@article {488, title = {Extinction risk from climate change}, journal = {Nature}, volume = {427}, year = {2004}, abstract = {

Climate change over the past ,30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species and has been implicated in one species-level extinction. Using projections of species{\textquoteright} distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20\% of the Earth{\textquoteright}s terrestrial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a powerlaw relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15-37\% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be {\textquoteright}committed to extinction{\textquoteright}.When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction (,18\%) than mid-range (,24\%) and maximum change (,35\%) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.

}, keywords = {abundance, bird, butterfly, carbon sequestration, climate, climate change, distribution, extinction risk, frog, mammal, plant, reptile, risk, terrestrial fauna, terrestrial vegetation}, author = {C.D. Thomas and A. Cameron and R.E. Green and M. Bakkenes and L.J. Beaumont and Y.C. Collingham and B.F.N. Erasmus and M. Ferreira di Sequeira and A. Grainger and L. Hannah and L. Hughes and B. Huntley and A.S. van Jaarsveld and G.F. Midgley and L. Miles and M.A. Ortega-Huerta and A.T. Peterson and O.L. Phillips and S.E. Williams} }