Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Mark Maslin

Author:Mark Maslin [Maslin, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780198719045
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014-09-18T22:00:00+00:00

On a more theoretical note, a recent study by Chris Thomas and colleagues (published in Nature in 2004) investigated the possible increase in the likely extinction rate over the next 50 years in key regions such as Mexico, Amazonia, and Australia. The theoretical models suggest that by 2050 the climatic changes predicted by the IPCC would commit 18 per cent (warming of 0.8–1.7°C), 24 per cent (1.8–2.0°C), and 35 per cent (above 2.0°C) of the species studied to extinction in these regions. That means one-quarter of all species in these regions may be committed to extinct by the middle of this century. This study has been criticized as there are many assumptions in their models which may or may not be true; for example, they assume we know the full climatic range in which each species can persist and the precise relationship between shrinking habitat and extinction rates. So these results should be seen only as the likely direction of extinction rates, not necessarily the exact magnitude. However, these predictions do represent a huge future threat to regional and global biodiversity and illustrate the sensitivity of biological systems to the amount and rate of warming that will occur in the future.

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