First estimates of extinction risk from climate change

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).