Nature:
The rate of change in Earth's climate zones will increase with
rising global temperature, according to
a
study published online this week in
Nature. Irina Mahlstein of the University of Colorado
Boulder and colleagues are the first to analyze the pace of
climate change in reference to Earth's various climate zones.
The researchers used global mean temperature and precipitation
data to run several different climate-modeling scenarios. In
one model, the pace of shifting climate zones nearly doubled by
the end of the century and affected 20% of all land area. If
that were to occur, Earth would become progressively warmer and
drier. As a result, plant and animal species would have
increasingly less time to adapt to the changes and might risk
extinction.
