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Climate Crisis Could Cause a Third of Plant and Animal Species to Disappear Within 50 Years: Study
"Successful implementation of the Paris agreement targets could help reduce extinctions considerably, possibly to 16% or less by 2070," according to lead author Cristian Román-Palacios.
The common giant tree frog from Madagascar is one of many species impacted by recent climate change. (Photo: John J. Wiens via EurekAlert!)
The human-caused climate crisis could cause the extinction of 30% of the world's plant and animal species by 2070, even accounting for species' abilities to disperse and shift their niches to tolerate hotter temperatures, according to a study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
University of Arizona researchers Cristian Román-Palacios and John J. Wiens analyzed data on 538 plant and animal species and 581 sites worldwide, focusing on species surveyed at the same locations over time, at least a decade apart. They found that 44% of the species had local extinctions at one or more sites.
"The study identified maximum annual temperatures—the hottest daily highs in summer—as the key variable that best explains whether a population will go extinct," said a statement from the university. "Surprisingly, the researchers found that average yearly temperatures showed smaller changes at sites with local extinction, even though average temperatures are widely used as a proxy for overall climate change."
As Wiens explained, "This means that using changes in mean annual temperatures to predict extinction from climate change might be positively misleading."
Lead author Román-Palacios laid out their key findings in a series of tweets Thursday:
My latest is finally out in
! We examined how populations of 538 species have responded contemporaneous climate change. We asked whether previous responses are enough for species to avoid climate-related extinction by 2070
doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1
12:58 a.m. · 14 feb. 2020Twitter Web App
"By analyzing the change in 19 climatic variables at each site, we could determine which variables drive local extinctions and how much change a population can tolerate without going extinct," Román-Palacios said in the statement. "We also estimated how quickly populations can move to try and escape rising temperatures. When we put all of these pieces of information together for each species, we can come up with detailed estimates of global extinction rates for hundreds of plant and animal species."
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