Terrestrial biodiversity threatened by increasing global aridity velocity under high-level warming

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Significance Under climate change, a point on a map needs to move in some speed and direction to maintain its current climate niche. We calculated the speeds and directions of aridity shifts across the globe to approximate species migration in natural–human systems driven by changes in water availability. We found historically that the aridity shifts had driven migration of vegetation greenness isolines in multiple regions. Most importantly, global drying would be accelerated for terrestrial taxa without mitigation. This would leave some species unable to adapt quickly enough, especially amphibians, which will suffer the largest aridification speed against plants, birds, and mammals. These findings suggest strong climate mitigation actions are required for the benefit of both terrestrial biodiversity and human well-being.