If people today stopped burning fossil fuels, extinction of the planet would occur within 250 million years. That’s the conclusion of a new study from the University of Bristol, which used computer modeling to find that by then all living things on planet Earth will have to live at temperatures between 40 and 70 degrees Celsius.
This would be the first mass extinction since the extinction of the dinosaurs, which occurred about 66 million years ago.
But, according to Daily mailScientists’ calculations do not take into account the constant release of greenhouse gases due to, for example, the burning of fossil fuels, so the date of extinction of the planet is likely to be even earlier.
“Humans – and many other species – will die due to their inability to produce heat through sweat, cooling their bodies,” said Alexander Farnsworth, senior research fellow at the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. Daily mail.
Scientists are confident that the Earth’s continents will slowly merge, forming a hot, dry and practically uninhabitable mass. The result will be a supercontinent known as Pangea Ultima, and the Pacific Ocean will occupy most of the Earth’s surface.
For this study, scientists used computerized climate models to simulate trends in temperature, wind, rain and humidity in Pangea Ultima. The results suggest that only 8% to 16% of the earth will be suitable for mammal habitation, but it is likely that all mammal species will go extinct.