Effects of climate change on biomes

Predicated changes for Earth's biomes under two different climate change scenarios for 2081–2100. Top row is low emissions scenario, bottom row is high emissions scenario. Biomes are classified with Holdridge life zones system. A shift of 1 or 100% (darker colours) indicates that the region has fully moved into a completely different biome zone type.[1]

Climate change is already now altering biomes, adversely affecting terrestrial and marine ecosystems.[2][3] Climate change represents long-term changes in temperature and average weather patterns.[4][5] This leads to a substantial increase in both the frequency and the intensity of extreme weather events.[6] As a region's climate changes, a change in its flora and fauna follows.[7] For instance, out of 4000 species analyzed by the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, half were found to have shifted their distribution to higher latitudes or elevations in response to climate change.[8]

Furthermore, climate change may cause ecological disruption among interacting species, via changes in behaviour and phenology, or via climate niche mismatch.[9] For example, climate change can cause species to move in different directions, potentially disrupting their interactions with each other.[10][11]

Examples of effects on some biome types are provided in the following.[clarification needed][where?] Research into desertification is complex, and there is no single metric which can define all aspects. However, more intense climate change is still expected to increase the current extent of drylands on the Earth's continents. Most of the expansion will be seen over regions such as "southwest North America, the northern fringe of Africa, southern Africa, and Australia".[12]

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 conditions in the Taiga, which leads to a whole host of subsequent impacts.[15] Climate change has a direct impact on the productivity of the boreal forest, as well as its health and regeneration.[15]

Almost no other ecosystem is as vulnerable to climate change as coral reefs. Updated 2022 estimates show that even at a global average increase of 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) over pre-industrial temperatures, only 0.2% of the world's coral reefs would still be able to withstand marine heatwaves, as opposed to 84% being able to do so now, with the figure dropping to 0% at 2 °C (3.6 °F) warming and beyond.[16][17]

  1. ^ Kummu, Matti; Heino, Matias; Taka, Maija; Varis, Olli; Viviroli, Daniel (21 May 2021). "Climate change risks pushing one-third of global food production outside the safe climatic space". One Earth. 4 (5): 720–729. Bibcode:2021OEart...4..720K. doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2021.04.017. PMC 8158176. PMID 34056573.
  2. ^ "IPCC Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse gas fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems:Summary for Policymakers" (PDF).
  3. ^ "Summary for Policymakers — Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate". Retrieved 2019-12-23.
  4. ^ "Climate Change". National Geographic. 28 March 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  5. ^ Witze, Alexandra. "Why extreme rains are gaining strength as the climate warms". Nature. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  6. ^ "Summary for Policymakers". Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I contribution to the WGI Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (PDF). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 9 August 2021. p. SPM-23; Fig. SPM.6. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 November 2021.
  7. ^ Van der Putten, Wim H.; Macel, Mirka; Visser, Marcel E. (2010-07-12). "Predicting species distribution and abundance responses to climate change: why it is essential to include biotic interactions across trophic levels". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 365 (1549): 2025–2034. doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0037. PMC 2880132. PMID 20513711.
  8. ^ Parmesan, C., M.D. Morecroft, Y. Trisurat, R. Adrian, G.Z. Anshari, A. Arneth, Q. Gao, P. Gonzalez, R. Harris, J. Price, N. Stevens, and G.H. Talukdarr, 2022: Chapter 2: Terrestrial and Freshwater Ecosystems and Their Services. In Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke,V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 257-260 |doi=10.1017/9781009325844.004
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Sales et al (2020) was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Sales et al (2021) was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ "Explainer: Desertification and the role of climate change". Carbon Brief. 2019-08-06. Archived from the original on 2022-02-10. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference :6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference :7 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference forestry was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Dixon, Adele M.; Forster, Piers M.; Heron, Scott F.; Stoner, Anne M. K.; Beger, Maria (1 February 2022). "Future loss of local-scale thermal refugia in coral reef ecosystems". PLOS Climate. 1 (2): e0000004. doi:10.1371/journal.pclm.0000004. S2CID 246512448.
  17. ^ Dunne, Daisy (1 February 2022). "Last refuges for coral reefs to disappear above 1.5C of global warming, study finds". Carbon Brief.