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Mountains cover approximately 25 percent of the Earth's surface and provide a home to more than one-tenth of the global human population. Changes in global climate pose a number of potential risks to mountain habitats. [13] Boreal forests, also known as taiga, are warming at a faster rate than the global average, [14] leading to drier ...
When estimating the effect of climate change on species' extinction risk, the report concluded that global warming of 2 °C (3.6 °F) over the preindustrial levels would threaten an estimated 5% of the Earth's species with extinction even in the absence of any other factors like land use change. If the warming reached 4.3 °C (7.7 °F), they ...
Data from 2018 found that at 1.5 °C (2.7 °F), 2 °C (3.6 °F) and 3.2 °C (5.8 °F) of global warming, over half of climatically determined geographic range would be lost by 8%, 16%, and 44% of plant species. This corresponds to more than 20% likelihood of extinction over the next 10–100 years under the IUCN criteria. [41] [42]
Some climate change effects: wildfire caused by heat and dryness, bleached coral caused by ocean acidification and heating, environmental migration caused by desertification, and coastal flooding caused by storms and sea level rise. Effects of climate change are well documented and growing for Earth's natural environment and human societies. Changes to the climate system include an overall ...
Human activities affect marine life and marine habitats through overfishing, habitat loss, the introduction of invasive species, ocean pollution, ocean acidification and ocean warming. These impact marine ecosystems and food webs and may result in consequences as yet unrecognised for the biodiversity and continuation of marine life forms. [3]
The effects of global warming add a catastrophic threat toward a mass extinction of global biological diversity. [185] Numerous more species are predicted to face unprecedented levels of extinction risk due to population increase, climate change and economic development in the future. [ 186 ]
Natural forces cause some variability, but the 20-year average shows the progressive influence of human activity. [2] Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth’s climate system.
The diversity of species and genes in ecological communities affects the functioning of these communities. These ecological effects of biodiversity in turn are affected by both climate change through enhanced greenhouse gases, aerosols and loss of land cover [citation needed], and biological diversity, causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and extinctions of species and local populations.