More than 80% of the planet's ice-free land is at risk of profound ecosystem transformation by 2100, a new study reveals. “Essentially, we would leave the world as we know it,” says Sebastian Ostberg of the Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam, Germany. Ostberg and colleagues studied the critical impacts of climate change on landscapes and published their results in Earth System Dynamics, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). The researchers state in the paper that "almost no region of the world is 'safe' from the risk that climate change will dramatically transform landscapes, unless mitigation measures limit warming to around 2 degrees Celsius at -above pre-industrial levels. Ecosystem changes could include the transformation of boreal forests into temperate savannahs, the growth of trees in the frigid Arctic tundra, or even the dieback of forests. some of the world's tropical forests. Such profound transformations of terrestrial ecosystems can potentially affect food and water security, and therefore impact human well-being, just like sea level rise and direct damage from extreme natural disasters.....