Here’s the story in the Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5152751/Migrating-birds-have-to-fly-250-miles-further-due-to-climate-change.html

And here’s Lubos Motl’s fine analysis of it in The Reference Frame:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/04/bird-migration-and-warming-example-of.html

Re the Telegraph story, just look at the wording. The headline is “Migrating birds have to fly 250 miles further due to climate change.” Absolute certainty there, and it’s in the present tense – all true and happening right now! It’s when you start reading the rest of it that you encounter all the coulds, woulds and likelys.

“Sober science to alarmist headline.” Again.

Got this from Numberwatch.

Got this from Numberwatch.

They could at least plot T against pop for that area to test this. And why is cold bad – what variation was there in cranefly populations, other foodsources, water or predators etc.?

Wonder what the Scottish plover population was 12,000 years ago? (Pre-industrial, pre-holocene)

But you’re right it’s the spin amplification of this that’s most worrying. Positive media feebacks and runaway climate reporting. I’m starting to believe this is man-made but not in the way the warmers think.

Of course, just because the model describes much of the variation, it doesn’t follow that the model is correct. It might well turn out that they’ve hit lucky. But that is a matter for scientists to work out. We tend to steer clear of debunking scientific papers here. We’re not qualified for the job. What interests us is the way scientific information is presented beyond the ivory tower – by the media and by the scientists themselves. That said, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if there is a reluctance among the scientific community to scrutinise research that paints such a convenient picture. But that’s a different matter.

They they appear to make the (sadly common) logical error in assuming that any recent drops in cranefly populations are/or will be entirely due to climate change and don’t exhibit a natural fluctuation cycle like the plover’s.

Finally, as you acknowledge, Flat Earth News is well in action here – sensational distortion of distorted press releases – churnalism.

Sustainability seems to be to process of clinging to artificially defined ‘natural’ levels and then rallying against nature’s actual changes and cycles. It’s all so Cnutian.

I am away down to buy her some flowers.

The BBC article made it clear that crane flies are in the decline and that ditches are being blocked at Forsinard, Caithness. Implication being that filling in the ditches will save the crane flies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7963088.stm

“RSPB Scotland said a dramatic decline of the insect could lead to localised extinctions of some birds.

Ditches are being blocked at Forsinard, Caithness, in a bid to help the larvae.”

That is what the BBC have reported to me and everyone else in Scotland. So no crane flies no birds; localised birds become extinct.

Yes yes yes Extinct, like the Dodo, never to be seen again on planet Earth.

Dr James Pearce Higgins, of RSPB Scotland, said: “For example, by blocking drainage ditches on our Forsinard reserve in the North of Scotland we hope to raise water levels and reduce the likelihood of the cranefly larvae drying out in hot summers.”

(I remember being in Orkney when the August temperature went up to 61F. “Heat Wave hits Orkney”, said the Orcadian newspaper.)

Hot summers in Caitness are in the 50F if you are lucky.

Editor your posting says; “The long-term cranefly data (if you can call 10-11 years long-term) were from two other Scottish sites, that the East coast, and the other in the Borders”

Who mentioned the Borders?
The original BBC article says Caithness.

Also ‘the long-term data on the abundance of craneflies in the United Kingdom uplands’ Upland; Forsinard is 150ft above sea level, that is now considered uplands?

I am even more confused?
RSPB are studying Crane flies in the South East of Scotland and filling in ditches in the far North of Scotland where the upland summers are hot.

Thanks for the Forsinard link. In fact, Forsinard isn’t part of the study. The long-term cranefly data (if you can call 10-11 years long-term) were from two other Scottish sites, one on the East coast, and the other in the Borders – ‘the only available long-term data on the abundance of craneflies in the United Kingdom uplands’, according to the paper. So it’s interesting that Pearce-Higgins mentions Forsinard in the presser, especially given the significant effect of drainage ditches there. The researchers don’t mention in the paper whether there are drainage ditches at the plover sites. We like to think that they would have done had there been any, but it’s an intriguing possibility that they might be measuring the effects of land management practices rather than temperature trends.

We probably should have mentioned in the post that the data don’t show a decline per se in cranefly numbers – just a negative correlation with maximum August temperatures. Which makes the news reports doubly wrong, in that neither of the ‘declining’ species are actually declining.