refreshed in both oceans? 

3. In the U.S., as plant and animal species migrate north and to higher elevations, what does that mean for the regions they leave behind? For instance, it has been said that some U.S. states that border Canada might 

actually benefit from the next few decades of climate change, but what 

will it mean for the states further to the South, and especially those on 

the coast? 

The way to look at this is to see what happens closer to the equator. All suitable 

places have life and the speciation is greater there than further north. If there is 

food and water, all voids will be filled quickly. Warmer, wetter climates have the 

most diverse life. Further, within the average global temperature change, more 

change occurs as one moves towards the poles. The southern states will see less 

change. Sea level rise is also important. It has been going on since the last ice age 

ended just 10,000 years ago. Georges Bank, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket were 

part of the mainland just a few thousand years ago. The first settlers walked there 

and did not need canoes. Whether or not there is any impact (acceleration) caused 

by human actions, it will continue until we start our slide towards the next glaciation, some 30,000 years away. During the last period between ice ages (about 

125,000 years ago), the global average sea level was 13 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) 

higher than during the 20th century, and average Arctic temperatures at that time 

were 5.7 to 9.5 deg. F (3 to 5 deg. C) higher than present (IPCC, 2007). El Nino 

and other climate oscillations show us that the distribution of species and their mix 

changes in a few months to a year, with winners and losers everywhere, just as with 

the industries and communities that depend on these resources. From a practical 

standpoint, nearly everything in the ocean grows faster when it is warmer, as do 

the things they eat. Some will no longer be available nearby, and some will be 

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greatly reduced by interrupted feeding patterns, but they are here today, somewhere, just as they have been through countless other cycles of warming and cooling, waiting for their turn once again. 

4. How do shifts in habitat range of plants and animals affect human interests such as agriculture or the spread of invasive species and diseases? 

How can we adaptively plan for such changes? 

I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to offer advice and I defer to land-based 

experts. 

5. The IPCC reports with 80% certainty that the changes in water temperatures, ice cover, salinity and ocean circulation are impacting the ranges 

and migration patterns of aquatic organisms. How will this affect management and use of these resources, and how can we prepare for any 

changes? 

Fisheries are most affected when artificial barriers (e.g., national borders) stop 

pursuit by fishers in one country, causing local disruption, as centers of abundance 

move. Also fleets and processing plants and related infrastructure will move once 

it appears a change will be long-term. This is disruptive to fisheries-dependent communities. Of course, there is an equal-sized winner within the gaining group. We 

can prepare for this by making arrangements with neighboring countries in advance, for example by issuing individual vessel catch quotas that can be bought and 

sold across borders, even if the vessels are not allowed to continue fishing. 

6. In the Chesapeake Bay, we are losing marshland to rising sea levels. Can 

you talk about what is happening to coastal wetland areas in other 

areas of the country and what that is doing to their ecosystems and the 

local economies that depend upon these natural resources? 

A very high proportion of all fisheries depend on estuarine waters and marshes. 

Within a few months a major NOAA/NMFS report will be published describing the 

status of our fisheries habitats. Under preparation for several years, it is called Our 

Living Oceans—Habitat. Generally the coastal habitats are in good condition and 

major habitat loss has been greatly slowed. There are local problems, and there are 

sea level problems, particularly where land subsidence adds to the 2 mm/year natural rise of the sea. 

7. What role do marshlands play in sequestering carbon? Is marsh restoration a viable alternative in carbon sequestration? 

I have too little background to answer this question adequately, but it would be 

difficult to imagine a worthwhile benefit/cost ratio for a restoration project for the 

purpose of carbon sequestration alone. Further the reflectance of the marsh will be 

much lower than whatever it replaces, perhaps contributing more warming as heat 

sinks than reduction through CO2 sequestration, much as trees have recently been 

found to do. If in doubt, walk across a marsh on a sunny day. The black and green 

colors absorb so much sunlight, the marsh seems like an oven. 

8. The latest IPCC report warns that ocean acidification poses a threat to 

coral reefs and shell-forming organisms that form the base of the aquatic food chain. But the report says more study is needed to determine the 

full scope of the threat. What do we know about the potential impacts 

to U.S. coastal ecosystems today and how quickly is our understanding 

of acidification improving? What can Congress do to improve upon this 

understanding? Do we know enough to act? 

As I stated above, I think this problem is overrated. However, I would support 

a research program that actually measures CO2 levels and coral health on reefs (not 

in a laboratory. One way to look at this is by noting the rapid growth of molluscan 

(e.g., clams and oysters) aquaculture. These shells certainly are in good shape and 

forming rapidly in waters all over the globe (note that these shells nearly permanently remove CO2 from the system). I am not aware of any incidence of failure to 

form shells, and I am actively involved in aquaculture consulting. 

9. What additional resources or tools will the Fish and Wildlife Service and 

National Marine Fisheries Service need to adequately prepare and address the impacts of global warming on wildlife over the next decade? 

NMFS needs to finish the recapitalization of the research fleet and get more of 

its scientists broadly based in species interactions and similar ecosystem level 

science. 

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10. We’ve heard a lot about the polar bear and the petition to list the species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Opponents of listing 

claim that the effects of global warming are in fact unclear. What evidence is there that global warming is already having a dramatic effect 

on the species across its range? How will an ESA listing help polar 

bears? 

Polar bears have endured warmer periods than are forecast by IPCC, having 

evolved into their present form some 700,000 years ago (or 100,000 years ago) (or 

200,000 years ago) (or before the beginning of the last interglacial) and their molars 

changed some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Importantly, polar bears were likely 

present in some final version of their present form, during the last interglacial (130-

110,000 years ago) when there was virtually no ice at the North Pole and average 

Arctic temperatures at that time were 5.7 to 9.5 deg. F (3 to 5 deg. C) higher than 

present (IPCC, 2007). This date of evolution should be determined factually, as a 

first step, before taking action. If polar bears survived the past interglacial, the 

present warming may be of little consequence. In any case, the 20 polar bear populations need to be looked at individually, in terms of their threats and adaptability, 

and the management systems that govern their conservation. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much. 

Now we will begin our questions on behalf of the Members. I 

would like to address my questions to Dr. Caldeira and Dr. 

Kleypas. 

Your testimony lays out a compelling explanation of the impacts 

that climate change and ocean acidification are having on our 

ocean environment and marine resources. Some have argued, however, that because climate has changed in the past and that the 

oceans have experienced acidification before that there is nothing 

to be concerned about now. 

Do you agree? If not, why do you think this is a problem now despite previous changes in the ocean environment? I would like to 

ask the question to both of you to get your——

Dr. CALDEIRA. Can you put my slide up? 

Dr. Everett is correct that atmospheric CO2 levels were much 

higher say 100 million years ago, and also the earth was much 

warmer, but the chemistry of the ocean is buffered by the interactions with the sediments. For example, atmospheric CO2 today is 

rising 100 times faster than the rate of typical changes during the 

glacial and interglacial time. 

To show the kind of unusual chemistry we are producing, there 

is a map up here produced by Dick Feely of NOAA. This red area 

shows where corals grow well, and the black dots there show the 

positions of coral reefs. The sort of orange and yellow/green color 

show areas where there are marginal coral reefs. A few reefs are 

found in those kind of color zones. 

As you see, as atmospheric CO2 levels progress through the century for business as usual scenario we get down to the map in the 

lower right. The predicted ocean chemistry predicts that there is no 

place left in the ocean with the kind of chemistry where corals are 

found growing today and so at least this leads some to have an expectation that corals may become extinct. 

We have done modeling of the ancient past, and this kind of 

chemistry has not been found in the ocean for the last 55 million 

years almost certainly and many people think not since the time 

when the dinosaurs became extinct and so this kind of corrosive 

condition to the shells and organisms is extremely geologically 

unusual. 

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In those purple colors, the shells of some organisms will actually 

be dissolving. This is just very unusual when viewed from a geologic perspective. 

Dr. KLEYPAS. And I would like to agree with Ken on that. In 

terms of the geological perspective, this is extremely unusual. 

I would like to put up my first slide. 

If you are not concerned about the effects on organisms, particularly calcifiers, this is a picture of a normal coral in the top and 

a coral that has been subjected to high PCO2 conditions or, in other 

words, acidic conditions at the bottom. You can see those corals are 

naked at the bottom. They have completely lost their skeletons. 

We suspect that this has happened in the geological past as well 

when there have been major CO2 events, but, as Ken said, the last 

time we think that happened was 55 million years ago. So these 

things do happen, but these corals take a long time to recover from 

a process like this. 

Dr. CALDEIRA. After what appears to be an ocean acidification 

event 65 million years ago, corals disappeared from the fossil 

record for two million years, and it took something like eight million years for them to fully recover, so what we are doing over the 

next decades has the potential to impact life in the ocean for millions of years. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

I would like to ask unanimous consent that the statements of 

Mr. Gilchrest and the National Wildlife Federation be included for 

the record. 

Hearing no objection, so ordered. 

[The statement submitted for the record by Mr. Gilchrest 

follows:]

Statement submitted for the record by The Honorable Wayne T. Gilchrest, 

a Representative in Congress from the State of Maryland 

Thank you Chairwoman Bordallo and Ranking Member Brown for the opportunity 

to offer testimony to the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans regarding the impacts of climate change. 

The heart of my district, the Maryland 1st, is the Chesapeake Bay. The Bay is 

both an environmental wonder and the economic lifeblood for my constituents. We 

are already witnessing the impacts of climate change, and if the current trends continue, we will forever lose the Bay as we know it. 

The islands of the Chesapeake are already disappearing due to rising sea levels. 

The Eastern shore is eroding at an accelerated rate, a fact most dramatically illustrated by the loss of historical graveyards near the water’s edge. The marshes of 

the Chesapeake, which serve as nurseries for much of the region’s wildlife, are 

drowning. Warmer temperatures are driving Maryland’s state bird, the Baltimore 

oriole, north to Pennsylvania, and fewer migratory ducks are coming to the Chesapeake because of milder winter temperatures to the north. The Chesapeake’s world 

famous crabs are under threat because the sea grasses that provide them shelter 

are struggling to survive in warmer waters. And the threat to the crabs of the 

Chesapeake, along with other crustaceans—including the plankton and krill at the 

foundation of the aquatic food chain—will only worsen as the oceans soak up more 

greenhouse gases and grow more acidic. 

Climate change is rearing its ugly head in the Maryland 1st and in other coastal 

areas around the world, but the consequences of global warming will not stop at the 

shoreline—wherever that ultimately proves to be. This month’s report from the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded ‘‘the resilience of 

many ecosystems is likely to be exceeded this century’’ if the warming trend continues. The changes could be so widespread and take so many different forms—

floods, drought, wildfires, insect infestation and ocean acidification—that between 

20% and 30% of animal species assessed in the IPCC report are more likely to be 

threatened with extinction. 

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If we keep loading up the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, ‘‘there are projected 

to be major changes in ecosystem structure and function, species’ ecological interactions, and species’ geographic ranges, with predominantly negative consequences 

for biodiversity, and ecosystem goods and services e.g., food and water supply,’’ the 

IPCC report warns. Put another way, the natural cycles that have underpinned our 

economy and way of life for generations could be turned upside down. Large scale 

and permanent disruptions to water and food supplies, together with mass migrations from coastal zones and other impacted regions, will have severe economic impacts. Fortunately, we still have time to stabilize the climate and prevent the worst 

impacts of global warming at a fraction of the cost of inaction. 

To that end, I have joined Congressional Climate Change Caucus Co-Cchair John 

Olver in introducing the Climate Stewardship Act, H.R. 620. This is a companion 

to the bill introduced in the Senate by Senators McCain and Lieberman, S. 280. The 

Climate Stewardship Act is currently under consideration by this subcommittee, as 

well as the Energy and Commerce and Science and Technology committees. 

The Climate Stewardship Act would create an economy-wide ‘‘cap-and-trade’’ program for greenhouse gases. Sources that annually emit more than 10,000 metric 

tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in the commercial, industrial, utility, and transportation sectors would receive an allocation of free credits to emit at today’s levels 

until 2019. From today’s emissions, the cap would be lowered 15% by 2020, 37% in 

2030, and 75% below current emissions by 2050. Emitters would be able to bank 

their extra credits, borrow credits from the future, and buy and sell credits to meet 

their annual compliance requirements. Emitters could trade credits within their 

own sector or outside their sector. 

To control the costs of the program—to both industry and consumers—the bill includes generous offsets. Emitters may apply these offsets toward up to 15% of their 

annual allowance submission requirements. These offsets include carbon sequestration (through forestry, agriculture and geologic storage), emissions reduction credits 

purchased from smaller noncovered sources, borrowed credits from future years’ allocations, and credits purchased from EPA-approved foreign trading systems. If an 

entity takes accelerated action to reduce its emissions to 1990 levels by 2012, it may 

use offsets to meet an extra 20% of its annual compliance requirements. The bill 

also allows U.S. companies to fund emissions reduction projects in developing countries to earn additional credits as determined by the EPA. These credits may be 

traded in the U.S. or foreign market. 

By establishing a cap and including offsets in the emissions trading program, the 

Climate Stewardship Act creates a carbon market that gives emitters a wide array 

of compliance options. The bill also gives these sources the opportunity to lower 

their emissions more quickly than the economy-wide cap and sell the surplus allowances on the carbon market, moving environmental compliance from the expense 

line to the revenue line of the balance sheet. The potential to profit from emissions 

reductions will spur investment in clean energy technologies, creating new jobs and 

developing a new generation of industrial, commercial and consumer products that 

can be sold on the export market. In this way, the Climate Stewardship Act lowers 

greenhouse gas emissions in a way that minimizes compliance costs, while at the 

same time generating new opportunities for business, industry and the American 

worker. 

The Climate Stewardship Act also stipulates that a portion of the proceeds from 

buying and selling credits in the emissions market will be directed to state agencies 

to protect species that are struggling to cope with climate change. States bear the 

largest burden for the conservation of fish and wildlife species. Using both state and 

federal resources, they work to keep as many species as possible off the endangered 

list through the implementation of the State Wildlife Diversity Plans, which are approved by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Climate Stewardship Act will 

provide the states with a new source of funding to mitigate the impacts of climate 

change on fish and wildlife diversity wherever possible. 

Again, I thank Chairwoman Bordallo and Ranking Member Brown for investigating the impacts of climate change on wildlife and oceans. This country rose 

from humble beginnings to international economic supremacy because it was blessed 

with tremendous natural resources. But we have been slow to recognize that the 

climate—like an oil field, coal seam, hardwood forest or fishing ground—is a natural 

resource too. If the U.S. and other nations continue to jeopardize that resource 

through the excessive burning of fossil fuels, they will undermine the very foundations of the world economy. Our way of life and our wealth as a nation have depended upon a stable climate, and our economy can no longer ignore this fundamental truth. 

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[The statement submitted for the record by The Nature 

Conservancy follows:]

Statement submitted for the record by The Nature Conservancy 

Summary 

On behalf of its one million members, The Nature Conservancy appreciates the 

opportunity to submit for the record this testimony on ‘‘Wildlife and Oceans in a 

Changing Climate.’’ Climate change is perhaps the greatest long-term threat to 

healthy ecosystems that can support people and wildlife. Prompt action to address 

this threat is critical to minimize future harm to nature and to the social and economic fabric of our global society. 

Higher temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, and other consequences 

of climate change could have serious impacts on human communities and ecosystems around the world. Wildlife and ecosystems are particularly vulnerable because they have a limited ability to adapt to the fast rates and the magnitude of 

the potential changes projected under future climate change scenarios. In the 

United States, wildlife and ecosystems that are especially threatened by a changing 

climate include: 

• Ecosystems and species that only exist at high latitudes or elevations, and will 

be pushed to extinction as habitats shift pole-ward or upslope following suitable 

temperatures. 

• Migratory waterfowl that depend on the North American prairie pothole region 

as a critical breeding ground 

• Trout and salmon that thrive in cold freshwater systems 

• Coastal ecosystems vulnerable to sea level rise and increased storm damage 

• Coral reef ecosystems that are threatened by acidification and warming of the 

oceans. 

The Nature Conservancy is working to monitor these and other climate change 

impacts around the world. With a growing understanding of present and future scenarios, the Conservancy will be better equipped to help ecosystems cope with warming, changes in precipitation, and other impacts of climate change. 

Nevertheless, strong action to address the causes of climate change will be essential. The Nature Conservancy is calling for legislation and policies that include three 

paramount concepts: 

• A strong cost-effective cap on emissions and a well-designed market-based program designed to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at a level 

that ensures the well being of human communities and ecosystems worldwide. 

• Reduction of emissions from forest and land use practices through the incorporation of a credible offsets program. 

• Support for adaptation programs that are designed to help ecosystems and the 

human communities who rely on them to cope with the impacts of climate 

change. 

We discuss these issues further in the testimony that follows. 

Climate Impacts on Wildlife and Oceans 

Consequences of climate change, such as increasing temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, and higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations could 

have serious impacts on human communities and ecosystems around the world. The 

environment is particularly vulnerable because it has a limited ability to adapt to 

the fast rates and the magnitude of potential changes projected under future climate 

change scenarios. The National Assessment Synthesis Team of the U.S. Global 

Change Research Program published a report in 2000 that examined climate change 

and variability in the United States, with a focus on specific regions and sectors including human health, water resources, forests, coastal areas and agriculture. The 

report found that all natural ecosystems in the United States, including wetlands, 

forests, grasslands, rivers, and lakes are at risk. Some ecosystems, such as alpine 

meadows, coastal wetlands, and certain forest types could disappear altogether. 

Conservation groups such as The Nature Conservancy are already taking steps to 

understand these changes and help ecosystems adapt to them. However, a stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas levels is necessary to ensure that the world’s 

biodiversity is protected. 

The Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group II Contribution to the 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report released in April 2007, further advances the current scientific knowledge related to 

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1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007). Climate Change 2007: The Physical 

Science Basis. Summary for Policymakers of the Fourth Assessment Report. IPCC Secretariat, 

Switzerland. 2 National Assessment Synthesis Team (2000). Climate Change Impacts on the United States. 

The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. Overview. Cambridge University Press, USA. 3O’Neal, K. 2002. Effects of global warming on trout and salmon in U.S. streams. Defenders 

of Wildlife, Washington, DC, 4 Inley, D.B., et al. 2004. Global climate change and wildlife in North America. Wildlife Society 

Technical Review 04-2. The Wildlife Society, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. 26 pp. 5 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007). Climate Change 2007: The Physical 

Science Basis. Summary for Policymakers of the Fourth Assessment Report. IPCC Secretariat, 

Switzerland. 6 ibid 

the impending threats that wildlife will face as a result of climate change. 1 These 

changes may undermine some of the conservation work that the government and 

the conservation community has accomplished to date, and will likely change the 

species composition within local land trust preserves, Conservancy preserves, and 

even our national parks. 

Wildlife 

Impacts of climate change are already having a noticeable effect on wildlife in the 

United States. For example, changes in temperature and precipitation are already 

driving vegetation and ecosystems around the globe toward cooler polar areas and 

up mountain slopes. Some species and communities, such as polar bears or alpine 

meadows, may be left without any remaining viable habitat and therefore driven to 

extinction. In addition, such shifts in range could be impeded by natural and manmade physical barriers, thereby preventing some species and ecosystems from following their ideal climate conditions. Increases in freshwater temperatures will 

alter water quantity and quality, affecting a variety of freshwater fish populations, 

especially salmon and brook trout. In the Midwest, prairie wetland habitats that are 

critical breeding grounds for ducks and other migratory waterfowl are expected to 

dry up and disappear as a result of vegetation shifts and drought conditions. 2

Impacts on Freshwater Fish: Higher temperatures and intensified human land 

use could cause stream temperatures to increase by as much as 5 δ Fahrenheit by 

2100. Concurrently, changes in seasonality and precipitation patterns could significantly alter stream flows. Trout and salmon that thrive under cold water conditions 

are projected to experience significant declines in population. A 2002 study concluded that by the end of this century as much as 40 percent of current trout and 

salmon habitats could be unsuitable for these species. 3

Impacts on Migratory Waterfowl: Climate change impacts could cause a significant reduction in populations of migratory waterfowl all across the United States 

due to a reduced availability of suitable breeding habitat. The prairie pothole region 

of north-central United States is the single most important breeding ground for 

North American migratory waterfowl. Higher temperatures and decreased precipitation caused by climate change could lead to a significant reduction of wetlands in 

the area, which would translate to a decrease in the number of breeding waterfowl 

by as much as 69 percent. On the east coast, rising sea levels could also flood many 

coastal salt-water wetlands, significantly reducing suitable winter waterfowl 

habitat. 4

Oceans 

Any change in the climate also affects the physical and biogeochemical characteristics of the world’s oceans. Oceans have been absorbing an estimated 80 percent 

of the heat added to the climate system, and studies have documented a rise in average global sea temperature to depths of up to 3000 meters. Higher sea surface 

temperatures are already having an impact on oceanic ecosystems. Over the past 

decade, scientists have observed an increase in the frequency and severity of coral 

bleaching events. Scientists project that these events will only become more common 

as temperatures rise, which would place serious strain on these already fragile coral 

reef ecosystems. 

This temperature rise has also caused thermal expansion of the seawater, which 

combined with the melting polar ice caps has led to a rise in sea levels. 5 The rate 

of sea level rise has markedly increased in recent years to an average of about 3.1 

mm per year from 1993 to 2003. Conservative estimates project that sea-levels could 

rise between 0.18 and 0.59 m by the end of this century. 6 Sea-level rise will have 

serious impacts on the United States’ already threatened coastal ecosystems. Prevented by coastal development and infrastructure from shifting inland in response 

to sea level rise, in many areas these valuable ecosystems could disappear. The loss 

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7 C. Langdon, 2003, Review of Experimental Evidence for Effects of CO2 on Calcification of 

Reef Builders, Proceedings of the 9th International Coral Reef Symposium, Bali, Indonesia, 23-

27 October 2000, Vol.2, pp. 1091-1098. 8 R.R. Carthy, A.M. Foley, Y. Matsuzawa, 2003, Incubation Environment of Loggerhead Turtle 

Nests: Effects on Hatching Success and Hatchling Characteristics, in Loggerhead Sea Turtles, 

A.B. Bolten and B.E. Witherington, (eds.), pp. 144-153, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 

DC, USA. 9 R.R. Carthy, A.M. Foley, Y. Matsuzawa, 2003, Incubation Environment of Loggerhead Turtle 

Nests: Effects on Hatching Success and Hatchling Characteristics, in Loggerhead Sea Turtles, 

A.B. Bolten and B.E. Witherington, (eds.), pp. 144-153, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 

DC, USA. 10F.J. Janzen, 1994, Climate Change and Temperature-Dependent Sex Determination in Reptiles, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 91, pp. 7487-7490. 

of beaches, wetlands, and other coastal ecosystems would have serious implications 

for the wide variety organisms that depend on the integrity of these ecosystems as 

breeding or feeding grounds. For example, nesting opportunities for sea turtles will 

decrease as beaches are flooded or eroded. Mangrove forests will be impacted by 

coastal erosion, salt-water inundation, and an increase in the intensity and frequency of storm surges, and in many areas could disappear. 

Impacts on Corals: Coral reefs are the center of tropical marine biodiversity, providing habitat and breeding grounds for thousands of species of fish and marine organisms. Many corals exist under conditions that are already close to their upper 

temperature tolerance limits. When sea surface temperatures exceed this maximum 

limit, corals may bleach due to the loss of the symbiotic algae that provide the coral 

with nutrients. Although local bleaching events do occur naturally, corals need at 

least an estimated ten years to fully recover. However, scientists have already observed an increase in the frequency and severity of coal bleaching events. As sea 

surface temperatures continue to rise, mass coral bleaching events are projected to 

increase, causing widespread coral mortality. In addition, increased atmospheric 

carbon dioxide levels lead to a rise in oceanic acidification, which could result in 

weaker coral skeleton frames, reduced growth rate, and increased susceptibility to 

breakage and bio-erosion. 7 All together, these impacts from climate change make 

coral reefs one of the most threatened ecosystems from climate change. 

Impacts to Turtles: Sea-level rise due to climate change could cause flooding and 

erosion of sea turtle nesting beaches. Turtle nesting beaches that are backed by development or steep topography will be unable to shift inland as sea levels rise and 

could disappear, leaving female sea turtles with fewer suitable nesting sites. Increased temperatures and changes in seasonality will also alter the nesting habits 

of females and could alter the sex ratio of turtle hatchlings. Scientists have already 

observed a trend of earlier nesting dates for the loggerhead sea turtle on the Atlantic coast of Florida. 8 Incubation temperature of eggs co-determines the sex of hatchlings, and therefore higher temperatures could skew the sex ratio towards a predominance of female hatchlings. 9 10

Impacts on Mangroves: Sea level rise is the most significant climate change threat 

to mangrove forests and other coastal wetlands. Even a small rise in sea level could 

result in erosion, flooding, and salt-water inundation of these ecosystems. Mangrove 

ecosystems that are backed by salt flats and low-lying coastal flats will have greater 

inputs of sediments and silt from both land and sea and have the space to shift inland as the sea-level rises. However, many mangrove forests are backed by coastal 

development and infrastructure or other physical barriers. These mangroves have 

nowhere to move and limited sources of sediment on which to build, which means 

these ecosystems are especially vulnerable to a shrinking habitat caused by sea 

level rise. 

As these examples highlight, the effects of climate change on wildlife, oceans, 

human communities and ecosystems could be profound. In order to avert the extreme effects of climate change, a two pronged approach of adaptation and mitigation is necessary. 

The Nature Conservancy’s Climate Monitoring and Adaptation Work 

In order to better understand climate change and how wildlife and ecosystems 

may adapt, scientists at The Nature Conservancy are actively monitoring these and 

other climate change impacts around the world. With a growing understanding of 

present and future scenarios, the Conservancy will be better equipped to help ecosystems cope with warming, changes in precipitation, and other impacts of climate 

change. 

For example, the Conservancy is taking a specific look at the changing climate 

in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Research is underway in an oldgrowth forest area to monitor climate change impacts and to develop strategies for 

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conserving these unique natural communities. On the coastal plain of Alaska, as in 

many high latitude circumpolar regions, shrubs and other woody vegetation are invading the arctic tundra. The Alaska chapter of The Nature Conservancy is working 

closely with state and federal agencies to monitor the changes and identify ways to 

preserve these unique tundra ecosystems. 

Scientists with The Nature Conservancy’s Global Climate Change Initiative are 

also documenting changes outside of the United States. For example, in the mountains of Yunnan in China, Conservancy scientists are monitoring the changes occurring in alpine tundra ecosystems and simulating the interaction between climate 

change and human impacts in these mountain areas. Scientists are also collaborating with university researchers to document global vegetation shifts. Conservancy scientists have already observed significant vegetation shifts in some areas, 

such as woodlands giving way to grasslands in Africa and alpine meadows giving 

way to forests in California. 

Through monitoring and analyzing these shifts, the Conservancy can prioritize 

areas for conservation and develop natural resource management practices that 

maintain and improve the function of these ecosystems. Strategies developed at one 

project site can be applied to similar ecosystems elsewhere around the world: • Through the establishment of oceanic research stations such the Palmyra Research station 1,000 miles south of Hawaii, the Conservancy is leading a global 

effort to identify species of coral that are resilient to warmer temperatures and 

bleaching events. With this information, the Conservancy can work to ensure 

these ‘‘survivors’’ are protected through effectively managed, large-scale marine 

protected area networks worldwide. In addition, scientists have expanded their 

work on resilience in the face of elevated temperatures to address change in 

acidity. These results are providing some hope of adaptation options for coral 

reefs around the world. 

• In the Albemarle Sound of North Carolina, the Conservancy is developing potential restoration projects that would help protect the shoreline from increased 

erosion and inundation caused by rising sea levels. These projects include planting native cypress forests, restoring submerged aquatic vegetation beds, establishing reefs to block storm surges, and planting brackish marsh grasses on 

shore lands that are likely to be submerged. This work is now being applied 

to other vulnerable coastal areas along the United States’ eastern coast and into 

Central America. 

• In New Mexico, the Conservancy is conducting a statewide analysis to identify 

places, species, systems and other natural resources at risk due to climate 

change. The study will also propose measures that land and water managers 

can take to abate threats to plants, animals and natural processes as the impacts of climate change continue to grow. 

Climate change will alter landscapes and seascapes as we know them. Projects 

such as those listed above will help us analyze the impacts of climate change on 

plants, animals and natural communities. These projects will also help to create innovative conservation solutions that will enable natural areas to cope with and 

adapt to what may be the unavoidable effects of climate change. However, this work 

does not abrogate the need for climate change mitigation; reducing carbon emissions 

now can avert the extreme impacts of climate change. 

Mandatory U.S. Climate Change Program Needed 

The Nature Conservancy strongly supports the adoption of a cost-effective mandatory cap and trade program to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. 

Significant reductions in emissions will be needed to mitigate the future impacts of 

climate change. As the leading emitter, the United States should lead with domestic 

reductions, which will also provide a platform for a more effective international climate protection regime. 

A well-designed program should not harm the economy or hurt the competitive 

status of U.S. industry. Such a program would unleash and set in motion available 

low-cost opportunities to reduce U.S. emissions. Many steps, for example stimulating improvements in energy efficiency, could be taken immediately that would 

likely benefit the U.S. economy. 

A comprehensive domestic program to address climate change must include three 

paramount concepts: 

• A strong cost-effective cap and well-designed program to protect ecosystems and human well-being. The core function of a climate change policy 

should be to set in motion and sustain a course of long-term reductions in 

greenhouse gas emissions that will be sufficient to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gases at a level that will protect human society and the natural world. 

A program should be designed to be cost-effective and to send appropriate longVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:11 Aug 13, 2007 Jkt 098700 PO 00000 Frm 00167 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 L:\DOCS\34670.TXT Hresour1 PsN: KATHY
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term price signals to stimulate needed investment in emissions-reducing technologies. The level of a domestic cap should be sufficient to represent an appropriate U.S. contribution to global emissions reductions, given the urgent need 

to stabilize the atmosphere at a carbon dioxide-equivalent concentration that 

will protect ecosystems and human well-being. 

• Reduction of emissions from forest and land use through the incorporation of a robust and credible offset program. The Nature Conservancy 

strongly supports the inclusion of robust offset provisions in a greenhouse gas 

cap and trade program that will allow real, additional, verifiable, permanent 

and enforceable offsets from domestic and international activities to be used by 

regulated entities for compliance with their allowance obligations. Offsets offer 

real cost-effective emission reductions and lower the cost of emission reduction 

programs, thereby increasing the flexibility of the program and allowing for the 

setting of lower emissions targets. Offsets from land conservation and restoration projects can provide additional benefits by supporting forest protection and 

protection of other natural areas. International offsets from this sector are particularly important because land use and deforestation represent a third of developing country emissions and efforts to reduce these emissions contribute 

greatly to poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation. Proven methods for 

reliably measuring, monitoring and verifying land-based carbon offsets already 

exist and are in widespread use. 

• Assurance that the program helps the natural world and those who depend on healthy ecosystems adapt to the impacts of climate change. 

Climate change is already creating challenges to vulnerable species and habitats in the U.S. and around the world. Climate change legislation that uses auctions to distribute allowances that would be used to comply with a cap on greenhouse gas emissions would be of critical assistance to addressing these challenges. The Nature Conservancy supports a program that will transition to a 

full auction of allowances as quickly as feasible and economically desirable, considering an interest in maintaining market stability and gaining experience 

with the auction mechanism. The Conservancy advocates dedicating at least 25 

percent of auction revenues to a Climate Change Adaptation Fund that would 

assist the natural world in adapting to the impacts of climate change in the 

U.S. and abroad, and help reduce the impacts of climate change on the most 

vulnerable members of society. 

In addition, supplementary policies such as fuel economy, energy efficiency, green 

building standards, funding for research and development into advanced technologies, and consumer incentives to facilitate GHG reductions will be needed to ensure that cost-effective opportunities to reduce emissions are not passed up because 

of market failures or other obstacles. 

Climate Change Adaptation Fund 

As the climate begins to change, the need for efforts to support climate change 

adaptation is already great. The Conservancy believes strongly that a significant 

fraction—at least 25 percent—of the revenues from an auction of allowances under 

a mandatory cap-and-trade carbon system should be dedicated to a climate change 

adaptation fund that will include funding to assist domestic and international wildlife and ecosystems in adapting to a changing climate regime. 

Changes to the natural world around us have serious implications for plant and 

animal life, but also for people. People depend on nature in myriad ways. Fisheries, 

timber harvests, grazing, and protected areas are all managed based on ecological 

processes that are being fundamentally altered as a result of climate change. If we 

are not proactive and do not anticipate the changing world, many sectors of our society will suffer severely. We must fund activities aimed at developing and implementing successful adaptation strategies to protect our investments in natural assets and nature reserves in response to climate impacts that are already detectable 

in natural systems and in many plant and animal populations. Also particularly vulnerable are people who depend most significantly on the natural world. 

In the face of this threat, there is a need for federal attention to programs to address these changes. Within the Climate Change Adaptation Fund, the Conservancy 

recommends that at least 10 percent of the auction revenues be dedicated to state 

and federal efforts to protect natural systems in the U.S. and help them adapt to 

climate change. The Conservancy recommends that the remaining revenues in the 

Climate Change Adaptation Fund be dedicated to protecting ecosystems in other 

countries and helping vulnerable Americans adapt to climate change. We discuss 

our recommendations in more detail below. 

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Adaptation Assistance for U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Ecosystems 

The Conservancy supports a policy approach that would set aside at least 10 percent of the allowance pool revenues to fund actions within the U.S. to facilitate adaptation of fish and wildlife species and habitat to climate change. Thirty percent 

of these funds should be allocated to the Department of the Interior to fund federal 

programs. Given that approximately 30 percent of lands in the U.S. are under federal ownership and management, investing in federal adaptation programs is a 

high-leverage approach to minimizing climate change damages to natural resources. 

Climate change is already affecting the ability of federal natural resource management agencies to protect the investments that American taxpayers have made in 

protecting land and water resources. For example, agencies that manage our federal 

forestlands are already faced with the challenges of protecting against higher risks 

of forest fire, pest outbreaks (e.g., the pine beetle infestation threatening forests in 

the northern U.S. and Canada), and loss of tree species linked to climate change. 

Providing these agencies with resources to adapt to climate change in the near term 

will reduce the risk of catastrophic impacts to important land and water resources. 

In addition, acting now to minimize the impacts of climate change would be far 

more cost-effective than working to recover these resources after the damages had 

already occurred. To protect wildlife and natural resources in the U.S., the Conservancy believes that a significant fraction of the adaptation funding should be dispersed to federal agencies that manage land and water resources, for example the 

Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the 

U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Natural Resources 

Conservation Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and others for the following 

general purposes: • to protect natural communities that are most vulnerable to climate change; • to restore and protect natural resources that directly guard against damages 

from climate change events; and • to restore and protect ecosystem services that are most vulnerable to climate 

change. 

This could include: 

1) Federal programs and projects that will: identify Federal lands and waters 

that are at greatest risk of being damaged or depleted by climate change; 

monitor Federal lands and waters to allow for early detection of impacts; develop adaptation strategies to minimize the damage; and restore and protect 

Federal lands and waters at the greatest risk of being damaged or depleted 

by climate change; 

2) Federal programs and projects to identify climate change risks and develop 

adaptation strategies for natural grassland, wetlands, migratory corridors, 

and other habitats vulnerable to climate change on private land enrolled in 

the Wetlands Reserve Program, the Grassland Reserve Program, or the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program; 

3) Programs and projects under the North American Wetlands Conservation Act 

and the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act to protect habitat for 

migratory birds that are vulnerable to climate change impacts; 

4) Programs and projects that will: identify coastal and marine resources (such 

as coastal wetlands, coral reefs, submerged aquatic vegetation, shellfish beds, 

and other coastal or marine ecosystems) at the greatest risk of being damaged 

by climate change; monitor those resources to allow for early detection of impacts; develop adaptation strategies; protect and restore those resources; and 

integrate climate change adaptation requirements into State plans developed 

under the coastal zone management program established under the Coastal 

Zone Management Act of 1972, the National Estuary Program, the Coastal 

and Estuarine Land Conservation Program, or other comparable State 

programs; 

5) Programs and projects that will conserve habitat for endangered species and 

species of conservation concern that are vulnerable to the impact of climate 

change; 

6) Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund projects; 

7) Programs and projects under the Forest Legacy Program that will support 

State efforts to protect environmentally sensitive forest land through conservation easements to provide refuges for wildlife; 

8) Other Federal or State programs and projects identified as high priorities for 

the general purposes listed above; 

9) Efforts to address climate change in Federal land use planning and plan implementation and to integrate climate change adaptation strategies into comprehensive conservation plans prepared under section 4(e) of the National 

Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966; General Management 

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Plans for units of the National Park System; Resource Management Plans of 

the Bureau of Land Management; and Land and Resource Management Plans 

under the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 

and the National Forest Management Act of 1976; and 

10) Projects that will promote sharing of information on climate change wildlife 

impacts and mitigation strategies across agencies, including funding efforts to 

strengthen and restore habitat that improves the ability of fish and wildlife 

to adapt successfully to climate change through the Wildlife Conservation and 

Restoration Account established by section 3(a)(2) of the Pittman-Robertson 

Wildlife Restoration Act. 

The remainder of the 10 percent of allowance pool revenues set aside for domestic 

fish and wildlife and habitat adaptation would go to state programs administered 

under the Pittman-Robertson State Wildlife Grant program. This money would be 

used in accordance with state comprehensive wildlife conservation strategies to undertake the following activities: • develop relevant information, conduct research, and undertake monitoring to 

improve the ability of fish and wildlife to adapt and respond to the impacts of 

climate change; • develop and conduct projects to address observed or anticipated effects of climate change on fish and wildlife species and populations; and • implement actions to manage, conserve, and restore fish and wildlife habitat to 

improve the ability of fish and wildlife to adapt and respond to the impacts of 

climate change. 

Given that approximately 9 percent of lands in the U.S. are owned and managed 

by state governments, investing in state adaptation programs is also a relatively 

high-leverage approach to addressing climate change impacts to natural resources. 

Adaptation assistance for ecosystems abroad 

The Conservancy also supports the use of allowance revenues to fund international conservation activities that will protect globally significant species and 

habitats from the effects of climate change. We are working with other international 

conservation organizations to develop common recommendations for policy makers 

about how an international adaptation program could be structured. We look forward to sharing these recommendations as soon as possible. 

Such international funding should be incremental to the 10 percent of allowance 

revenue that we recommend be dedicated to assist domestic wildlife and habitats 

with adaptation to an altered climate. 

Adaptation for affected populations 

The Conservancy also recommends that a portion of revenues in the Climate 

Change Adaptation Fund be dedicated to assist vulnerable human populations in responding to the impacts of climate change. 

Other uses of revenues 

Beyond funding to facilitate adaptation of fish and wildlife, the remaining funds 

in the Climate Change Adaptation Fund could be used: 

• To assist low-income consumers as part of the strategy to address climate 

change. For example, this could include additional funding to the Low Income 

Home Energy Assistance Program and other efforts to reduce energy costs for 

these vulnerable Americans. 

• To assist displaced workers with transitional assistance, including assistance 

with transition to new employment where jobs are displaced as a consequence 

of a restructuring of the economy toward lower greenhouse gas emissions. 

In addition to funding activities to facilitate adaptation to climate change, some 

portion of the revenues from allowance auctions should be invested in a Clean 

Energy Fund to support research on and development and deployment of emissions 

reductions technologies. Revenues from an auction could also be used to offset payroll or other taxes as a further means of offsetting any distributional effects of increased energy prices. 

Conclusion 

The Nature Conservancy appreciates the opportunity to present our views to the 

Subcommittee on this timely and critical topic. We would be pleased to work with 

you in answering questions you may have or in crafting legislation to address the 

issues identified in our testimony. 

Contact Information: 

Eric Haxthausen 

Senior Policy Advisor, Climate Change 

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The Nature Conservancy 

ehaxthausen@tnc.org 

(703) 841-7439 (Phone) 

(703) 276-3241 (Fax) 

Ms. BORDALLO. And now I would like to recognize the acting 

Ranking Member, Mr. Sali, for any questions. 

Mr. SALI. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

For Dr. Caldeira and Dr. Kleypas, you are both concerned about 

acidification, and I am curious. If I understand, Dr. Caldeira, your 

explanation, the CO2, something happens when it gets into the 

ocean water and then it turns to carbonic acid. Am I correct? 

Can you give me just a little explanation about that? 

Dr. CALDEIRA. Sure. Without going into too detailed a chemistry 

lesson here, the carbon dioxide is CO2. Water is H2O. They join together, and then when they join together protons start coming off 

or hydrogen ions so that this hydrogen ion attacks the carbonate 

ion. 

Corals make their skeletons out of calcium carbonate, so there is 

calcium and carbonate. The hydrogen ion that is produced when 

the CO2 reacts with seawater reacts with this building block and 

removes one of the building blocks that corals and many other organisms need to build their shells and skeletons. 

The issue is if the carbon dioxide is released to the environment 

very slowly from like it is from volcanos then there is a chance to 

react with the various rocks and sediments on the earth’s surface, 

and this neutralizes this acidity. We are emitting the carbon dioxide so rapidly that these buffering processes don’t have a chance 

to react. 

I can say that the chemistry part of this is very well understood. 

You know, I think where there is uncertainty is on what is the biological response. You know, the experiments have been done in university laboratories for the most part or NOAA laboratories and on 

a few individuals in sort of fish tanks or isolated situations and so 

we are not sure exactly what the real impacts will be in real ecosystems, but the laboratory experiments give plenty of cause for 

concern. 

Mr. SALI. Well, I guess I am trying to figure out. Do the plants 

in the ocean use photosynthesis type processes to grow, correct, and 

so my question is how is it that the carbon dioxide is not used by 

those plants to grow, and how does it end up turning into carbonic 

acid? 

Dr. KLEYPAS. Well, first of all, as Ken said, the carbonic acid is 

what causes the pH to drop in the oceans, which is the term we 

call ocean acidification. 

In terms of plants in the ocean, most of the plants in the ocean 

by far are marine algae. Marine algae don’t use CO2 the way that 

land plants use CO2 so there is not much of an opportunity for fertilization because the increase in carbon dioxide in the ocean is 

quite small, and it doesn’t help these organisms, particularly given 

in the light that they are also limited by nutrients in the ocean. 

Mr. SALI. I am going to expose just a little level of lack of knowledge here. 

Dr. KLEYPAS. OK. 

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Mr. SALI. Am I correct that corals typically grow in fairly shallow 

water? 

Dr. KLEYPAS. Corals grow in shallow water, and they are——

Mr. SALI. And most of the plants that live in shallow water 

would use the photosynthesis process now? 

Dr. KLEYPAS. They do photosynthesize. The algae photosynthesize. 

Mr. SALI. How does the carbon dioxide know whether it is going 

to be plant food, if you will, or if it is going to be carbonic acid. 

Dr. KLEYPAS. Actually that is a really good question. The CO2, once it is in the water as carbonic acid, it actually breaks apart 

fairly rapidly to something we call bicarbonate and carbonate. 

Most plants use bicarbonate in the ocean, and it is very, very 

abundant. They also have something called a carbon concentrating 

mechanism. That allows them to store a lot of——

Mr. SALI. But how does the carbon dioxide decide what it is going 

to be in its future life? 

Dr. KLEYPAS. The plants take up bicarbonate to photosynthesize, 

and the CO2 just changes the pH of the ocean. 

Do you want to add something to that, Ken? 

Dr. CALDEIRA. Yes. I mean, there have been experiments done. 

You know, not every kind of organism builds a shell out of calcium 

carbonate, and there have been experiments where you basically 

take a bucket of water and give all the phosphorous and nitrogen 

and all the other nutrients that the plants want. 

In these experiments, if you give added carbon dioxide some 

plankton can actually grow more rapidly so there is some potential 

in these kind of situations for increased growth, but in the real 

ocean plankton are typically limited by not having enough fertilizer, not having enough phosphorous or nitrogen. 

It is not really the carbon dioxide deciding what it is going to do. 

It dissolves in the water, and if it happens to be against a coral 

reef it inhibits the coral from building its shell or skeleton. If it 

happens to go up against a plankton it makes it a little easier for 

plankton to get its carbon. 

You know, wherever there is light and there is nutrients things 

will grow in the ocean, so I don’t want to overstate this, but nobody 

is saying that there will be less photosynthesis in the ocean. 

What we are saying is that key ecosystems are threatened, such 

as corals, and that other ecosystems may also be threatened, but 

really the studies haven’t been done to identify the extent of threat 

to fisheries and other kinds of important resources. 

Mr. SALI. So would it be fair to say that probably we need more 

information before we take action? 

Dr. CALDEIRA. I think we have enough information to take action, but we certainly need more information. 

I think there is enough information to be alarmed and to start 

working on energy systems that reduce our carbon dioxide emissions, but along with that we need to study what the possible effects on other ecosystems are. 

Also, we can assume that climate change and ocean acidification 

will stress ecosystems, and we need to reduce other stresses such 

as loss of the wetlands and the overfishing and so anything we can 

do to reduce stresses on ecosystems will help. 

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I think there are three things: Reduce emissions, study the systems and reduce other stresses on the ecosystems. 

Mr. SALI. Madam Chairman, if I could just wrap up real quickly? 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes. 

Mr. SALI. Dr. Sharp and Dr. Everett, would you agree with that 

conclusion that way, or do you think we need more information before we take action? 

Dr. SHARP. I spent a good bit of time traveling the world, and 

one of the first things you discover is those islands that have pristine corals don’t have any people, and where you find most of the 

coral bleaching phenomena is usually with a very high population 

level, so there is what I call a hormetic effect, an additional problem that comes from the stuff that we leak out into the ocean 

around. 

There is a wonderful example of exactly how this works in the 

Caribbean. If you go to the Isle Roatan on the east coast of Honduras, they actually if you want to go swimming there they will 

show you what happened when they developed and where all the 

hog pens are and things with dead coral everywhere. 

If you go to the other side where there are no people, they will 

train you to make sure that you don’t touch things. They will show 

you a handprint that was put there 10 years ago. It is a dead hole. 

Meanwhile, around there is basically pristine coral. That is a lesson in life that most people who sit in a laboratory never quite figure out. 

The other big picture thing, of course, the conversion from the 

last ice age to present. The entire Barrier Reef was above sea level. 

When you think about 1.8 to two millimeters sea level rise per year 

over 20,000 years, you end up with the Great Barrier Reef. It is 

an interesting phenomenon. 

It also has a north/south distribution. It is very healthy in the 

warmest section of the warm pool and is actually the scariest down 

near agriculture and other things on the north coast of Australia, 

so there is a lot more to worry about than CO2. 

Doubling the pH by—I am sorry. Doubling the pH is the wrong 

word. Raising the pH level or decreasing the pH level by a tenth 

of a unit is more than doubling the CO2 component in the atmosphere. A tenth of a unit. 

pH is a logarithmic function. If we wanted to bring the ocean 

water of pH 8.2 down to 7.0 it would take 48 times as much CO2

in the atmosphere as there exists today. You can kind of whittle 

your way down that if you want to figure out what it means to go 

from 7.8 to 7.75. 

We don’t have a tool that measures pH to three decimal points. 

It just doesn’t exist. 

Dr. EVERETT. I would just like to add that I agree with Ken on 

taking prudent actions essentially and reducing emissions where it 

makes sense to do so, but not strapping our economy unless our 

competitors do the same and then working to do the science so we 

learn how all these critters work together out there and what in 

fact the level, the impact of additional CO2 in the water is. 

Part of this, I am just reminded by my Russian colleagues that 

always say look at what happened in the past before you think 

about what is going to happen in the future. We just need to make 

170

sure that when let us say if the acidification does come to take 

place that the critters that come with it are along the lines that 

we can deal with. We know that things are going to change. Some 

go up. Some go down in all of this. Acidification is one of those examples. 

In the Mid-Cretaceous, in the age of the dinosaurs, the corals 

were much further away from the equator. According to a NOAA 

site, it looks like they were doing fine. It talks in terms of the expansiveness of the corals when the atmosphere was two to four 

times the level of CO2 in it. 

Mr. SALI. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you. 

Before we wrap up the hearing this morning—I guess it is still 

morning—Dr. Eakin, in your testimony you mentioned that the 

Reef Manager’s Guide provides information on the causes and the 

consequences of coral bleaching and management strategies to help 

local and regional reef managers reduce this threat to coral reef 

ecosystems. 

Can you elaborate on some of these strategies to protect coral 

reefs from local stressors and manage reef ecosystems with rising 

temperatures in ocean acidification in mind? 

Dr. EAKIN. Thank you for that question. I agree very much with 

something that Dr. Sharp was saying a moment ago. The combination of different stressors on environments such as coral reefs is extremely important, and what we need to do is look at this holistically, taking into consideration all of the various forms of stress. 

We know that the oceans are warming, and we have seen what 

is happening in terms of the oceans acidifying. We don’t anticipate 

that these stresses are going to be going away in the immediate future, so that means that we need to do all that we can from a resource management perspective to reduce those other stresses that 

also threaten the reefs. 

All of these, whether it is warming, whether it is acidification, 

whether it is pollutants, whether it is sediments, whether it is 

overfishing or excess use by tourism, these are all impacts that are 

very important and work together. 

So what we need to do is put greater information in the hands 

of managers so that they can work in their area of control to reduce 

those other local areas of stress, making it easier for corals to potentially survive through these other large-scale stresses over 

which they don’t have any control. 

If I might comment on one thing very briefly along these lines, 

the changes that we are seeing currently are large ones, whether 

it is from local stress from global populations or whether it is the 

climate scale changes that we are seeing. 

As Dr. Caldeira said, when we had that change in ocean pH 55 

million years ago, it took millions of years to recover. 

At a meeting about 10 years ago, a geologist named Gary Molter 

made a great statement regarding what was going on at that time 

in the early stages of coral bleaching that was being seen. His 

statement was while I don’t question that corals as organisms will 

survive, I cannot afford to stand back while these resources, these 

ecosystems, are changed throughout my lifetime, that of my 

children and their children. 

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Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Just as a final question to anyone on the panel that wishes to 

answer it, if we act now to reduce carbon emissions, how quickly 

will we see positive change in the oceans, and how much would we 

need to reduce them to see this change? 

Conversely, if we do nothing for another 10 years, how long 

would recovery take? 

Dr. CALDEIRA. If carbon dioxide emissions were to cease today, 

which is of course unrealistic, the ocean acidification problem 

would get better right away. The earth would continue to warm 

and then would get——

Ms. BORDALLO. Excuse me. I didn’t say cease to exist, but I said 

reduce. 

Dr. CALDEIRA. OK. Yes. You know, one of the things, the studies 

have not really been done to exactly determine how much you 

would need to reduce to achieve different thresholds. 

I have done some preliminary calculations that suggest that the 

kind of numbers that have been bandied about—about say 80 percent by 2050 would be the level of effort required. 

I just want to take this opportunity to make one additional point. 

One thing is that when planning for protection of wetlands and 

other resources, it is important to take sea level rise into account 

and so it would be good, for example, if planning for future wetland 

protection would assume that sea level might be a meter higher in 

the future and that that higher sea level be taken into account in 

future planning. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much. 

Do any other of the witnesses have any comments? Yes, Dr. 

Sharp? 

Dr. SHARP. I would like to make it rather clear to everyone, I 

think we all agree that there are problems that need solved. That 

has not ever been the big problem. 

John Everett, when he was working for NOAA, was given the responsibility back in 1986 and 1987 of putting together the first ecosystem base management system for NOAA. I was contracted to 

get out and work with the people in the field and try to find all 

the expertise we could throughout the NOAA and other institutional systems. 

We put that project together, and it didn’t start in the ocean. It 

started in the highlands and all of the shorelands and everything 

else. That has to be taken care of before we can even pretend we 

know what is going on in the ocean. 

Chesapeake Bay is one of the classic examples. Twenty years ago 

I knew dozens and dozens of professors and hard core researchers 

here. The issues were not about global warming or whatever it is. 

It is people. We have to solve that problem on the coastlines, up 

into the wetlands, out of the wetlands into the highlands before we 

can solve anything that goes on in the ocean. 

We have no valves, no levers, anything in the ocean or in the atmosphere. We are not in control. That is the most important information to take home, if I can give you that. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Sharp. 

I wish to thank all of the witnesses for their excellent comments 

and statements and their participation in the hearing today. 

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Members of the Subcommittee may have some additional questions for the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to these in 

writing. The hearing record will be open for 10 days for these responses. 

If there is no further business before the Subcommittee, I would 

also like to thank Mr. Sali for sitting in for our Ranking Member, 

Mr. Brown. 

The Chairwoman again thanks the Members of the Subcommittee and our witnesses, and the Subcommittee now stands 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m. the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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