PNAS - University Of Exeter Scientists Predict Loss of 11% Of Global Species By 2100 - Mongabay

[hatrack]

Scientists have predicted for decades that climate change could have a grave impact on life on Earth, which is already facing numerous threats from habitat loss, over-exploitation, pollution, invasive species, and other impacts. However, empirical proof of extinctions--and even endangerment--due to climate change have been difficult to come by. A new study in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Science has found that by the time today's infants are 90 years old (i.e. the year 2100) climate change could have pushed over 11 percent of the world's species to extinction.

"Many scientists argue that we are entering the sixth great mass extinction and that anthropogenic climate change is one of the major threats to global biodiversity," the researchers state.

Scouring recent studies, Ilya Maclean and Robert Wilson with the Center for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter, found widespread evidence of over a hundred ways in which climate change is already impacting species, including rising temperatures, changes in rainfall, and decreased sea ice. They also noted a number of predicted, but not yet observed, ways in which scientists expect climate change to impact species.

"The responses included documented changes to extinction risk, population size, and geographic range size for 305 taxa from all major groups of organisms, covering a high proportion of the global terrestrial and marine surface," the scientists write, adding that vertebrate species appear more threatened by climate change than plants and invertebrates.

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0711-hance_climate_extinction.html