Scientists investigating the possible effects of climate change have predicted it would take 10 million years for the diversity of species on our planet to recover after a mass extinction event.
The team compared different species of foraminifera which existed in the 20 million years towards the end of the Cretaceous mass extinction and into the subsequent recovery period. Only after approximately 10 million years did species diversity recover. "From this study, it's reasonable to infer that it's going to take an extremely long time—millions of years—to recover from the extinction that we're causing through climate change and other methods."
“It [the research] is an apt warning about the time it takes to recover from massive losses in species,” said Fraass. Last year, a separate research paper found manmade global warming could reverse a 50-million-year-long trend of global cooling in just 200 years.