Relentlessly and for the foreseeable future until anthropocentric global warming stops, the impact of climate change will move north 5 miles per year.
3 years ago I posted this diary; A bug ON my computer. I did a bit of research for it and I came across this scientific study;
Crop pests advancing with global warming
“Many studies have shown that climate change is affecting the distribution of wild species populations. This is the first one to show that a similar process is happening in pest species,” says Gurr. She highlights the worrying finding that fungi and oomycetes are moving particularly quickly, at 7 and 6 km per year respectively. Her team's study is published today in Nature Climate Change6.
So fungi and oomycetes are doing it.
Just recently I stumbled upon this article in the San Diego Union-Tribune;
Invasive weevil spreads north, could cause widespread tree deaths
Instead, the team found that, on average, crop pests have been moving towards the poles at 2.7 kilometres per year, which is very close to the rate of climate change5. However, the rate of shift varied significantly for different groups and among individual species.
...
An invasive beetle that crossed from Mexico into southern San Diego County more than five years ago is continuing to head north, threatening widespread destruction of ornamental palm trees and date palms that could add up to millions of dollars in damage.
“It has already killed hundreds of Canary Island date palms in Tijuana and parts of San Diego County,” Mark Hoddle, director of the Center for Invasive Species Research at UC Riverside, said in a statement this past week. “We are on the verge of a major crisis for California’s palms.”
The South American Palm Weevil can now be found as far north as Bonita and along the border with Mexico as far east as Texas, according to San Diego County officials. The financial harm this flying pest inflicts would rise significantly if it reaches date farms in the Imperial and Coachella valleys, Hoddle said.
So I checked the distance between “the wall” and Bonita on Google maps, about 8 miles.
BonitaSo “more than 5 years” ago this destructive beetle crossed the border illegally and about 10 years later it’s already being a “bad beetle” in Bonita. Compatible with the 5 miles per year north speed of climate change.
So if this 5 miles per year movement means that in Los Angeles we now have the climate that Tijuana had 20 years ago. And in about 40 years, San Francisco will be as warm as Los Angeles is today. Enjoy while you can.
Climate change/global warming will end the Anthropocene through wars, famine, mass migrations, sea level rise, etc.
This beetle is sort of one of many canaries in the coal mine.