A Complicated Death

Last year was the hottest on record, or the second hottest, depending on the records climatologists look at. The planet has warmed .8 degrees C over the past 150 years, and scientists are generally agreed that greenhouse gases have played a major part in that warming. They also agree that the warming will continue in the decades to come. Many experts are concerned that warming may make two unpleasant things more common: extinctions and diseases. In tomorrow's issue of Nature (link here), a team of scientists report on a case that ties these two dangers together: frogs have become extinct as climate change spreads a deadly fungus. It's an important study, but it can't be boiled down to simple slogans. It highlights the dangers of global warming, but it shows that global warming's effects can be counterintuitive and unpredictable.