Earth will face a sixth mass extinction by 2100 thanks to global warming, predicts mathematician

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- Climate change will have sent Earth on the way to its sixth mass extinction in less than a lifetime, new research warns.

By the year 2100, about 310 gigatons of carbon will have been added to the oceans - a potential 'tipping point' for ecological disaster, according to the study.

When CO2 dissolves into the ocean - as in the case of the End-Permian mass extinction - life on Earth is at risk.

Professor Daniel Rothman from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came up with a simple mathematical formula to predict when the next mass extinction would take place.

The formula predicts that by the end of the century oceans will hold enough carbon to launch a mass extermination of species in the future.

The model showed the critical extra amount required is about 310 gigatons, which is around the best case scenario projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

And it's well below the worst of more than 500 gigatons that would far exceed the line.

In all scenarios the study found by the end of the century the carbon cycle will either be close to, or well beyond, the threshold for catastrophe.

It also found although mass extinction won't soon follow at the turn of the century the world may have tipped into 'unknown territory.'

Professor Rothman says it would take some time, about 10,000 years, for such ecological disasters to play out.

He said: 'This is not saying disaster occurs the next day.

'It's saying - if left unchecked - the carbon cycle would move into a realm which would be no longer stable and would behave in a way that would be difficult to predict.

'In the geologic past this type of behaviour is associated with mass extinction.'

In the modern era CO2 emissions have risen steadily since the 19th century, but deciphering whether this could lead to mass extinction has been challenging.

That's mainly because it's difficult to relate ancient carbon anomalies, occurring over thousands to millions of years, to today's disruptions which have taken place over little more than a century.

Professor Rothman's analysis identified 'thresholds of catastrophe' in the carbon cycle that, if exceeded, would lead to an unstable environment, and ultimately, mass extinction.

He had previously done work on the end-Permian extinction, or Great Dying.

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