Climate Letter #1652

A new report projects catastrophic losses of biodiversity much sooner than most expectations (University College London).  “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…..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.”  (This is one of the most alarming reports I have ever seen, because the early scheduling of dire events is right on our doorstep.  The full study does not have open access but there is more information of a helpful sort available, which follows.)

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–The University of Cape Town, home of one of the three principal authors, has a quite extensive review that includes an animated graphic of the timing sequence.  “The main finding that surprised us was how much biodiversity is at risk in the first half of this century,” said Dr Christopher Trisos, senior researcher at the African Climate & Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town (UCT). “The risk doesn’t accumulate gradually, but can go from low risk to high risk within a decade. This abruptness of risk was really a shocking finding for us.  It’s not a slippery slope, but a series of cliff edges, hitting different places at different times.”
https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2020-04-08-climate-change-could-abruptly-alter-biodiversity

–Here is how The Guardian wrote up the story, based on several interviews including two of the authors:
–Nature, the journal of publication, has also delivered a summarized review of the study which is more of a critique, because of many complications that are noted and the remaining number of unanswered questions that need to be followed up with added information.
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An early report about what the latest bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef actually looks like (The Guardian).  This is the number-one example of what the above story is referring to, because its reality is already so far advanced.
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A research team finds that rising temperatures alone can be an important cause of the greening of vegetation, separate from the fertilization effect of higher CO2 levels (Chinese Academy of Sciences).  This is of particular relevance in regions like the Arctic and the “Third Pole” area of China and India, where the rate of greening can probably be expected to keep rising long after CO2 emissions growth has been halted.  The extra greening is then expected to have a feedback effect which will help to limit the pace of future warming that is anticipated, but for a different reason, as the heat buildup in the oceans both continues and is slowly released.  (It’s all somewhat complicated, but I think it makes good sense in an unusual way, with an overall positive tone.)
–The study of reference, which has open access, is the result of a comprehensive review of the characteristics, drivers and feedbacks of global greening.  One of the key points it makes is that “Warming is the major cause of greening in boreal and Arctic biomes, but has negative effects on greening in the tropics.”
Carl

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