A Simulation Says Earth Will Turn Into One Giant, Human-Killing Supercontinent
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Researchers simulated temperature trends and tectonic plate movement to monitor their impact on mammals.
Supercomputer simulation shows that climate extremes are likely to drive land mammal extinction during an eventual supercontinent formation.
That supercontinent could form within the next 250 million years.
When a new supercontinent forms, it could be enough to send temperatures rising even more steeply than they already are. So steep, in fact, it would make Earth inhospitable to land mammals—including humans.
This is all according to a recent study published in Nature Geoscience, led by researchers from the University of Bristol, that used hundreds of supercomputer simulations to track Earth’s tectonic movements and the ensuing changes to Earth’s climate.
“All life will eventually perish in a runaway greenhouse once absorbed solar radiation exceeds the emission of thermal radiation in several billions of years,” the authors wrote in the study. But that doesn’t mean we can go on living on Earth until that happens. “Conditions rendering the Earth naturally inhospitable to mammals may develop sooner because of long-term processes linked to plate tectonics.”
The authors wrote that, within 250 million years, all the continents will converge to form Earth’s next supercontinent: Pangea Ultima. “A natural consequence of the creation and decay of Pangea Ultima will be extremes,” they wrote.
The eventual formation of another supercontinent has been proposed before, but while others have proposed various options for what that and mass might look like, this new study seems pretty certain of a bleak picture. According to the researchers, the formation of the supercontinent may be the next major cause of extreme climate swings. The researchers state that Earth has seen at least five periods of tectonic convergent cycles that resulted in continental assembly. Those coincide with large variations in global temperature.
These extremes are thanks to changes in volcanic rifting and outgassing. The team believes that a rise in solar energy and the ensuing increase in range of temperatures away from oceans will lead to extreme warming that is hostile to mammalian life. This warming could be so strong that, once the supercontinent forms, average temperatures could hit 104 degrees Fahrenheit to 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
While the team notes the ability of mammals to adapt to temperature changes—already, we’ve seen hibernation to handle the cold and torpor to deal with the heat—they believe these extremes would become too much for land mammals. The intense increase in temperature “will probably lead to a climate tipping point and their mass extinction.”
Still, the researchers aren’t sure mammals will even make it that far. Unfortunately, the changing conditions on Earth could systematically wipe out life along the way.
The extreme changes in temperature caused by a supercontinent would run both hot and cold, the study claims. “Habitability is constrained not just by a warming climate but also by a cooling climate,” they wrote. And if that’s not enough, the extreme swings in temperature can send the planet into a spiral. The cold, for example, could put plants into dormancy and freeze water. On the extreme heat side, plants could lose access to adequate water supplies.
It adds up to plenty of trouble for mammals—specifically humans. “No future scenario,” the authors wrote, “is predicted to remain habitable.”
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