Species Living In 17 Mountains Face Risk Of Extinction Due To Climate Changes

(Photo : Getty Images/WIKUS DE WET)

Species living in 17 mountains around the world are at risk of extinction due to the high rate of warming triggered by climate change.

High Climate Velocity

Mountainous regions cover 25% of the Earth's land surface and are rich in biodiversity, owing in part to severe climate gradients and complicated topography.

These places have a high concentration of endemic species and are essential refuges for lowland species confronting anthropogenic climate change.

An international team led by Research Fellow Sheng-Feng Shen of the Biodiversity Research Center of Academia Sinica in Taiwan created a new methodology for estimating climate velocities, highlighting 17 mountain regions at high risk from global warming, including the Brazilian highlands, Iran-Pakistan region, Western America and Mexico, Mediterranean basin, and Northeast Asia.

Climate velocities measure the rate at which climate conditions change, demonstrating how quickly animals must move to remain in their survivable environments.

This study highlighted the critical need for methods tailored specifically for biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation in these environments.

Setting up meteorological observation stations in high areas is difficult, resulting in a global gap in long-term climate data for mountain regions. This gap, combined with the diverse geography, has limited comprehension of warming trends.

Sheng-Feng Shen said that this study combines atmospheric science theories, taking into account two significant aspects that determine climatic speeds in mountainous areas: surface warming and humidity.

The approach compensates for the lack of station data by assessing temperature isotherm variations in alpine regions as a result of climate change.

The study discovered 17 mountain locations with especially high climate velocities, spanning from Alaska-Yukon to Sumatra and from the Mediterranean to Japan, which overlapped with many biodiversity hotspots.

I-Ching Chen, the study's corresponding author and an associate professor at National Cheng Kung University, emphasized the significant gap in migration speeds among mountain species.

"Even in regions not listed in the 17 identified mountain areas, species may still face the risk of not keeping up with climate velocities, and this makes the early establishment of monitoring networks necessary," I-Ching Chen said.

More Weather Station In Mountains

Dr. Wei-Ping Chan, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University's Rowland Institute, noted that in many humid regions, warming is less obvious, but climatic velocity can be significant.

Chan stressed that Taiwan's hilly regions, like Japan's, are more susceptible to humidity-induced high velocities than continental parts.

The research reveals that accounting for humidity is crucial to adequately understanding the variety of temperature isothermal shifts in mountainous places around the world.

"The lack of meteorological observation data from mountains is both the most valuable and the biggest challenge of our study," he added.

Furthermore, because of scale disparities, global data cannot be used to make local forecasts. The distinct characteristics of various mountain regions, as well as the lack of local data, mean that just because an area is not marked does not mean it is untouched.

As a result, the study underlines the importance of establishing more weather stations in mountains in order to better understand the current situation and address the consequences of climate change on species.