Extinction risk from climate change

Abstract

Climate change over the past ~30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundance of species and has been implicated in one species-level extinction. Using projections of species distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth's terrestial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a powerlaw relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15-37% of species in our sample regions and taxa will be 'committed to extinction'. When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction (~18%) than mid-range (~24%) and maximum-change (~35%)scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.