Iceland reports the presence of mosquitoes as climate warms
npr.org
npr.org
That’s difficult to conclude. It could have everything to do with warming North Atlantic ocean winds. Where they were previously deadly to mosquitoes, now they might not be.
We have insufficient evidence either way. The article is wrong conclude as it did. But it’s equally wrong to conclude based on their mistake that the opposite is true.
What I've always been told is that Icelandic winter danced around the freezing point enough that mosquitos weren't able to overwinter effectively. The larvae would hatch prematurely thinking it was spring and be killed by another freeze before they could get a foothold.
That hypothesis relies on a pretty careful climatic balance though. Clearly it's hit a point where some parts of the country can now support endemic populations. My wife swears she was attacked by them when I took her to meet my grandparents a couple years ago, which I was quite resistant to believing at the time vs the similarly annoying midges. Maybe she was right?
This happens in Minnesota which can have really intense mosquito seasons. If you have a few very warm early spring days followed by a good freeze, especially if this happens a few times, you'll have a year with barely any mosquitos instead of swarms.
The Nordic varieties of mosquito are not known to carry any diseases, but the sting itches. Authorities in these countries sometimes poison wetlands where mosquito populations would otherwise grow large enough to become a public nuisance in summer.
And for personal anecdotal evidence, my wife gets more problems with mosquitos here than I do. When we visit her home country I get more problems than she does.
Apparently they don’t once your immune system gets used to them. But this usually takes lots of exposure when young.
It's the species that carries Dengue, Chikungunya, and many other diseases.
I guess time will tell.
For whatever reason, mosquitos almost never bite me. I don't know if it's just because I'm pretty hairy, or if I have the gene that makes me less appealing to them, but I am thankful every day that I don't have to deal with it.
I'll consider myself lucky.
But seriously, mozzies suck and I hope it's not Iceland's future. On the other side of the world here, in some parts it is getting too hot and dry for much in the way of mozzies. Not sure if that is a good thing either though.
That camping trip suuuuuuucked
since I learned that I've noticed it seems to be true.
And before you lose your shit just think about it. Would me bringing a penguin to central America on a plane be evidence of global cooling?
I guess you both grew up really enjoying that one episode of South Park and just can't let go?
It’s troubling how many accept this half-baked story without questioning the shaky correlations it draws.
It’s similar to what happened when the Maui wildfire started, many people, and more worryingly, journalists, were quick to blame climate change in their initial reports. That narrative turned out to be inaccurate.
In fact, scientific studies (including those published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire) show that most wildfires are actually caused by human activity. But people love sharing headlines that reinforce their existing biases, even when the facts tell a different story.
>The institute noted that the mosquitoes were one of a number of new insect species discovered in Iceland in recent years due to a warming climate and the growth of international transportation.
In short, no. But this article is absolutely not evidence of it.
When the media or even scientists stretch out facts to support a thesis they don't actually support, they directly undermine the believability of that thesis to the general public. In a world cooking itself, that's probably not the greatest strategy. They do it so often it sometimes makes me wonder if that's not the true intent.