Scientist reveals year of mass global extinction
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist has predicted that the next "extinction-level" event on Earth may begin as early as 2100.
Professor Daniel Rothman has published a formula in the journal Science Advances that looks at the planet's carbon cycle and projects into the future as massive amounts of CO2 continue to be emitted globally.
"If left unchecked, the carbon cycle would move into a realm which would be no longer stable and would behave in a way that would be difficult to predict," Professor Rothman writes.
"In the geologic past, this type of behaviour is associated with mass extinction."
The MIT mathematician's article does not predict exactly how life will begin to die out in the 22nd century.
But he says the CO2 emissions produced around the world are in line with previous mass extinction events in the planet's history.
There have been five mass extinctions in the planet's history to date, the worst being 250 million years ago, when 96 per cent of marine species and 70 percent of land species died off.
Many scientists are predicting that we're on track for a sixth mass extinction as species rapidly disappear off the planet.
In 2014, science writer Elizabeth Kolbert published a book called The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, claiming that Earth is already in the midst of a man-made sixth extinction.
