Tropical warming
Report from Costa Rica chronicles rapid climate change
Earlier this month, I ran several letters from various North American readers recounting how global warming has already, in subtle and not so subtle ways, affected their local environments. The letters kept coming after that column ran, and one raised a particularly important point. Even though global warming has been disproportionately caused by our actions here in the United States, and even though we often think of the more severe changes thus far as having occurred in the Arctic, things are heating up all over.
Including the tropics.
Geov,
I have just finished reading your column about climate change and readers' response, and thought I would add my own observations about what is happening here in the tropics. People think that little should change in the tropics, because they're already warm, and two or three degrees won't change much. But they're wrong.
I have lived here in Costa Rica for three years, and in that short time, I have noticed quite a few changes, most confirmed by the locals as unusual or unprecedented.
For one, the rainy season is becoming less rainy. I live on the shores of Lake Arenal, Central America's second largest reservoir, in a small town located in the mid-elevation highlands of central Costa Rica, on the continental divide. By this point in the rainy season, the reservoir should be full, but it is not this year. For the second year running, it is low to the point of where in past years it has typically been at the end of the dry season. The officials in charge of it are expressing private concerns that if this continues, there may not be sufficient water to meet the power generation and irrigation demands that the reservoir satisfies during the coming dry season.
Another thing I have noticed is that thunderstorms here are becoming noticeably more violent. The tropics are noted for torrential downpours, of course, but we seem to be setting a lot of records here lately for rain rates. Terrific winds, too -- in my two years living on this property, I have never seen the wind take down a tree until last week, when a storm in the middle of the night brought down three on my property alone, and a huge one not far from me. It kept the power crews busy for two days restoring everyone's power. They told me they had never seen anything like that storm before.
Extremes of temperature are becoming more common, both hot and cold. The highest temperature ever recorded in this town, 95 degrees, was recorded last year, and temperatures in the upper 80's, which old timers tell me were unheard of until recently, are almost the norm now, whenever there is a day that remains sunny well into the afternoon. Cold temperatures in the winter are getting colder, too. Last winter, daytime highs in the low 60's occurred for three weeks straight -- and the lowest temperature ever recorded here in this town -- 62 -- was equaled. Now, just about every big thunderstorm brings temperatures chilly enough to require a sweater -- and that never used to happen here.
The difference between the rainy season and the dry season is being blurred. We get lengthy rainy periods during the dry season now, and stretches of several days without rain during the rainy season. That never used to happen here in this town.
The species mix among birds is changing. When I moved to this property, the unique, distinctive call of Costa Rica's national bird, the clay-colored robin, was almost constant, year round. Now I rarely hear it any more, and the once-constant chatter and chirp of birds is much less evident -- there are times when it is ominously quiet in the rainforest across the street from where I live. Winters once brought large numbers of Baltimore orioles, scarlet-rumped tanagers, blue tanagers and western tanagers to my garden, but I rarely see any of those any more, especially not in flocks. The hummingbirds that used to visit my poinciana flowers almost constantly are rare any more. Instead of those birds, I see a lot more Nicaraguan grackles (which only recently appeared in Costa Rica), big-tail grackles, blue magpies, red-lored parrots, flycatchers and other non-migratory species that were once uncommon, at least seasonally. All these species are aggressive, dominant species in their habitats, and frequently pioneer disturbed areas.
Other species are changing, too. I rarely see a cane toad anymore, and I used to have to keep my doors closed at night to keep them out of the house, especially during the dry season. Their constant croaking used to keep me awake at night, but not anymore. I used to see a lot of blue morpho butterflies in my garden, two or three a week, but I rarely ever see them any more, just one so far this year. Benign snakes like bird-eaters and mosuranas are less common, but seem to be replaced by the extremely dangerous fer-de-lance, a snake once much more common in the dry lowlands. The first one spotted on my property was found only two months ago. The second was found just last Friday. The first scorpion I ever found in my house was six months back -- but I have since seen three more, of two different species. Fire ants were once rare on my property, but now, one cannot walk barefoot in the grass because of them.
The chigger season lasted only three weeks my first year here. This year, it has dragged on for three months so far, and isn't over yet. People are reporting termites in their attic rafters for the first time here, ever. They're eating the older mango trees, too. Small mammals like possum, armadillos, coati-mundi and anteaters were once common in my garden, but are becoming rare. Even gray squirrels are becoming less common -- there would be hope for my macadamia crop now, but the trees seem to fruit less often and produce smaller crops. Everyone I talk to in town is reporting similar changes, so it is not just how my gardener is managing things on my property.
Changes in the weather are consistent with the global warming models I have seen (we are predicted to get 4 degrees warmer and 40% dryer by mid-century), but the changes in the ecology of this area are not effects for which I have seen a prediction. Now that a grave concern about the stability of the Amazon climate has arisen, we here in Costa Rica, being so close by, are waiting with great apprehension about what may be in store for us, with the prediction that the Caribbean Sea, which dominates our weather, will be warmed considerably if the Amazon desertifies. We have no idea what is coming, but we're all seriously concerned that it won't be good, based on what we are seeing so far.
Global warming is here, and it is here big time. But don't come to the tropics, thinking that the changes will be minor here, and won't matter much. The weather has changed, but not as much as the environment -– and none of the changes we have seen so far have been good.
Regards,
Scott Bidstrup, Arenal de Tilaran, Costa Rica
Scott's letter (thank you!) reminds us of a fact so obvious we're not even really thinking about it yet: global warming is, well, global. Before you reply "well, duh," consider that U.S. politicians have barely begun -- and that only at the local and state level, not the federal –- to think even about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, much less what our own shorelines, agricultural and forest lands, and ecosystems will look like here in America in 20 or 40 years.
But global warming also has profound implications for American foreign policy, and almost all of them are entropic: mass displacement and famine, battles for scarce fresh water reserves, unprecedented migrations of human beings across borders. It is in the interests of the United States to not only wean itself from its destructive fossil fuel reliance, but also to start investing in the global infrastructure and expertise that will be needed not only to save millions of lives, but to do what US foreign policy has always tried, often not so benignly, to do: protect and advance U.S. economic interests. Oh, and saving democracy around the world would be nice, too, right? (News flash: democracy gets less likely, and wars and autocrats get more likely, in times of grave crisis. We should remember that at home, too.)
In short, global warming requires, urgently, that the U.S. back not only a more ambitious follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 (and for which negotiations on a successor treaty have not even begun). We also need a plan for global investment on a scale that will dwarf the Marshall Plan: Investment in clean renewable energy, investment in seawalls and relocations, investment in public health and availability of food and clean water in poorer areas. Investment in the global future we have disproportionately helped create. Without such an investment by the world's wealthiest countries, the cost in war (including terrorism), lost lives, human misery, and global economic losses will be incalculable.
For the next two and a half years, of course, we can rest secure that our federal government will do absolutely nothing, comfortable in its lobbyist-induced, oil-addled addiction to petro-profits. But the climates are changing rapidly, everywhere, and by 2009 we will need a real plan. Urgently. Time to get busy.
Geov Parrish is a Seattle-based columnist and reporter for Seattle Weekly, In These Times and Eat the State! He writes the daily Straight Shot for WorkingForChange. He can be reached by email at geovlp@earthlink.net -- please indicate whether your comments may be used on WorkingForChange in an upcoming "letters" column.
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