The Climate Crisis Could Maybe Possibly We Think Cause Lots Of Extinctions Or Something

I caught this study yesterday, but, didn’t bother posting on it, because I wanted to wait to see where the media went with it

Climate change could cause sudden biodiversity losses worldwide

A warming global climate could cause sudden, potentially catastrophic losses of biodiversity in regions across the globe throughout the 21st century, finds a new UCL-led study.

The findings, published today in Nature, predict when and where there could be severe ecological disruption in the coming decades, and suggests that the first waves could already be happening.

The study’s lead author, Dr Alex Pigot (UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research): “We found that climate change risks to biodiversity don’t increase gradually. Instead, as the climate warms, within a certain area most species will be able to cope for a while, before crossing a temperature threshold, when a large proportion of the species will suddenly face conditions they’ve never experienced before.”

“It’s not a slippery slope, but a series of cliff edges, hitting different areas at different times.”

Dr Pigot and colleagues from the USA and South Africa were seeking to predict threats to biodiversity over the course of the 21st century, rather than a single-year snapshot. They used climate model data from 1850 to 2005, and cross-referenced it with the geographic ranges of 30,652 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and other animals and plants. The data was available for areas across the globe, divided up into 100 by 100 km square grid cells.

“Climate model data.” Why not use the actual data? It’s 2020. The actual temperature and other readings are available. And why stop in 2005? Could it have something to do with being deep in a warming pause?

The researchers predict that if global temperatures rise by 4°C by 2100, under a “high emissions” scenario which the researchers say is plausible, at least 15% of communities across the globe, and potentially many more, will undergo an abrupt exposure event where more than one in five of their constituent species crosses the threshold beyond their niche limit within the same decade. Such an event could cause irreversible damage to the functioning of the ecosystem.

If warming is kept to 2°C or less, potentially fewer than 2% of communities will face such exposure events, although the researchers caution that within that 2% includes some of the most biodiverse communities on the planet, such as coral reefs.

There’s been just a 1 degree Celsius rise since 1850: 4C may be the worst case, but even another 1C rise in the next 80 years is silly.

The researchers predict that such unprecedented temperature regimes will begin before 2030 in tropical oceans, and recent events such as mass bleaching of corals on the Great Barrier Reef suggest this is happening already. Higher latitudes and tropical forests are predicted to be at risk by 2050.

And what will these climahysterics do when this doesn’t happen by 2030? Will there be apologies for perpetuating doomsaying prognostications?

Of course we get

• Climate change could cause sudden extinctions through 21st century
• Climate change could cause abrupt biodiversity losses this century
• Climate-Driven Biodiversity Loss Will Be Sudden, Study Warns
• Tropical Oceans Headed For Collapse Within The Next 10 Years, Major Study Reveals

Just a smattering of “we’re doomed. Maybe. Possibly.” We can fix this all with a tax and you giving up your freedom, liberty, and choice.