Environmental thresholds for mass-extinction events

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of considering multiple environmental parameters, beyond temperature alone, to understand and prevent mass-extinction events and ensure planetary habitability.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive evaluation of environmental thresholds necessary for planetary habitability, moving beyond temperature-centric models.

Findings

Mass-extinction events are influenced by multiple environmental factors.

Temperature thresholds alone are insufficient to predict extinctions.

Recommendations for sustainable development actions to monitor critical environmental parameters.

Abstract

While the global-average temperatures are rapidly rising, more researchers have been shifting their focus towards the past mass-extinction events in order to show the relations between temperature increase and temperature thresholds which might trigger extinction of species. These temperature and mass-extinction relation graphs are found practical by conservationists and policy makers to determine temperature threshold values to set climate targets. Unfortunately, this approach might be dangerous, because mass-extinction events (MEEs) are related to many environmental parameters and temperature is only one of them. Herein we provide a more comprehensive evaluation of the environmental thresholds required to sustain a habitable planet. Besides, we suggest actions within the sustainable-development goals (SDGs) to observe those critical environmental parameters, in order to assure having an inhabitable planet for the current living species.