Over the last few ages, the Planet Earth faced several catastrophic events that culminated in great extinctions. This reality should happen again, according to scientists, but with other characteristics. In fact, a new recent study demonstrates some characteristics of the next mass extinction.
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Understand how past extinctions occurred
Geology, Biology and Archeology studies point to some causes of previous extinctions. Among them are climate change, the eruption of volcanoes, meteor showers, major droughts and other environmental catastrophes.
As for the next extinction, scientists agree that the climatic factor will be the main cause. After all, we all know that the Earth is going through a warming process mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels that culminate in the emission of carbon gas.
According to most recent studies, the amount of carbon gas emitted causes rapid warming of Planet Earth. Even more pessimistic studies point out that even if there are reversals in the emission of this gas, the warming is already relatively irreversible.
However, this new study from the University of Tohoku, Japan, points out that the next extinction will be different from the predictions made so far. To reach this conclusion, scientists analyzed precisely the previous extinctions.
New Extinction Won't Be So "Dramatic"
According to the study that came out in the journal Biogeosciences, extinctions due to climate change have already happened before. In this case, they happened both when temperatures dropped and when they rose.
However, the study demonstrates that in cases of low temperature, it was necessary to drop 7 °C for there to be extinction. Whereas, in the case of rising temperatures, 9 °C was required.
With this, it is possible to say that the next mass extinction will not reach the magnitude of the previous ones. This is because the most dramatic forecasts point to increases of up to 5°C due to the use of fossil fuels.
However, scientists do not use this information to relativize the climate crisis, as this increase is enough to eliminate humanity. In this case, the study points out that the speed with which these changes occur will be more lethal than the temperature itself.
