A Mammoth Change In Climate

Climate change makes it difficult for woolly mammoths and other large animals to survive, say scientists.

12:30 27 July 2015

A new study has found that several large animals including the wooly mammoths, short-faced bears, and cave lions went extinct due to severe climate change during the Late Pleistocene where temperature went up from just 7 degrees Fahrenheit to 29 degrees Fahrenheit in a matter of decades. The abrupt climate change severely affected the animals’ habitats and prey.

 

The study is the latest in a long string of research conducted to determine the causes of the death of animals weighing more than 99lbs during the Late Pleistocene.

 

The study's first author Alan Cooper, director for the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide in Australia and his team examined DNA from dozens of megafaunal species that lived during the Late Pleistocene, combing through more than 50,000 years of DNA records of extinction events. The gathered data was then compared to data on megafauna extinction with detailed records of severe climate events.

 

"By combining these two records, we can place the climate and radiocarbon dating data on the same timescale, thereby allowing us to precisely align the dated fossils against climate," Cooper said. "The high-resolution view we gained through this approach clearly showed a strong relationship between warming events and megafaunal extinctions."