Earth could face mass extinction by 2100, scientists say

Earth faces a mass extinction by 2100 that could wipe out more than a quarter of world biodiversity, a new study warns.

Report informs, citing Daily Mail, that Australian and European scientists have developed a 'virtual Earth' to better plot global extinctions caused by climate change.

Using a supercomputer, the scientists created a world with more than 15,000 'food webs' to predict the fate of interconnected species. The results point to the loss of 10 per cent of all plant and animal species by 2050, rising to 27 per cent by the end of this century.

The scientists blame 'over-exploitation of resources', land-use change, over-harvesting, pollution, climate change and 'biological invasions'.

Past approaches to assessing extinction trajectories over the coming century were flawed because they did not incorporate co-extinctions, the researchers say.