Climate change could make giant arctic mosquitoes grow faster and survive longer

Climate change is making the world a better place for arctic mosquitoes.

Warming temperatures in the arctic mean more mosquitoes, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Researchers found that if (or more likely when) temperatures in the arctic rise 2 degrees Celsius, mosquitoes will have a 53% greater chance of surviving to adulthood.

This means more of the giant mosquitoes that live in the arctic, ones that can sometimes form giant (even deadly) swarms, and soon.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts the Earth will likely warm between 2C and 6C by the end of the 21st century - and this warming will be worse at the poles.

If we continue burning fossil fuels at the rate we are today, we'll reach the 2C mark by 2036, climatologist Micheal E. Mann wrote in Scientific American last year.

Mosquitoes are already increasing in numbers in Greenland, where the study took place. The warmer temperatures are making mosquitoes grow faster and appear earlier.

Giant swarms of mosquitoes, though relatively rare, have been reported in the arctic, including Greenland, and just a few years ago giant swarms in Alaska were overwhelming researchers working there, as shown here:

These swarms aren't just creepy and terrifying for people, but they can have real consequences for animals.

Caribou are mosquitoes' main prey in the sparse tundra of Western Greenland, and their calves are just being born in late May to early June - the exact time that mosquitoes are now beginning to emerge.

Swarms of hundreds of thousands to even millions of mosquitoes can surround baby caribou in the arctic, stranding them until they die of starvation, Ross Andersen explained in The Atlantic.

"Mosquitoes can actually drive caribou movement," the study's lead researcher Lauren Culler, a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth, told The Washington Post. "Caribou are known to run to the top of windy ridges or flee to a snow patch in response to nuisance from mosquitoes."

Since the ice is melting earlier, the mosquitoes have plenty of nice melt ponds to incubate in, according to the study. The researchers observed how mosquitoes were behaving and growing in the field, and also measured how their growth could increase with warmer weather and longer warm seasons in the lab.

Not only do longer seasons make for more mosquitoes, but the warmer temperatures actually shortens how long takes them to develop into adults, which also means they are better able to evade their biggest predator, the diving beetle, while in their vulnerable developing stages.

Though mosquitoes are an obnoxious pest to us and caribou, they actually do play an important role in ecosystems around the world (shocking, I know). The insects are a food source for birds and bats, and they pollinate flowers.

Mosquito swarms that rise up to pester arctic animals like in the video below are still terrifying, though:

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