Study: Extreme heat likely to wipe out life in distant future

Camel carcass in Demo village, Marsabit County. [Fayo Abraham, Standard]

A new study shows unprecedented heat is likely to lead to the next mass extinction since the dinosaurs died out, eliminating nearly all mammals in some 250 million years time.

The research, published recently in Nature Geoscience and led by the University of Bristol, presents the first-ever supercomputer climate models of the distant future and demonstrates how climate extremes will dramatically intensify when the world's continents eventually merge to form one hot, dry and largely uninhabitable supercontinent.