title: Climate change: The 2015 Paris Agreement thresholds and Mediterranean basin ecosystems.
abstract: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Agreement of December 2015 aims to maintain the global average warming well below 2°C above the preindustrial level. In the Mediterranean basin, recent pollen-based reconstructions of climate and ecosystem variability over the past 10,000 years provide insights regarding the implications of warming thresholds for biodiversity and land-use potential. We compare scenarios of climate-driven future change in land ecosystems with reconstructed ecosystem dynamics during the past 10,000 years. Only a 1.5°C warming scenario permits ecosystems to remain within the Holocene variability. At or above 2°C of warming, climatic change will generate Mediterranean land ecosystem changes that are unmatched in the Holocene, a period characterized by recurring precipitation deficits rather than temperature anomalies.
authors: Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Collège de France, Centre Européen de Recherche et d'Enseignement de Géosciences de l'Environnement (CEREGE), Ecosystèmes Continentaux et Risques Environnementaux (ECCOREV), Aix-en-Provence, France. guiot@cerege.fr.
authors: Joel
authors: J
authors: Guiot
authors: Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE), Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, IRD, Avignon University, 13545 Aix-en-Provence, France.
authors: Wolfgang
authors: W
authors: Cramer
mesh_terms: D001272:Atmosphere / Q000737:chemistry; D044822:Biodiversity; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000032:analysis; D057231:Climate Change; D017753:Ecosystem; D057232:Global Warming; D019083:Mediterranean Region; D010297:Paris; D014480:United Nations
chemical_list: D002245:Carbon Dioxide