Frogs bounce back to contradict the warmists

How could this consensus, underpinned by peer-reviewed science, be wrong?

National Geographic News, January 2006:

Global warming may cause widespread amphibian extinctions by triggering lethal epidemics, a new study reports.


J. Alan Pounds and colleagues suggest that many harlequin frog species (Atelopus) across Central and South America have disappeared due to deadly infectious diseases spurred by changing water and air temperatures.

"Disease is the bullet killing frogs, but climate change is pulling the trigger," said Pounds, lead study author and resident scientist at Costa Rica's Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve.

"Global warming is wreaking havoc on amphibians and will cause staggering losses of biodiversity if we don't do something fast."…

Climate scientists have long warned that global warming could spur deadly disease epidemics. The study suggests that such a scenario may already be unfolding in the amphibian world.

If so, humans and other species should consider themselves duly warned. 

Washington Post, January 2006:

Rising temperatures are responsible for pushing dozens of frog species over the brink of extinction in the past three decades, according to findings being reported today by a team of Latin American and U.S. scientists.

The study, published in the journal Nature, provides compelling evidence that climate change has already helped wipe out a slew of species and could spur more extinctions and the spread of diseases worldwide.

The US National Science Foundation, January 2006:

Results of a new study provide the first clear proof that global warming is causing outbreaks of an infectious disease that is wiping out entire frog populations and driving many species to extinction.

The Australian, October 2008:

ARMAGEDDON is approaching for frogs throughout the world, warns internationally renowned primatologist Jane Goodall…

Frogs are "the canary in the coalmine", Dr Goodall told The Australian yesterday.

"When you see frogs disappear at this rate, then you realise there's something very wrong with the ecosystem where they live."

Of about 6000 amphibian species worldwide, it is estimated close to 2000 are now threatened with extinction. Dr Goodall, who spends at least 300 days a year travelling to promote environmental issues, blames climate change, pollution and a disease spreading throughout the world for the decline in frog populations. "It's armageddon for frogs," she said.

Frogs Australia Network:

Current research suggests that large scale climatic change contributed to the decline of several frog species in Australia.

Oops. Either global warming has stopped or it was never a real factor. From New Scientist:

FROGS across Australia and the US may be recovering from a fungal disease that has devastated populations around the world."It's happening across a number of species," says Michael Mahony at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, who completed a 20-year study of frogs along the Great Dividing Range in Australia for the Earthwatch Institute. Between 1990 and 1998 the populations of several frog species crashed due to chytridiomycosis infection (chytrid) caused by the pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, but Mahony's surveys suggest that the frogs are re-establishing.

Barred river frogs (Mixophyes esiteratus) disappeared, he says, but now up to 30 of the animals have returned to streams across Australia's Central Coast. The tusked-frog (Adelotus) and several tree frog species (Litoria) have also returned there. Ross Alford at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland, says tree frogs are also repopulating other areas of the state after their numbers nosedived. Some have even reached pre-infection levels.

In the US there are also signs of recovery. Roland Knapp at Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory at the University of California says mountain yellow-legged frogs (Rana muscosas) - once "driven virtually to extinction" - are returning.

Peter Westmore has the story, and more damning quotes.

(Thanks to reader John.)