Climate Change and Extinction Risk

While our species may survive the impacts of climate change, extinction for us and many other living creatures seems increasingly likely.

“Global warming events in the past have frequently enough triggered massive biodiversity loss, which is why there are serious concerns about anthropogenic climate change today,” said Professor Erin Saupe, a paleobiologist at the university of oxford, according to Discover Wildlife.

Even though human activity is causing major declines in biodiversity,species are becoming extinct at around 1000 times faster than natural extinction rates. As with previous mass extinctions, climate will not effect organisms equally.

“Past warming often affected groups of organisms differently based on their traits,” said Saupe, who studies interactions between life and the environment on geological time scales.

“species with small geographic ranges appear to have a higher risk of extinction, and this trait is one of the best predictors,” she said.

Other general trends also exist. Mass extinctions favored smaller animals; for example, the end of the Cretaceous event, which killed non-avian dinosaurs (all branches except birds), was worse for creatures with larger bodies.

Back to the Ice Age?

Rising global average surface temperatures and increasing ocean acidification will continue to negatively impact biodiversity for thousands of years.

However, a decrease in temperature shoudl occur. Our planet is in a relatively cold period, characterized by polar ice caps and mountain glaciers, which alternate between glacial periods, such as the one ending 11,700 years ago-popularly known as the last ‘Ice Age’-and interglacial periods.

The shift between glacial and interglacial periods is caused by periodic changes in the tilt of the Earth’s axis and the shape of its orbit around the Sun. Climate change may have delayed the next Ice Age, which could occur in the next 100,000 years.

A colder Earth could also reduce the