Research published in Regional Environmental Change has shown that as climate zones shift toward hotter and drier conditions, ecological diversity will decline, posing a major threat to terrestrial ecosystems with far-reaching social and ecological impacts.
The study, “Shifting climate zones and expanding tropical and arid climate regions across Kenya (1980-2020),” published online on April 5.
The research team analyzed Kenya's geographic distribution and arrangement of climate zones between 1980-2020.
Over that time, tropical climate regions expanded from 91 to 93% with over 13,000 square kilometers shifting from alpine and temperate regions to tropical ones, and arid climate regions expanded from 72 to 81%, a roughly 50,000 km2 shift from humid and semi-humid-to-semi-arid to arid regions.
Read more at Saint Louis University
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