Global Warming Claims Its First Victim

The first mammal known to go extinct from global warming is the melomys whose entire population lived on an atoll in the Great Barrier Reef.  The immediate cause is rising sea levels.
A recent report from the University of Queensland confirmed that climate change was the root cause of the melomys’ eradication: Sea levels rose at twice the rate of the global average in the waters surrounding Bramble Cay, drenching a full 97 percent of the melomys’ habitat between 2004 and 2014.
As I've pointed out before sea levels are going to be a major global warming issue,
“The key factor responsible for the death of the Bramble Cay melomys is almost certainly high tides and surging seawater, which has traveled inland across the island,” Luke Leung, a scientist from the University of Queensland who was an author of a report on the species’ apparent disappearance, said by telephone. “The seawater has destroyed the animal’s habitat and food source.”
And this is just the beginning.


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