Urban Mark C
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.
Center of Biological Risk, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.
Science. 2024 Dec 6;386(6726):1123-1128. doi: 10.1126/science.adp4461. Epub 2024 Dec 5.
Climate change is expected to cause irreversible changes to biodiversity, but predicting those risks remains uncertain. I synthesized 485 studies and more than 5 million projections to produce a quantitative global assessment of climate change extinctions. With increased certainty, this meta-analysis suggests that extinctions will accelerate rapidly if global temperatures exceed 1.5°C. The highest-emission scenario would threaten approximately one-third of species, globally. Amphibians; species from mountain, island, and freshwater ecosystems; and species inhabiting South America, Australia, and New Zealand face the greatest threats. In line with predictions, climate change has contributed to an increasing proportion of observed global extinctions since 1970. Besides limiting greenhouse gases, pinpointing which species to protect first will be critical for preserving biodiversity until anthropogenic climate change is halted and reversed.
气候变化预计将给生物多样性带来不可逆转的变化，但预测这些风险仍存在不确定性。我综合了485项研究和500多万个预测结果，对气候变化导致的物种灭绝进行了定量的全球评估。随着确定性的提高，这项荟萃分析表明，如果全球气温超过1.5摄氏度，物种灭绝将迅速加速。排放最高的情景将威胁到全球约三分之一的物种。两栖动物；来自山区、岛屿和淡水生态系统的物种；以及栖息在南美洲、澳大利亚和新西兰的物种面临的威胁最大。与预测一致，自1970年以来，气候变化导致全球范围内观察到的物种灭绝比例不断上升。除了限制温室气体排放外，在人为气候变化得到遏制和扭转之前，确定首先要保护哪些物种对于保护生物多样性至关重要。
