 |
| Thanks to a warming planet, mosquitoes have been found for the first time in Iceland. The bugs, and the diseases they carry, have been heading into colder areas largely because of climate change. |
Mosquitoes have invaded Iceland.
The cold island in the North Atlantic was considered too nippy for mosquitoes to take hold.
But thanks to climate change, it's toasty enough in Iceland for those nasty little buggers.
"The disease-carrying insects twas first spotted by insect enthusiast Bjorn Hjalstason, who posed to Facebook group 'insects in Iceland' about a 'strange fly' he spotted on Oct. 16."
Since then, three mosquitoes, two females, one male, have been caught in Iceland.
"The mosquitoes are Culiseta annulata, a cold-tolerant species that live in the Palearctic region, which includes northern Africa, Europe and Asia north of the Himalayas, according to the National Institutes of Health."
It's the most common mosquito in the UK, and has been found in Canada and the northern United States.
Until recently, Iceland was too cold for mosquitoes. They breed in warm, stagnant water, like in buckets, drainage ditches, flower pots and discarded tires.
In the good old days, standing water in Iceland was too cold for mosquitoes. But thanks to climate change, not anymore. A mosquito "dumb" enough to find itself in Iceland is no longer guaranteed an immediate, frigid death.
Or at least its offspring might survive. They'll survive in basements and barns and other protected places around Iceland.
Pretty much the whole world is warming due to climate change. Iceland is warming at a rate four times faster than the rest of the northern hemisphere.
This year, Iceland had a long, hot summer, at least by their standards. It started early, with a May heat wave bringing Icelandic temperatures to as high as 80 degrees, which was by far unprecedented for that time of year.
The early start of this year's Iceland summer might have helped mosquitoes gain a foothold.
MOSQUITO DISEASES HEAD NORTH
Meanwhile, places that already have mosquitoes are finding that diseases spread by these bugs are also spreading north, thanks to climate change. For the first time, mosquitoes in the UK had the West Nile virus, which in rare cases can cause severe illness or even death in humans.
Experts also said mosquito-borne disease like dengue and chikungunya could become endemic in Europe soon as the continent warms.
A type of insect called the tiger mosquito is moving north into Europe as the area becomes toasty enough to allow the mosquito to survive. Dengue outbreaks have already hit Italy, Croatia, France and Spain.
Here in the United States, the tiger mosquito (the one that spreads dengue) is on the move north in tune with climate change. They've been spotted as far north as southern New England.
As they move north, subsequent generations of this mosquito evolve to survive slightly lower temperatures.
That makes them more likely to stick around.
Because of climate change here in Vermont, we're getting warmer and wetter, the drought this summer and autumn notwithstanding. The hotter and soggier it gets, the more mosquitoes thrive. So if those bugs bother you every summer, they're going to bother you even more, and for a greater portion of the year as time goes by.
As an ecologist i am pretty skeptical of the claim this is linked to climate change. Northern Alaska is notorious for clouds of mosquitos and that area gets much colder in the winter than populated areas of Iceland (Reyjkavik in winter is less cold than Montpelier on average, Kjos probably is too. There are definitely mosquitos in Montpelier.). And i doubt it's any warmer in Prudhoe Bay in the summer versus Iceland.. and look at this:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.inaturalist.org/observations/9970
Climate change causes enough real problems, no need for the media to make them up. Iceland is very 'new' land that was recently totally covered by glaciers and tends to erupt, and islands just sometimes lack some species. It's probably just the latest invasive species spread by careless humans, or perhaps a random bird with mosquito eggs on its leg.