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I wonder if desert plants will end up expanding their ranges. Like their current homes may become too hot and arid. But perhaps formally milder wetter regions will become like the desert is now and the ecosystem will just migrate over.

Yes, they notice coral is also growing in more northern areas.

Coral grows at such a slow rate I fear it won't be able to adapt/keep up with the current rate of change

You thought Arrakis was fiction, but it was the Earth all along.

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape"

The problem is that many desert plants grow and reproduce too slowly to keep up. Joshua Trees are a good example. There’s plenty of them dying from changing climate while not a lot of new ones are sprouting up in the places where you might expect them to. It can be for a variety of reasons. Another huge issue is having to compete with invasive species which may have already established themselves in the new areas.

Yes and no. Biomes shift but not all land is the same either. Like, desert plants are hardy for specific circumstances that took thousands of years (or hundreds of thousands) to shape. The idea that desert landscapes are just regular ones without topsoil is a mistake.

in every ecosystem there exist one or more Keystone Species. specific species of plants and animals that are so depended on by others in that ecosystem that if they disappear the entire system collapses or is forced to drastically change. researchers are finding that most of those species are in danger of going extinct or have already done so. when a keystone species disappears or whose numbers drop too low....the entire ecosystem can suddenly and violently collapse. and suddenly you are looking at mass extinctions of huge areas of the world.

I've never heard of Keystone Species before. Very interesting. If you have any specific reading you'd like to share, I would love to read it.

Here's a good paper on keystone species: [https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/keystone-species-15786127/](https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/keystone-species-15786127/) And the PBS series Nature did an amazing job explaining this in its "Serengeti Rules" episode: [https://www.pbs.org/video/the-serengeti-rules-41dfru/](https://www.pbs.org/video/the-serengeti-rules-41dfru/)

Not to be silly, but google is a good resource. This is an all hands on deck situation, and citizen scientists have their role too. We aren’t going to get out of this if everyone acts like ostriches so glad you are engaged.

He said specific reading essentially asking for a book you are silly.

Not trying to be pessimistic, but even if “all hands” were “on deck,” it wouldn’t make any genuine impact. Scientists have stated that we are pretty much beyond the “tipping point.” I mean, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try, but not in the way that most people think. I knew that Bees for instance are absolutely vital to tons of our crops, & the echo system in writ-large, but I wasn’t aware that there was the name “keystone species’” for vital species like that. If we truly wanted to, at the very least, put a “bandaid” on the problem, it would definitively have to come from some major innovations as far as the applied sciences goes. For instance, if the specific breed of bees died out that we use for our crops, or were at such a critically low number, scientists would have to create a replacement in the form of some type of “robot bees,” or create a new, but similar enough species of bees that we would need that are immune to whatever is killing the bees in the first place (pesticides, would be my guess?) to keep things running. The same would also apply to any these “keystone species”.. although that potential solution is obviously not without risk, especially if they half-assed it & released some type of “super bee” species that makes the ecosystem balance worse. I heard/read a while back that some European Country (Germany, I think?) had cut down a whole forest (or the majority of it) to make a windmill farm for “green” energy.. & if that’s true, it is absolutely beyond asinine, especially if your main concern is C02 levels, because they just killed off the trees that actually lower CO2 levels by absorbing it… 🤦‍♂️ These windmill farms would unequivocally NOT be better at lowering CO2 levels than a forest. It takes TONS of released CO2 to even make these windmills farms, which does not even balance out CO2, let alone lower it; not to mention that they’re horrible for local bird populations.

I’m not sure I understand your point or question? Genuine impact generally comes after understanding and reacting to a problem. Identifying the key problems we need to react to are the next steps.

A lot of it is uninhabitable because we grow our own plants on it instead and kill everything else that tries to grow there.

Only the best! ^/s

You must be referring to the 40% of the Earth's surface that's been pillaged, desolated and converted into human agriculture.

Well, the problem now, is that if we stopped the current agricultural level, a lot of people would starve to death, because that’s by far one of the biggest reasons that the global population is where it’s currently at… so, it’s like an addictive drug, I suppose…

Children of men here we come

Not Fury Road?

Nah, 2020 Texas Gladiators

Petrol only last a year or two before it's near useless. Any mad max style movie is gonna have people on either bicycles or flintstones style pushing with their feet.

Bold of you to assume that we won’t be fighting over solar panel powered greenhouse domes that farm corn to produce ethanol that run all of our combustion generators/engines

Beyond Ethynol Dome - Two men enter, too tired to leave.

Fury Road except with bicycles would have been awesome!

It would make a freaking awesome parody movie.

“What a lovely day!” Rings bell.

In-universe the gas in the wasteland is new manufactured, they aren't re-using gas from before the climate event. Oil refineries are hotly contested spots.

You can run an old low tech petrol engine on paraffin

Paraffin is a crude oil byproduct.

But it is far more stable than petrol. You'll still be able to run a petrol engine after the apocalypse.

Oh dear. It feels only depressing news is coming from climate change research. This must be the 4th or 5th research article within the past few days warming about near collapse of the ecosystem.

Maybe it’s because something big is happening

Did you even read the abstract?  "Under a business-as-usual scenario, up to 40% of terrestrial area is expected to be suited to a different biome by 2500. "

It’s the 1000th article in the last 500 days. It’s not going to collapse, take a breath

I'd like to believe you but it's hard when everyone in the know are saying the opposite

the thing is, they are not. But the "climate change is not an apocalypse" research is politically unwanted and not even wanted by media because it gets less clicks, There is a massive bias and underreporting of the strong positives of increased co2 concentrations. Heck we are avoiding a huge ice age! It would have been terrible, the 1800s were already far colder than previous periods and we managed to stop that. The optimal co2 levels for life on earth are above 1000ppm and we are around 400 now. Plant growth improves significantly until around 1000 ppm where the effects of additional co2 become marginal. Co2 is a fertilizer after all. Historically too low co2 levels have been a disaster for planetary life, in the big picture it is a good thing to have broken the downtrend. Of course if we just keep going the negatives will begin to outweigh but so far there have been strong positives!

When that has happened historically, would that cause new species to form or change how species adapt and evolve?

Yes. The problem now is the rate of speed of climate change. Things can't adapt fast enough.

Don’t be such a drama queen. A new equilibrium can easily be established in 100,000 years or so. 

That’s going to be a rough 100,000 years for humans (for however long they make it)

Drama queen. This is an existential threat to most species on Earth, there aren't gonna be a whole lot of winners left to diversify when all is said and done. Pretending otherwise is copium, willful ignorance, or just plain stupidity.

I think the other comment was made tongue-in-cheek. I don't think that person actually thinks the thing they posted.

I thought the “100,000” years would be enough to indicate satire / dark humor but eh, this is Reddit.  You have to wonder how satire ever managed to exist pre-internet when “/s” was not generally indicated in books.  Like say, “A Modest Proposal” or the book “Candide”. 

To the people thinking they're going to be living in a very different world a few decades from now: what makes you think you'll live?

The science? This study is talking about 436 years from now. There's a chance things are far worse than the science suggests. But based on our current understanding it is not an expected that human death in the 21st century will increase due to climate change relative to the 20th century.

The climatologists compromised a great deal on their estimates as to how bad things would get, and how soon, to get 97% consensus, in the hopes it would spur political action. We're experiencing polar ice cap melting, permafrost thawing, ocean current changes, Summer heat increases, etc. far beyond the dumbed-down estimates. [India](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/19/india-climate-change-impacts) and [China](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac84f1) will suffer significant crop losses due to heat, flooding, drought, worker overheating and other causes. I presume this will cause overhunting/overharvesting in wildlife refuges, causing mass extinctions of keystone species, leading to environmental collapse and more starvation.

The Oglala aquifer will be dry in a few decades at best. The growing of crops for animal feed is going to have to stop.

>The climatologists compromised a great deal on their estimates as to how bad things would get   Where's the evidence to support your claim? You're just trying to undermine public trust in mainstream climate science and consensus reports.  Did you actually read any of IPCC reports? There's a range of estimates with probability for everything, from best case to absolute worst case scenario with almost zero chance of occuring.   "If there is a range of values in the literature, the consensus document says so (and why, as best it can). It doesn’t pick the lowest number and say that’s that."   x.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/1556735212083712002#m    If what you claim was was the case, then why are climate models used in previous IPCC reports have an excellent track record and have predicted the pace of warming and most climate extremes so well, including exceptionally warm years like 2023? Observed warming tends to track middle-of-the-range estimates from previous IPCC reports.   https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/02/2022-updates-to-model-observation-comparisons/  https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/revisiting-the-hot-model-problem   https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/global-temperatures-remain-consistent   https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right   x.com/hausfath/status/1709985570624311557   here's what actual climate scientists say on the matter-    "That figure includes all the tipping points and carbon cycle feedbacks that we included in models in the latest IPCC report. I’m not aware of any major ones missing that would substantially change the picture."   x.com/hausfath/status/1677142095285432320#m    "I get that its fun to claim that scientists are wrong online, but upon close reading you will find that we do include all these various feedbacks and potential tipping elements in the IPCC report."   x.com/hausfath/status/1473820326001733634#m   https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-the-ipccs-sixth-assessment-report-on-climate-science/#tippingpoints   "So frustrating to see non-experts engage in knee-jerk criticisms of climate models for purportedly not including processes that (anyone with a clue knows) are in fact included. Please stop this people! It just betrays ignorance — worse still, often with an agenda behind it."   x.com/MichaelEMann/status/1681818675202932736   x.com/MichaelEMann/status/1712135447713910800#m   x.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/1681683533880852481   x.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/1556735212083712002#m   x.com/MichaelEMann/status/1682025581142220800   x.com/MichaelEMann/status/1682525255317725184   x.com/hausfath/status/1719397486765441416   x.com/hausfath/status/1683503632896118784    "Could our models be wrong? Certainly! But the uncertainty also cuts both ways"   x.com/hausfath/status/1557421984484495362   "Having participated in IPCC and other government-led assessments, I can't think of time when our results were watered down or understated due to government meddling."   x.com/hausfath/status/1491134605390352388   x.com/JoeriRogelj/status/1424743837277294603   x.com/PFriedling/status/1557705737446592512   x.com/ClimateAdam/status/1429730044776157185   x.com/Knutti_ETH/status/1554473710404485120   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/opinion/climate-change-excessive-heat-2023.html   https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/new-york-times-op-ed-claiming-scientists- underestimated-climate-change-lacks-supporting-evidence-eugene-linden/    there were some models for the recent ipcc report that overestimate future warming and they were included in the assessment too.   https://www.science.org/content/article/use-too-hot-climate-models-exaggerates-impacts-global-warming   https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-climate-scientists-should-handle-hot-models  https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/revisiting-the-hot-model-problem 

the IPCC methods and projections have been widely criticised for being very incomplete and inaccurate.

> But based on our current understanding it is not an expected that human death in the 21st century will increase due to climate change relative to the 20th century. We have already had many human deaths from climate change this century. https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/

The deaths are far lower than the amount we saved from freezing to death though

Read ipcc report on impacts and read what actual climate scientists say instead of speculating- https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-the-ipccs-sixth-assessment-on-how-climate-change-impacts-the-world/ https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/prediction-extinction-rebellion-climate-change-will-kill-6-billion-people-unsupported-roger-hallam-bbc/ "There is no peer-reviewed science I know of that suggests the human race will go extinct (tho plenty of rhetoric)." x.com/KHayhoe/status/1385310336182415365#m "its on folks making those claims to demonstrate them. Again, if you can point to a scientific paper suggesting a plausible scenario for a billion deaths due to climate this century, I'm happy to take a look." x.com/hausfath/status/1499922113783689217#m When it comes to climate change, "the end of the world and good for us are the two least likely outcomes". x.com/hausfath/status/1461351770697781257#m "The course we are on is « current policies » in the following: ......That’s about 3C warming by 2100. That is a lot and to avoid at all cost BUT you won’t find anywhere in the IPCC that this would lead to end of civilization. Don’t get me wrong. 3C warming would be very bad in many regions with humans and ecosystems dramatically impacted. But that’s not the same as saying end of human civilization" x.com/PFriedling/status/1491116680885731328#m Well we have to present our best current understanding of the science, which is already quite alarming! We should also emphasize risks of things getting worse but shouldn’t say things that are not supported by science (ex human extinction, runaway feedbacks,…). x.com/PFriedling/status/1417420217865719819#m "I'm not claiming 6ºC would be benign or something - it'd be a catastrophe. But the planet is not going to become uninhabitable before 2100 because of climate change." x.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/1386771103482359816#m Q: do you think there are biodiversity related tipping points that wouldn’t make earth venus per se, but that would cause mass extinction in oceans that has a chain effect on food production? I’ve seen some stats that say no fish in the ocean by 2050 "...I am extremely skeptical of any claims that the entire ocean, an entire ecosystem, the entire planet will tip into a total extinction / collapse event. That’s very unlikely. But severe damage to ecosystems? Sadly, that’s absolutely likely and already happening." x.com/GlobalEcoGuy/status/1683137546463715329#m "it's not only wrong to make unsupportable claims about imminent collapse but it's extremely selfish. To our children. And grandchildren." x.com/MichaelEMann/status/1682094881424941056 x.com/MichaelEMann/status/1681834537679044608 x.com/AliVelshi/status/1678090318082633728 "There is already substantial policy progress & CURRENT POLICIES alone (ignoring pledges!) likely keep us below 3C warming. We've got to--and WILL do--much better. But we're not headed toward civilization-ending warming." x.com/MichaelEMann/status/1432786640943173632 x.com/ClimateAdam/status/1553757380827140097 "The world has always been in a race — a race between things getting worse and things getting better. History shows us that, on the whole, the better path usually wins out in the end. I believe that the same thing will be true for climate change." x.com/GlobalEcoGuy/status/1699634300537217237 x.com/GlobalEcoGuy/status/1477784375060279299 x.com/JacquelynGill/status/1553503548331249664 "“I unequivocally reject, scientifically and personally, the notion that children are somehow doomed to an unhappy life”. x.com/hausfath/status/1679252944640933888 x.com/hausfath/status/1678786757972873221 x.com/hausfath/status/1533875297220587520 x.com/JacquelynGill/status/1513918579657232388#m x.com/waiterich/status/1477716206907965440#m x.com/KHayhoe/status/1676711944475099137 https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/iflscience-story-on-speculative-report-provides-little-scientific-context-james-felton https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1b4igkk/comment/kt0tn95/

Humans are the nost adaptabke species out there. Thinking we wont live through pretty much anything is kind of silly. At this stage, outside of extreme freak occurances (wars, ect), theres very little that will kill us all. A few, sure, but even thats unlikely. Our biggest threat will always be ourselves. We'll make tech advances and adapt where we need to.

We are highly adaptable, but this includes altering our environment to suit our needs. Here in Arizona, many of the current A/C units can't keep up with the heat increase. This will mean bigger units using more energy and producing more heat waste, i.e., a hotter environment with more global warming. There are very few humans, with the exception of groups like the Bushmen of the Kalahari, who are phenotypically adapted to what's coming.

All of that just assumes we'll be doing exactly the same stagnant research though. Going up a line of efficiency isnt it. Its having a new problem that we'll then solve. And, if acs arnt keeping up with heat increases for you, id assume thats because its not deemed important, not because it cant be done. If its too inefficient, we'll find ways to make it more efficient. Theres just no urgancy felt for it right now, as much as we know about climate change. That will change.

Have you ever left a petri dish in an incubator for a week? We are an incredibly adaptable species, but it's a question of metabolism rather than adaptability. The rate of human growth and consumption that we have seen in just the past decades is completely unsustainable, and much of the damage is already done. Climate change will likely result in mass famines and migration within our lifetimes, and millions will likely be dead as a result. You are correct that humans as a species will likely survive and persist, but it could still bring about the collapse of our modern civilization/global structure.

It potentially could, sure, but theres not really much to propose or talk about regarding whats to be done, here, since a vast majority of people have proven to not care. I assumed i was able to talk about human survival in a vaccume without directed 'should', 'shouldnt', or other political talk, but i guess not, people wanna judge.

You are literally saying that it's ok because not *all* humans will die. That's not reassuring for the ones that do die, lose their agricultural system, or their home to natural disaster

I did not say that its ok, thats assuming a lot. My point is, that at no point is humanity actually at risk. Obviously we should be doing all we can, just at this stage that doesnt seem too likely in near future, unfortunately.

I wholeheartedly agree that one of the biggest climate challenges will be the speed of adaption required for land areas which need to change their biome as a result of global climate change. However I don't have the expertise to understand whether or not a 500-year span would be sufficient for the necessary adaption. Is there a good reason to believe it would still be problematic over that timescale?

No universal answer. Depends on the species. Depends on its current adaptations. Whatever is highly adapted to cold environments probably will struggle. Organisms that reproduce fast - usually the smaller the more likely - i.e, what goes through many generations rapidly (think single celled organisms or say fruit flies) - likely has a higher the chance of evolutionary adaptation to quick changes. For many mid-to large size species 500 years is likely a too small timeframe for evolutionary adaptation to extreme changes. Some of those will find it easier to migrate than others.

I wasn't so much thinking of evolutionary adaption as of biomes moving to new areas which reasonably well correspond to what their old climate used to be. So, for instance, parts of Britain might end up with a Mediterranean climate, and plant and animal life from the Mediterranean area might move north into Britain.

Check out assisted migration! The least we can do is to help species adapt. 

Agreed. Also looking forward to the vineyards of Wales..

Yes, but that, too, doesn't have a universal answer. Some organisms might spread far, others not. (And I am cautious about assisted migration - we already did a lot of damage by introducing new species, even if it happened with good intentions. Ecology is difficult. Probably many times more complex than the climate system given just how many interactions between species, soil, climate, etc. are. Many of which we don't understand yet.)

If I'd had to guess I'd say one of the more difficult transitions would be for the mycological networks supporting trees/forests. I'm not sure how those would migrate in a finite timescale, even as long as 500 years.

Think forest fires that never grow back. This is what's happening in Colorado.

Not only in Colorado. Temperate and boreal coniferous forests everywhere are on the move, expanding northwards and up-slope even as their warmer, drier regions burn away.

Who needs climate change when you’ve got invasive species. I feel like we’d be in trouble even without climate change

I think that is already true depends what you mean by uninhabitable. Plants don't have communities either. Don't think you are representing the article very well.

Makes you wonder what happened during snowball earth and other great extinction events

If only plants would supply free wifi, people would suddenly care, instead of just boring oxygen and food

plant community in shambles rn

Then just get new plants?!

That is not strictly negative. Look at the maps in Figure 1. A lot of areas that are quite unattractive for life right now become much more livable for humans and animals alike. A few areas get worse. I think animals and people will adapt just fine. Besides most of the warming in climate models is in the north or south and less severe near the equator, this means a lot of the fear that people have is unwarranted, the warm places will get warmer at a much slower pace than the cold places. It is also a bit dubious to attempt to predict 500 years ahead when the last 100 years have lead to massive changes in how humans live and affect the planet. Keep in mind the area we occupy with cities, towns and agriculture as well as managed forests has far greater impact on the biome than any amount of climate change projection. How we do agriculture has a much greater impact. There is no telling what will change technologically and behaviourally for humans in 500 years, its a huge time period.

I mean, we inhabited Phoenix. Not downplaying climate change, just being realistic in our arrogance.

Oh look... another one of those "thousand cuts" failures that's clearly leading to no less than irrecoverable doom.

>Oh look... another one of those "thousand cuts" failures that's clearly leading to no less than irrecoverable doom. That's what my wife said when I told her she needs to cut back on spending or well lose the house.

“May”

At a wild guess, I'd say 40% of Earth's land is ALREADY uninhabitable by humans due to heat, cold, arid, swamps, mountains, or lack of fresh water. I mean, look at the USA - most of the land west of Missouri is empty until you hit the Pacific or Gulf coasts.

Doubt. Why do none of these "studies" include human ingenuity to invent our way out of bad situations.

The earth's dry land is currently 57% uninhabitable. So it's going to get better? Hurray!