Seagulls sit on an iceberg on July 22, 2013 in Ilulissat, Greenland.
A scientific panel has called for the creation of an early ecological warning system after finding that global warming threatens a polar sea ice collapse, vast dead zones in the ocean and mass plant and animal extinction, possibly having a dire impact on human life.
A report released on Tuesday by the the U.S. National Research Council warns the abrupt effects of climate change will continue and that society needs to be better prepared, the New York Times reports.
Among drastic changes that have already occurred, they noted the disappearance of cold winter nights in the American West and Canada, which has allowed beetles to devour tens of millions of forest acres.
Previous fears such as a sudden belch of methane from the ocean were dismissed for the foreseeable future, but the panel stated that the world’s coral reefs may be doomed in a matter of just decades.
[NYT]