The Future of Mammals: Predicting Earth’s Climate Change and its Impact on Life

Liputan6.com, Jakarta – It has been around 250 million years since animals similar to reptiles evolved into mammals. Now, a group of scientists predicts that mammals may only have about 250 million years left.

The researchers created virtual simulations of Earth’s future, as models have projected human-caused global warming within the next century. By utilizing data on the movement of continents around the world and fluctuations in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, the new research projects far into the future.

Launching from The New York TimesFriday (29/9/2023), Alexander Farnsworth, a paleoclimatology scientist at the University of Bristol who led the team, stated that the planet is likely to experience warming which will make it no longer habitable for mammals, including humans on land.

The researchers found that this climate change was caused by three main factors, namely an increase in the intensity of sunlight, geographical shifts in continents, and an increase in carbon dioxide levels.

“It’s a triple whammy that becomes insurmountable,” says Dr. Farnsworth. He and his colleagues published their research Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

For decades, researchers have attempted to predict the fate of life on Earth. Astronomers project that the sun will experience a gradual increase in brightness, and will probably engulf the Earth in an estimated time of about 7.6 billion years.

However, there is a high probability that life will not survive until then. When the sun releases more energy to Earth, the atmosphere will become warmer. This will cause more water to evaporate from the oceans and land.

Water vapor is a substance that can store heat strongly, so it will retain more heat. In the next two billion years, temperatures will probably rise to the point where entire oceans could evaporate.

2023-09-30 12:10:00
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