England – New forecasts revealed that the future of our planet looks very bleak, as an experiment conducted by a high-speed computer indicated that the Earth is heading towards a “triple strike” that will lead humans to extinction.
According to scientists, a combination of declining food supplies, rising sea levels, and areas of the planet becoming too hot to live in will eventually lead to the extinction of almost all mammals, including humans.
However, the reason may not be as we imagine. While climate change poses a very real threat to today’s population, this apocalyptic scenario, predicted by the supercomputer, would be caused by all the continents colliding together to form one giant land mass.
Fortunately, this hot, dry and largely uninhabitable supercontinent will not occur for 250 million years from now.
By this point in the future, the Sun will be brighter and the Earth will warm further, while the formation of the supercontinent will lead to more frequent volcanic eruptions, which will produce high emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2).
Together, this will cause the Earth’s temperature to range between 40 to 50 degrees Celsius.
Lead author Dr Alexander Farnsworth, from the University of Bristol, said: ‘The emerging supercontinent would effectively create a triple whammy, including a continental effect, a hotter Sun, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increased heat over much of the planet.’
The continental climate is one of the factors that affect the climate depending on the distance of the regions from the sea.
“The result is an often hostile environment devoid of food and water sources for mammals,” Dr. Farnsworth explains. “Humans, along with many other species, will die due to their inability to shed this heat through sweat and cool their bodies.”
The international team of scientists applied climate models, simulating temperature, wind, precipitation and humidity trends for the next supercontinent.
To estimate the future level of carbon dioxide, the team used models of plate tectonics, ocean chemistry and biology to map gas inputs and outputs.
The model predicts that when the supercontinent called Pangea Ultima forms, only 8% to 16% of the Earth will be habitable for mammals.
However, co-author Dr Eunice Lu said it was important not to focus on worrying regarding the future scenario, and instead focus on the present.
She added: “It is very important that we do not lose sight of the current climate crisis we are facing, which is the result of human emissions of greenhouse gases. While we expect the planet to be uninhabitable in 250 million years, today we are already witnessing extreme heat that is harmful to human health. “This is why it is important to reach net zero emissions as soon as possible.”
Dr Farnsworth continued: “The outlook for the distant future looks very bleak. Carbon dioxide levels might be double current levels. “With the Sun also expected to emit approximately 2.5% additional radiation and the supercontinent being primarily located in hot and humid tropical regions, a large part of the planet may experience temperatures ranging from 40 to 70 degrees Celsius.”
He noted: “This work also highlights that the world within the so-called habitable zone of the solar system may not be the most suitable for humans depending on whether the continents are scattered, as we have today, or in one large supercontinent.”
Scientists explain that although the Earth will remain in the “habitable zone” in 250 million years, higher levels of carbon dioxide will make most parts of the world uninhabitable.
The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Source: Metro
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2024-05-04 02:05:28
