Professor Stephen Schneider, climatologist at Stanford University points to the \"inertia\" in the Earth's climate system causing a lag between the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere and the time it takes to make a corresponding warming of the oceans.
There may already be enough greenhouse gas in the atmosphere to ensure that in years to come polar bears at the N Pole and Penguins at the S Pole will be unable to make their seasonal migrations on pack ice in pursuit of food. The extinction time bomb may already be ticking.
Bill Hare of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Germany) has predicted a number of damaging effects on biodiversity linked to the level of temperature rise. Around 2C above pre-industrial levels these effects include...
At around 3C above pre-industrial temperatures which may occur around the year 2070 the effects would be catastrophic with species extinction commonplace.
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Alaskan fires consumed over one million acres of forest in 2004.
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