As the ice caps melt, the polar bear has become the poster child for climate change, but species in the tropics may actually be just as much at risk. According to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, if carbon emissions are not reduced over the next 100 years, climatic zones that currently do not exist anywhere on earth could develop over more than a third of the planet’s land surface–mostly around the tropics and the poles. Another half of global land area could see its current climate pattern replaced by a climate patterns that currently exist elsewhere on earth. If emissions are reduced, the new climates would likely cover between 4 and 20 percent of the earth’s land area. Stephen Jackson at the University of Wyoming, one of the authors of the study, says that “we are going to be seeing climates that certainly are completely outside the range of modern human experience.”
Source: J.R. Minkel. 100-Year forecast: New Climate Zones Humans Have Never Seen. Scientific American, March 26. Photo: The endangered Sumatran orangutan is endemic to Indonesia, one of the locations expected to experience previously unknown climates.
