End of the world warning as humanity on the brink of ‘mass extinction’- new timeline

He noted that species may go extinct for any number of reasons, so in order to understand what a “normal” extinction rate would looks like, ecologists measure the “background rate”‘ of extinction.

Speaking to Live Science, he said: “five-10 percent species extinctions in 1 million years corresponds to the background rate.”

He noted that a higher rate, such as “more than 10 percent species extinction in a short time (e.g., hundreds of years) is a significant event.”

However, calculating the background of the species extinction for previous events tend to be “really tricky” as fossils tend to overrepresent larger, more abundant species, according to David Storch, a professor in the Department of Ecology at Charles University in Prague who was not involved in the new study.

READ MORE: End of the world warning as timeline for ‘mass extinction’ calculated

Article source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1654402/end-of-the-world-warning-new-timeline-sixth-mass-extinction-event-found-ipcc-climate