Dartmouth College discovers Global Warming is making Arctic Mosquitoes increase in size

“Arctic mosquitoes’ reproductive success depends on the females finding a blood meal, which is expected to increase because warming more closely synchronizes their life cycle with caribou calving. The calving season benefits mosquitoes by giving them a larger, less mobile herd to feed on, including vulnerable calves.”

Dartmouth University press release related to the discovery of significantly larger mosquitoes

If you ever wanted proof that Global warming is real, aside from the drought in Jamaica and the resulting water shortages affecting farmers as reported in the article “Farmers Introduced To Innovative Way Of Beating The Drought”, published Friday August 21, 2015 by Shanna Monteith, The Jamaica Gleaner, then take a look at these pictures of Arctic Mosquitoes below.

The mosquitoes were discovered by researcher at Dartmouth University in the Arctic and are due to global warming as reported in the article “These Giant Arctic Bloodsuckers Are Thriving On Global Warming”, published 17-09-2015 by Tessa Berenson, Time.

Their research was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences was mentioned on their university website in the article “Arctic Mosquitoes Thriving Under Climate Change”, published Sept. 15, 2015, Dartmough University.

Note the size of the Arctic mosquitoes when compared to the tip of the mechanical pencil. What's causing them to get so large is the warmer temperatures in the Arctic.

Dartmouth University discovers Arctic Mosquitoes increasing in size – Why Global Warming is making Mosquitoes get bigger

The Researcher from Dartmouth University had discovered that Temperatures have increased twice the Global rate in the past 100 years causing the mosquitoes getting  caught as part of the study to be getting larger and larger.

Mosquitoes are creatures usually found in Tropical and Temperate climates.

But the warmer temperatures is causing them to emerge earlier from hibernation quicker. This study shows that warmer spring temperatures caused the mosquitoes to emerge two weeks earlier. Their development period is also shorter.

The researchers predict that if the temperatures in the Arctic continue to rise by another 2 ⁰C, they'll not only get bigger but they'll have a 53% chance of surviving longer in the wild.

For every 1 ⁰C increase in temperature, the developement time through the larval and pupal stages is shortened by 10%. Although Diving beetles eat more mosquitoes, it also means that more grow to adulthood faster due to the reduced time aquatic predators have to feast on them.

This is surprisingly, similar reason why Goldfish, once released in the wild, grow bigger as argued in my blog article entitled “Murdoch University says Goldfish Destroy Freshwater Ecosystems - Why Jamaica must avoid Goldfish becoming Kingpins in our Rivers and grow to much larger sizes”.

This means that animals that would normally ignore the being bitten by them will now be more distracted by them and not be able to adequately store food for the winter.

Here’s the link:

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences