Large areas of wildlife habitats worldwide are likely to be hit by multiple extreme weather events by 2050, according to a new study. The scale of impact will depend on how quickly the world cuts emissions.
Scientists modelled changes in exposure to droughts, heatwaves, river floods, and wildfires for 33,936 terrestrial vertebrate species across 794 ecoregions. By 2050, under a medium-high emissions scenario, an average 74% of the area within species' current geographic ranges is projected to be exposed to heatwaves, 16% to wildfires, 8% to droughts, and 3% to river floods.
Species-rich areas in the Amazon basin, Africa, and Southeast Asia are among the most exposed. The compounding of these events is where the real danger lies, as a single heatwave, flood, or fire can devastate animal populations, and when multiple extreme events follow one another, their effects on species and habitats multiply.
Rapid emissions cuts could still largely prevent this trajectory. In a scenario where warming begins to reverse in the latter part of the century, habitats exposed to multiple extreme event types by 2085 would be limited to just 9%.
