Yes, if you visited the link, you just read how butterflies in Melbourne are to deemed a direct proof of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Yep, David Karoly basically wants you to believe that Melboreds Urban Heat Island Effect (thanks to it being a growing city) equals Man-Made Global Climate Change.
ffs, the study revolves around studing creatures in A CITY, you know, a place where populations, buildings and roads increase and spread, and the UHI effect generally increases, ... so should any of us be surprised that the growth and changes of/in a city should have an effect on the flora and fauna found within ... and who would deny that it happens anyway ?
Sheesh, what next ... another look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth ("The Peppered Moth") and a revision to say it wasn't the amount of evil coal dust around that determined which colour varieties were "the fittest" for survival re: predation, but actually the amount of CO2 in the local atmosphere ?
Anyhoo, I've heard that Melboredites like to see themselves as the whole world, but isn't it getting a bit ridiculous to claim that the city's UHI equals Man-Made Global Climate Change ala Anthropogenic Global Warming ?
Aside from that, can you also now think of a better way your taxes should be spent than on the likes of Karoly and Co ?
Oh, and how is the collecting of data on breeding cycle of butterflys OUTSIDE Melbored's UHI going ?
Did the so called "scientists" bother to study that, or where they all just too busy pushing a barrow (one that also serves to carry the grant funding back to the lab) and providing Karoly with the subject matter for his next bit of advocacy and lobbying on his chosen religion, AGW ?
Hmmmm, let's look at that article provided in the link again. Oh, here we are:
"Dr Kearney said the study, which relates specifically to Melbourne, would prove a practical tool to forecast the impact of climate change on the city's biodiversity."
Nope, just Melbourne.
But it gets worse (or better, depending on which side of reason you are).
Look what has happened to the news item once it made its way out of Oz and on to the rest of the world.
Whatever happened to this being a study of the life cycle of butterflies in MELBOURNE !?
Spun wilder than a common brown butterfly's cocoon found here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7464687/Butterflies-emerging-earlier-due-to-climate-change.html
But let's quote a bit here and lock it in.
Butterflies emerging earlier due to climate change
Published: 7:20AM GMT 17 Mar 2010
Butterflies are emerging from their cocoons ten days earlier than 65 years ago because of climate change, experts warn.
The finding represents the first concrete evidence of a link between greenhouse gases and the timing of a natural event, according to researchers.
The team found that on average, the Common Brown butterfly (Heteronympha merope) has emerged earlier and earlier over the last half century, with an average of 1.6 days per decade over a 65 year span.
Researchers from the University of Melbourne said that the findings tally with a corresponding increase in temperature of 0.14 degrees Celsius per decade over the same period.
This warming is shown to be human-induced, researchers say.
Lead author of the study Dr Michael Kearney, from the Department of Zoology, said the findings could help our ability to forecast future impacts of climate change on biodiversity.
He said: "Shifts in these seasonal life cycle events represent a challenge to species, altering the food and competition present at the time of hatching. Studies such as ours will allow better forecasting of these shifts and help us understand more about their consequences."
The study, funded by an Australian Research Council grant to Monash, Melbourne and Wisconsin Universities, is due to be published in Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
The team looked at catterpillars raised in the lab and compared their development to increases in temperature and climate change models.
Professor David Karoly said: "Scientists have previously observed that biological events are happening progressively earlier in spring over the past few decades.
"This new work has tied the earlier emergence of butterflies directly to a regional temperature increase, and has tied the temperature increase very strongly to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by humans."
If you hadn't already read the original report that specifically says the study was limited to Melbourne, a city, would it be fair to suggest that the above article would tend to have you think that researchers from the three listed universities had studied "the common brown butterfly" all around the world, and determined that all around the world, where ever it was found, it was hatching out 10 days earlier than it did around 65 years ago ?
For an additional collection of points of view on the topic, also see: http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/could_more_concrete_asphalt_and_industry_have_made_laverton_warmer/ which also includes arial photos that show how the lay of the land where the temperatures were gathered from has changed over the period of the butterfly study.
Now ask yourself, why are the likes of Karoly and the Telegraph so keen for the natural cycle of climate change to be seen as being man made, global, ... and bad ?
[edit] About a month later now, and here is something else on the topic, this time from the award winning science blog "Watts Up With That" and commenting on "Confirmation Bias". See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/23/butterfly-study-a-case-study-in-confirmation-bias/#more-18856
[edit++] Tis now June 2010, and here is the latest on the topic, this time from the Royal Society Publishing. See: http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/06/07/rsbl.2010.0053.short/reply ... and wonder if Karoly et al should be subjected to a rigorous public conducted enquiry in relation to grant funding, etc.
The long and short of the Royal Society published article is that both Kearney and Karoly are just plain wrong, wrong, wrong, and probably fraudulently so.
Anyone really surprised that this would prove to be the case ?
regarDS
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