IMEDEA - Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (UIB-CSIC)

International research in which CREAF is participating estimates that more than 1,300 bird species will disappear over the next two centuries, which is more than double the number of extinctions recorded to date - 610 species have disappeared in the last 130,000 years. The study, published in the journal Science, shows that, for island endemics, the proportional losses have been and will be even greater. The authors warn that when a species becomes extinct, its role in the ecosystem may disappear with it.

According to a new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), human activities have introduced over 37,000 exotic species to regions around the world. The document highlights that more than 3,500 of these are harmful invasive exotic species that are often overlooked until it's too late.

Storm surges, one-off events associated with storms that can cause flooding, are rare and highly destructive phenomena. A paper published this week in Nature finds that they have increased since 1960, comparable to the increase in average sea level rise over the same period.

The authors, led by Spaniard Francisco Calafat of the National Oceanography Centre in Liverpool, UK, statistically analyse observations of extreme tides from 79 tide gauges on European coasts over the period 1960-2018, and compare them with climate models.

Their results point to an increase in extreme sea levels in the future, something the authors say has implications for coastal planning. So far, the most widely accepted hypothesis is that the frequency of such extreme storm surges would not increase.