Global warming may cause biodiversity loss

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- A U.S. analysis suggests even if greenhouse gas emissions are fixed at 2005 levels, there could be substantial biodiversity loss and glacial melt.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers at the University of California-San Diego say the Earth will warm about 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels even under extremely conservative greenhouse-gas emission scenarios and assuming efforts to resolve particulate pollution are successful. But the scientists say that amount of warming would lead to widespread loss of biodiversity, deglaciation and other adverse consequences in nature.

Coping with such circumstances, the researchers said, will require "transformational research for guiding the path of future energy consumption."

"This paper demonstrates the major challenges society will have to face in dealing with a problem that now seems unavoidable," said Professor V. Ramanathan, the study's lead author. "We hope that governments will not be forced to consider trade-offs between air pollution abatement and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions."

The analysis by Ramanathan and co-author Yan Feng, a Scripps postdoctoral research fellow, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.