A Mass Extinction Event Is on The Horizon if Marine Life Keeps Fleeing The Equator
ANTHONY RICHARDSON ET AL., THE CONVERSATION
10 APRIL 2021
The tropical water at the equator is renowned for having the richest diversity of marine life on Earth, with vibrant coral reefs and large aggregations of tunas, sea turtles, manta rays, and whale sharks. The number of marine species naturally tapers off as you head towards the poles.
Ecologists have assumed this global pattern has remained stable over recent centuries – until now. Our recent study found the ocean around the equator has already become too hot for many species to survive, and that global warming is responsible.
Cooling the Planet? Image of depleted Ozone Layer Around the South Pole, Antarctica. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Grandiose plans to cool Earth, saving the planet from overheating by utilizing low-tech balloon flights sprinkling particles into the atmosphere to reflect solar radiation back into outer space have been delayed, nobody knows for sure when, or if, it’ll proceed.
The planet-cooling scheme referred to as Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment aka: SCoPEx headed by Harvard professor Fran Keutsch hopes to save humanity from hothouse Earth with plans to sprinkle aerosols of calcium carbonate and other substances at 12 miles above Earth’s surface to reflect solar radiation to outer space. The initial flight scheduled for June 2021 was set to test the balloon and gondola equipment sans release of aerosols until later in the year.
Since 1993, 15 species of bird and mammal are thought to have gone extinct, including China’s Yangtze river dolphin and the Pernambuco pygmy owl from Brazil. But these recent examples are a tiny fraction of what scientists estimate could disappear in the lifetimes of people living today. One million species spanning the full diversity of life on Earth are at risk of extinction.
Trying to comprehend this scale of loss can make the problem seem insurmountable. Having a plan of action can help overcome that sense of powerlessness, and in new research, we’ve created one.
We developed a tool that can help governments, businesses and even members of the public discover how to halt wildlife extinctions. We worked with an international team of more than 80 conservationists to produce the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration (STAR) metric – a number that measures how much certain actions are likely to help reduce the extinction risk for local species.
Marine life is fleeing the equator to cooler waters - history shows this could trigger a mass extinction event
8 Apr, 2021 05:20 AM
6 minutes to read As our oceans warm, marine species have tracked their preferred temperatures by moving towards the poles. Photo / File As our oceans warm, marine species have tracked their preferred temperatures by moving towards the poles. Photo / File
Other
When the same thing happened 252 million years ago, 90 per cent of all marine species died, write Anthony Richardson, Chhaya Chaudhary, David Schoeman and Mark John Costello for The Conversation.
The tropical water at the equator is renowned for having the richest diversity of marine life on Earth, with vibrant coral reefs and large aggregations of tuna, sea turtles, manta rays and whale sharks. The number of marine species naturally tapers off as you head towards the poles.
Anthony Richardson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Chhaya Chaudhary works for Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. During her PhD studies (2014- 2019), she received part- funding from the European Marine Observation Data Network (EMODnet) Biology project funded by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE), and received U21 Doctoral Mobility Scholarship from the University of Auckland in 2016.
David Schoeman receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Mark John Costello does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.