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TechnoratiWarming Could Wipe Out Half of All Species
Rising global temperatures caused by climate change could trigger a huge extinction of plants and animals, according to a study. Though humans would probably survive such an event, half of the world's species could be wiped out.
Scientists at the University of York and the University of Leeds examined the relationship between climate and biodiversity over the past 520m years - almost the entire fossil record - and uncovered an association between the two for the first time. When the Earth's temperatures are in a "greenhouse" climate phase, they found that extinctions rates were relatively high. Conversely, during cooler "icehouse" conditions, biodiversity increased.
The results, published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that the predictions of a rapid rise in the Earth's temperature due to man-made climate change could have a similar effect on biodiversity.
Peter Mayhew, a population ecologist at the University of York and one of the authors of the research paper, said: "Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner. If our results hold for current warming - the magnitude of which is comparable with the long-term fluctuations in Earth climate - they suggest that extinctions will increase."
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global temperatures could increase by as much as 6C by the end of the century.
Dr Mayhew found that of the five mass extinction events in the Earth's history, four were linked to greenhouse climates where the Earth was covered in heat-trapping carbon dioxide or methane gases. This includes the extinction of the dinosaurs 65m years ago , thought to have been caused by the impact of a large asteroid on the Yucatan peninsula and beneath the Gulf of Mexico.
The largest ever extinction occurred 251m years ago, when 95% of animal and plant species were killed off.
The most likely cause was floods of lava erupting from the central Atlantic region - an event that triggered the opening of the Atlantic ocean.
Tim Benton, of the University of Leeds, said: "The long-term association has not been seen before as previous studies have largely been confined to relatively short geological periods, limited geographical extents and few groups of organisms."
Dr Mayhew said extinction through global warming was expected to occur through mismatches between the climates to which organisms are adapted, and the future distributions of those climates.
© 2007 The Guardian
15 Comments so far
Show AllWindjammer, repair of an entire watershed is quite an undertaking (depending on its size). But nature will respond more quickly to positive action then negative ones.
By salmon ecosystems, I imagine west coast salmon? Lots of things can go wrong there. Could you give an example of the problems you have encountered?
The article doesn't say anything about the speed of warming. I wonder if there may be a correlation between the speed and the percentage of species that die. At the rate it's happening now, few if any species will be able to adapt.
SCIENTIFIC BETRAYAL
Never before have Americans experienced such dangerous manipulation of essential scientific data, as used by this administration to derail vital environmental reforms, conservation, family planning-- and the list goes on. The resulting long term environmental and social damage are beyond measure, and can only worsen if not curtailed.
Despite their clandestine cloak, or environmental friendly disguise, these sellouts have been evident since Bush first was handed the presidency. They have been exposed by defectors from the EPA, health & human services, etc; and have been documented and chronicled by numerous dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.
The gravity of these unprecedented betrayals eclipses the Monica Lewinski scandal which led to an impeachment, and pose greater dangers than Watergate which terminated a presidency. Blame falls mainly on the populace and our legislators for tolerating this reckless and arrogant occupant of the White House.
I just love the way the republican party convinced people for years that global warming was a lie! Different story now though, isn't it?
Peter Mayhew, a population ecologist... or the actor who played Chewbacca?
!!!!!!!
I know. A different Peter. If only Chewbacca was out fighing Climate Change.
When I read the Gaia Hypothesis many years ago, it sounded like it made a lot of sense. I started trying to find man's niche in the living planet.
Looking at the balance of nature didn't work, because we don't.
Then, it suddenly made sense to me when I looked at the behavior of cancer cells. Cancer cells grow and multiply, feeding on the host organism until it is destroyed.
Man multiplies endlessly, fights off natural limiting factors such as disease, consumes virtually everything on the planet that it can figure out a way to use, restores little or nothing to the organism.
Voila! Man has a niche. He is brain cancer in Mother Earth!
Barnes, I'm sure you meant "....it takes far MORE time and effort to repair a landscape than to NOT damage it in the first place." That has been my personal experience with salmon ecosystems, anyway.
This really is not new just confirmed. As a grandfather of three, I am very concerned what their world will be like. If they will even have a world when they are my current age of 63, ( they are all of 7,5 and almost two ).. fifty five years from now will be nothing like what the world was fifty five years ago. However my hope is that since all three of these are bright and catch on fast they will be part of getting the world in shape to live.
While humans are not a keystone species in the same respect as fungal species (for example) are, no other species has such a capacity to have such a huge impact on the planet: either positive or negative.
It is a pity that the whole of our actions have been on the negative side. We have the capacity to foster the conditions for rich, diverse, interactive ecosystems. This capacity is not theoretical, either. As someone whose chosen career is the repair of degraded landscapes, I can speak from experience that it takes far less time and effort to repair a landscape than to damage it in the first place. Nature responds rather forgivingly for a long time to mistreatment. The positive responses to actions that harmonize with nature, however, are immediate.
Only half of the species to go extinct?
They must be optimists. We would be very lucky to do even that well.
They have not factored in the modern human ability to delude itself, and its inability to make cooperation happen between different national, religious and cultural groups.
The optimistic view is as follows.
Cheap oil becomes expensive in the next five years.
Economies and particularly global economy decline.
The cost of bulk transportation goes high, and the ability
to cement together large nations, feed, support and control all their peoples, dies.
Large nations such as the USI, Russia, China, become impractical, if they haven't already annihilated each other in nuclear conflict, or torn themselves apart with internal schisms.
As a result of lots of local catastrophes, in bankrupt nations (the United States of Israel is already bankrupt, living as it is only off a military weaponary credit card) lots of people become homeless and eventually die. This carries on until resource depletion and climate change stabilizes, and human population bottoms out, which ever comes first. The more human beings try to hang on to their precarious perch at the top of energy and food consumption ladder, the worse the final result. Unfortunately a lot of energy deprived and starving people will burn a lot of coal and do a lot of damage to other species. In a orgy of green religious zeal, all coal and nuclear power stations will be destroyed or turned off near the end.
The ecosystems will soon collapse to a much simpler system. With evolutionary re-adaptation, and removal of modern humans as predator, small sized faster breeding species will flourish quickly and predominate. Modern humans will go the way of the dinosaur. Some human beings may survive to de-evolve into something like homo floresienses, a hobbit sized, semi-witless being more manageable by nature in the future.
GLOBAL WARMING:
#1 International Security issue on Earth.
Global warming LINKS:
http://geocities.com/gwlinx
James Lovelock, creator of GAIA theory notes in a recent Rolling Stone that GAIA is self-correcting right now...and its likely that the human species could be whittled back down to just 500 million by the end of the century. We are the species it needs to rid itself of in order to protect the others.
Is there enough time to change our ways? Not sure but a shift from a consumer economy to a caring economy could produce incredible results in 20 short years. Check out Eisler's Real Wealth of Nations...creating a caring economics. www.realwealtheconomy.com
Norwegian scientists have started a seed bank just in case. Maybe by freezing embryos or different species' DNA those of us who survive will be able to rescue and repopulate the biosphere from the excesses of one species run amok.
Thanks for the link!
We need to face another inconvenient truth!
Meat Eating and Global Warming
www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html
Eco-Eating
www.brook.com/veg