Climate Change Hastens Population Extinctions - Article Example

The authors designed a series of simulations to map actual levels of rainfall against simulated populations of butterflies and found that the observed populations corresponded to the simulated ones. After the simulations were finished, the simulated populations of butterflies corresponded closely to actually observed populations. This species of butterfly had probably survived similar changes, but habitat loss by invading non-native plants and urban development reduced its ability to re-establish itself.

The study showed that extremely wet or extremely dry years showed up more frequently, and the variability was statistically significant by the end of the study. Annual rainfall appeared to be increasing too, but that wasn’t shown to be significant yet. This study does not confirm that global warming caused the variation in precipitation, but the variations are consistent with predicted global climate models. Multiple simulations using variously controlled data showed that the extinction of the butterfly was directly related to climate change.