At the beginning of the year, biologists at the University of Hawaii announced the start of the sixth mass extinction. Then they calculated that 13 percent of all known living species have disappeared from the face of the Earth in the past few hundred years. Similar conclusions have now been reached in Japan: there they not only warned about the process itself, but also summarized its causes and consequences.

Mass extinction: what to expect

Our planet has experienced five large-scale extinctions in the last 540 million years, but there is evidence that the first such extinction may not have occurred. No matter, but scientists say that Mass extinctions occur after climate changes, such as overheating or supercooling, caused by asteroids or volcanic activity. Ecosystems do not have time to adapt so quickly to new conditions – for this they need a gradual process of evolution and adaptation, which sometimes takes thousands of years.

• According to Kaiho’s calculations, on the one hand, new mass extinction must be weaker than the previous two. He says the number of extinct species depends on the scale of climate change: the higher or lower the temperature on the planet, the more animals and plants disappear.

The climatologist states: A 9 degree warm up won’t be until at least 2500 – and that’s the worst case scenario. However, he notes that the extinction of the species has already begun. It’s hard to predict how many of them we might lose forever. The largest mass extinction on Earth lasted 60,000 years and killed 95% of species in that time.

• On the other hand, Current warming is happening much faster due to human activities. Therefore, although the temperature changes are not as strong, they are sharper and faster, which does not give living organisms time to adapt, possibly leading to an increase in the number of endangered species.