Multiple metrics of climate change reveal unappreciated impacts on biodiversity

A new study has shed fresh light on how climate change will affect global biodiversity by exploring different measurements of climate change together. Scientists use climate change metrics, such as changes in seasonality or the emergence of new climates, to predict how climate change will impact biodiversity levels. These climate change metrics are typically studied in isolation, so it is difficult to accurately predict how changes in climate might impact levels of biodiversity. For the very first time, a study published today has compared climate change metrics together, instead of in isolation, on a global scale, to look at how biodiversity will be impacted. This unique comparison reveals that when multiple dimensions of climate change are studied together, different regions emerge as threatened by different aspects of climate change. For example, this new research predicts that tropical areas are set to experience novel climates, much hotter than today's tropical climates, that are not currently experienced by species anywhere on Earth. Such climates are projected to affect up to 62 per cent of the world's tropical areas.