Spencer Morgan

Climate Change and Its Contribution to High Extinction Rates

Since the late 19th century, human activity has greatly altered the global climate.

Industrial activities have raised “carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 414 parts

per million in the last 150 years” creating a greenhouse effect that has raised the planet’s average

surface temperature by “2.12 degrees Fahrenheit (1.18 degrees Celsius)” (Global Climate

Change: Vital Signs of the Planet). This greenhouse effect and the rising of the planet’s

temperature have had and will continue to have negative effects on the planet and its ecosystems.

Due to climate change, “Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier,

plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner,” and there has been “loss of

sea ice, accelerated sea-level rise and longer, and more intense heat waves” (Global Climate

Change). These changes have been disrupting ecosystems and harming flora and fauna. As we

have seen the great change in the global climate we have also seen a change in the rate of

extinction among Earth’s species. “Judging from the fossil record, the baseline extinction rate is

about one species per every one million species per year” and “scientists agree that today’s

extinction rate is hundreds, or even thousands, of times higher than the natural baseline rate”

(“Extinction Over Time”). The correlation between the drastic increase in extinction rates and

humanity’s impact on the global climate is unprecedented. This leads us to ask the question, to

what extent has climate change contributed to the increase in the rate of extinction?

First, let us explore how the past and present rates of extinction are determined. In order

to determine the extinction rate of the past, paleontologists analyze rock layers, or strata, looking

at the first and last occurrences of a species’ fossils, and radiometric dating is used to get an
approximate date for that species extinction. However, “paleontologists have long recognized

that times of first and last occurrence in the fossil record rarely coincide with time of origination

and extinction; instead, observed stratigraphic ranges almost certainly represent an underestimate

of the true range,” creating the Jaanusson effect, the first occurrence is delayed past the true time

of origination, and the Signor-Lipps effect, the last occurrence precedes the time of extinction

(Collen and Turvey). These effects are caused by “both temporal and geographical variations in

the likelihood of preservation due to the vagaries of the fossil record” like sampling bias, facies

bias, and unconformity bias. (Collen and Turvey). There are a few ways in which paleontologists

account for these phenomena. One method is using the extreme values of 2σ intervals of Carbon-

14 to create simple uncertainty periods that “delimit the temporal range in which an extinction

event occurred” (Collen and Turvey). Another way is assuming that “fossilization is random, and

[basing] estimates on the size of internal gaps between records in the observed range” (Collen

and Turvey).

In order to determine the modern extinction rate, scientists look at sighting records of

animals rather than at the fossil record, and “extensive survey work is typically used to further

investigate recent suspected extinctions” (Collen and Turvey). Survey work, however, can prove

to be too costly and, “more fundamentally, absence of evidence for the continued survival of an

extremely rare or even merely cryptic species does not automatically constitute evidence of its

absence” (Collen and Turvey). Because of this, determining the extinction of a modern species

comes down to asking the difficult-to-answer question, “how long should a species go unseen

before we can safely call it extinct” (Collen and Turvey)? The International Union for the

Conservation of Nature says that a species can be considered extinct when “there is no

reasonable doubt that the last individual has died and that this is reliant on exhaustive surveys in
known and/or expected habitat at appropriate times throughout its historical range” (Collen and

Turvey).

Now that we have an understanding of the ways in which we have determined the rate of

extinction throughout the Earth’s history, we can begin to look at how that has been affected by

climate change in today’s world. To do so, we must look at how climate change has played a role

in mass extinctions in Earth’s history. At the end of the Permian Era (252 million years ago), the

third and largest of five mass extinctions in Earth’s history took place (“Extinction Over Time”).

In what is now Siberia, there were massive volcanic eruptions that heated huge amounts of

carbon-rich rocks like coal, releasing incredible amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the

atmosphere. These greenhouse gasses caused global temperatures to rise by approximately 14.5

degrees Fahrenheit (“End-Permian Extinction”). Also, large amounts of the released carbon

dioxide would have been absorbed into the ocean, making the seawater toxic, changing the

chemistry to make it difficult for organisms like coral and other marine invertebrates to grow

shells, and lowering the amount of oxygen in the water (“End Permian Extinction”). A study

done by Stanford University posits that oxygen levels in the ocean dropped by almost 80% and

“warming leading to insufficient oxygen explains more than half of the marine diversity losses”

while “other changes, such as acidification or shifts in the productivity of photosynthetic

organisms, likely acted as additional causes” (Hickey). As seen through the End-Permian

Extinction, sudden drastic changes in the climate and increases in global temperature can very

easily lead to unusually high rates of extinction.

However, climate change being the major factor in the End-Permian Extinction does not,

alone, mean that climate change is the cause for today’s high rate of extinction. To determine

that, we must look at modern cases of extinction and the way that climate change and
temperature rise have affected today’s habitats and species. There are many ways in which

climate change contributes to the extinction of species. The rising temperatures, for many

species, have exceeded “the physiological tolerance of the species” and lead to mass deaths or

extinction (Cahill et al.). In other cases, like that of the “spiny lizards (Sceloporus), local

extinctions seem to occur because higher temperatures restrict surface activity during the spring

breeding season to a daily time window that is overly short” (Cahill et al.). Changes in

precipitation due to climate change also lead to extinction. Warming temperature and changes in

precipitation patterns decrease water availability, causing death and local extinction to both

terrestrial and aquatic species (Cahill et al.). Climate change also leads to higher rates of fires,

which destroy habitats and decrease available resources, leading to local extinction for many

species (Cahil et al.).

Climate change and the rising temperature in itself are not what kills species the most on

a large scale, but rather the positive synergies between climate change and dangerous events that

arise from the changing climate. In the past, climate change and the response of biodiversity to

climate change happened “over thousands to millions of years, whereas anthropogenic global

warming is now occurring at a greatly accelerated rate” (Brook, Sodhi, Bradshaw). One of the

ways that climate change has contributed to extinction is by “[facilitating] invasions by non-

indigenous species that act as novel competitors or predators to stress resident species further,”

and this issue is amplified by species being driven out of habitats or competing with species that

moved in having to “contend with heavily modified landscapes dominated by agriculture, roads

and urban development” (Brook, Sodhi, Bradshaw). Competing for resources (space, food,

water, etc.) with an invasive species lowers availability and places intense stress on both the

invader and invaded. The already decreasing resource availability from agriculture,
deforestation, and human expansion, causes the death of many animals and can be a major

driving factor in the extinction of a species.

Another way in which climate change has lead to massive extinctions is through

pathogens and epidemics. At first glance, these things seem to be unrelated. However, “shifts in

temperature or related variables often influence disease dynamics” because, as temperatures rise,

they “cross thresholds for certain pathogens, triggering outbreaks” and many diseases “become

more lethal, or spread more readily, as the Earth warms” (Pounds et al.). A climate-change-

activated increase in the spread of pathogens leading to the extinction of species has recently

been seen in Costa Rica among amphibians. Seventeen years ago, “in the mountains of Costa

Rica, the Monteverde harlequin frog (Atelopus sp.) vanished along with the golden toad (Bufo

periglenes)” and since then “67% of the 110 or so species of Atelopus…have met the same fate,

and a pathogenic chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) is implicated” (Pounds et al.).

Scientists are unsure exactly how this specific extinction is affected by warming climates,

meaning they have not determined if amphibians are being made more susceptible to disease

because of the warming climate or if the pathogen is being strengthened itself by the warming

climate (Pound et al.). Despite this uncertainty, researchers have found that in unusually high

years there has been more loss of species, and “results confirm that none of the observed

relationships is likely to have arisen by chance” which indicates “a high probability that large-

scale warming is affecting local ecology” (Pound et al.) This issue is not exclusive to amphibians

though, “climate-driven epidemics are an immediate threat to biodiversity” and “greenhouse

warming and the resultant intensification of the hydrological cycle, together with aerosol

pollution” is threatening species survival (Pound et. al).

 The current rate of extinction is hundreds, or thousands, of times higher than the baseline

one extinction per year for every million species. There are many factors that contribute to this

high rate of extinction, including human expansion, deforestation, industrialization, pollution,

overuse, and others. Climate change, however, is a leading factor in today’s unusually high rate

of extinction. Climate change was the leading cause of the End-Permian Extinction 225 million

years ago, the largest extinction in Earth’s history. Human industrial activity has drastically

increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and raised the global average surface

temperature by 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit, similar to how volcanic eruptions released large

amounts of greenhouse gasses and drastically raised global temperatures in the End-Permian

Extinction. We have also seen climate change cause extinctions through raising temperature past

tolerance, fire, precipitation decrease, by driving the movement of invading species, increasing

the spread of pathogens and how lethal they are, and many other ways. While climate change is a

great contributor to the high rate of extinction, it is most effective in causing extinction on a large

scale through synergizing with other extinction drivers.

 Works Cited

Brook, Barry; Sodhi, Navjot S.; Bradshaw, Correy J.A. “Synergies of Extinction Drivers Under

Climate Change.” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 23, no. 8, 2008,

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016953470800195X.

Cahill et al. “How Does Climate Change Cause Extinction.” The Royal Society, Jan 7, 2013,

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2012.1890#:~:text=For%20example

%2C%20decreasing%20precipitation%20may,stages%20%5B29%2C30%5D.

Collen, Ben and Turvey, Samuel T. “Probalistic Methods for Determining Extinction

Chronologies.” Oxford University Press, 2009, https://books.google.com/books?

hl=en&lr=&id=4QIUDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA181&dq=how+is+extinction+rate+d

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%20determined&f=false.

“End Permian Extinction.” Sam Noble Museum, https://samnoblemuseum.ou.edu/understanding-

extinction/mass-extinctions/end-permian-extinction/#:~:text=What%20caused%20the

%20extinction%3F,a%20huge%20outpouring%20of%20lava.

“Extinction Over Time.” Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History,

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/paleontology/extinction-over-

time#:~:text=Extinction%20Rates&text=Regardless%2C%20scientists%20agree%20that

%20today's,one%20million%20species%20per%20year.
Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet, https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/.

Hickey, Hannah. “What Caused Earth’s Biggest Mass Extinction?” Stanford Earth,

https://earth.stanford.edu/news/what-caused-earths-biggest-mass-extinction#gs.12eacq.

Pounds, J Allen, et al. “Widespread Amphibian Extinctions from Epidemic Disease Driven by

Global Warming.” Nature 439, 161-167, 2006, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04246.