Climate Change Causes Mass Extinctions: Humans, Animals, Plants Species May Have Shorter Time to Adapt

New climate modeling research offers an alarming glimpse into the future of almost every Earth species.

As specified in a Futurism report, scientists believe life on this planet has been "shaken by several mass extinction" occurrences over the past half a billion years.

Such occurrences have most frequently followed seeping periods of climate change which a number of natural factors have historically stimulated, including asteroids and volcanoes.

Human-Made Climate Change

Over the course of every climate catastrophe, various plant species and animals have had to adapt to survive or risk vanishing for good.

However, according to new research by Tohoku University climate scientist Kunio Kaiho, which was recently published in the Biogeosciences journal, the human-made climate change humans are dealing with at present, will likely take place over a much shorter period compared to the previous extinction occurrences, leaving species elsewhere with far less time to adjust.

The greatest known mass extinction happened over the course of around 60,000 years. According to the worst-case prediction of Kaiho, the Earth could reach an approximately 16-degree Fahrenheit rise in only a few hundred years, enough to stimulate another occurrence, although significantly less time for evolution to catch up.

Upon investigating the severity of every mass extinction event, Kaiho discovered a linear association between the degree of a temperature change and the plight of animals and plants.

Difficult Survival for Human, Animal, Plant Species

Essentially, the more extreme the planetary cooling or heating, the more difficult it was for species to survive.

While the changes will occur over several hundred years, plants, animals, and humans are already experiencing climate change-induced catastrophes.

Kaiho does not deny that many extinctions on land and in the sea are already occurring due to climate change. It's just that he does not expect the same proportion of losses as previously.

Still, it is not only a degree of climate change that risks species. The speed at which it takes place is crucially important.

Largest Mass Extinction on Earth

The largest mass extinction occurrence on Earth killed off 95 percent of known species at the time and took place over 60,000 years, approximately 250 million years ago, as earlier mentioned.

However, according to a ScienceAlert report, today's warming is taking place in a much shorter period because of human emissions of fossil fuels.

Perhaps, more species will potentially die off in the sixth extinction event of the Earth, not due to the magnitude of warming is quite great, although the changes occurred so fast that a lot of species could not adjust.

Kaihu admitted forecast the future anthropogenic extinction magnitude using just surface temperature is difficult since the cause of the anthropogenic extinction differs from causes in geologic time of mass extinction.

Whichever way researchers are slicing up the data, it is clear that many species are doomed unless climate change is halted. Finally, the exact percentage of losses and the timing of such losses stay up for argument.

Related information about mass extinction is shown on Koranos' YouTube video below:

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