Global Warming Will Bring 'Global Weirding'

While the physical changes brought on by global warming—droughts, floods, and the like—are fairly easy to model, the effect on ecosystems is disconcertingly unpredictable, John Waldman writes in Yale Environment 360. Species will shift migration patterns and seek new homes, affecting other species in ways we can't imagine. Waldman fears so-called “global weirding” will be “a most apropos, if not downright tepid, label.”

As the climate changes, Waldman posits, conditions will mirror the disastrous human-fueled importation of foreign species that has already ravaged ecosystems. Even short-term studies have already shown drastic changes in the balance of species in areas around the world. “The biotic scrambling to come will indeed be weird, or worse,” Waldman concludes. (More climate change stories.)