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First Estimates of Extinction Risk from Climate Change

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Saving a Million Species

Abstract

This chapter reviews the first study that provided an international assessment of the risks to biodiversity associated with climate change. Rapid acceleration of information at the end of the twentieth century showed that the distributions of terrestrial species were responding to climate change (Parmesan et al., 1999; Pounds et al., 1999; Thomas and Lennon, 1999). Combined with the extreme El Niño event of 1998 that caused major bleaching damage to coral reefs, this work confirmed that climate variation and climate change were likely to have major impacts on biodiversity (Sala et al., 2000; IPCC, 2001; Walther et al., 2002; Parmesan and Yohe, 2003).

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Acknowledgments

I would particularly like to thank all of my coauthors who were involved in the work that contributed to the original 2004 papers: Alison Cameron, Rhys Green, Michel Bakkenes, L.J. Beaumont, Yvonne Collingham, Barend Erasmus, Marinez de Siqueira, Alan Grainger, Lee Hannah, Lesley Hughes, Brian Huntley, Albert van Jaarsveld, Guy Midgley, Lera Miles, Miguel Ortega-Huerta, Town Peterson, Oliver Phillips, and Steve Williams.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of York, York, PA, US

    Chris D. Thomas

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  1. Chris D. Thomas
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Lee Hannah

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Thomas, C.D. (2012). First Estimates of Extinction Risk from Climate Change. In: Hannah, L. (eds) Saving a Million Species. Island Press/Center for Resource Economics. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-182-5_2

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