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We are delighted that our paper with @christrisos and Cory Merow on ‘The projected timing of abrupt ecological disruption from climate change’ is out today in @Nature https://nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2189-9. Free readcube version to follow soon (1/14)
Three years ago we set out to understand what the world’s biodiversity may look like in the future. This is what we found....... (2/14)
In short, the paper shows that with continued high greenhouse gas emissions, losses of biodiversity and disruption of ecosystems from climate change may happen abruptly and could occur much sooner than expected (3/14)
We knew that ecosystems are already being impacted by climate warming and as this continues many species are at risk of losing their suitable climate. But because biodiversity projections are often made for just a single future snapshot (e.g. 2070) basic questions remain (4/14)
When will species be exposed to potentially dangerous climate conditions - in the next decade or only later in the century? Will exposure accumulate gradually, one species at a time, or should we expect abrupt jumps as climate limits of multiple species are exceeded? (5/14)
We used 22 climate projections for each year up to 2100 to predict when ~30,000 species on land and in the ocean will be exposed to conditions consistently hotter than previously experienced across their geographic range (6/14)
Key finding is that in any location, species may occur within their niche limits for a while, but then a threshold is passed, beyond which multiple species are exposed near simultaneously, risking abrupt losses of biodiversity and ecological disruption (7/14)
These projections can be explored at our new 'Climate Horizons' website https://climatehorizons.users.earthengine.app/view/biodiversity-risk thanks to @Chenyang_Wei (8/14)
If we continue our high emissions pathway such abrupt exposure events are forecast to begin soon, before 2030 in tropical oceans, spreading to tropical forests and temperate regions by the 2050s (9/14)
This early projected onset of exposure is consistent with the recurrent mass bleaching of coral reefs which are happening right now
https://theconversation.com/we-just-spent-two-weeks-surveying-the-great-barrier-reef-what-we-saw-was-an-utter-tragedy-135197 (10/14)
https://theconversation.com/we-just-spent-two-weeks-surveying-the-great-barrier-reef-what-we-saw-was-an-utter-tragedy-135197 (10/14)
However, it is not too late! Keeping global warming well below 2°C ‘flattens the curve’ of biodiversity exposure, buying 6 decades for the most sensitive species to adapt and averting exposure across more than half of biodiversity (11/14)
We hope this new framework can help better predict where and when ecosystems are at risk of abrupt ecological disruption. By validating and updating projections as ecological responses unfold, this could also lead to greater certainty in longer term forecasts (12/14)
For more details, check out the paper https://nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2189-9
Readcube version to follow soon or email me for a copy [email protected] (13/14)
Readcube version to follow soon or email me for a copy [email protected] (13/14)
Finally, a big thank you to the @royalsociety @AASsciences @sesync and @NSF for funding this research and the many people involved in generating the published and freely available biodiversity and climate data on which our study depended (14/14)
