Each map is a visual guide to where a particular bird species may find the climate conditions it needs to survive in the future. We call this the bird’s “climatic range.”
The colors indicate the season in which the bird may find suitable conditions— blue for winter, yellow for summer (breeding), and green for where they overlap (indicating their presence year-round).
The darker the shaded area, the more likely it is the bird species will find suitable climate conditions to survive there.
The outline of the approximate current range for each season remains fixed in each frame, allowing you to compare how the range will expand, contract, or shift in the future.
The first frame of the animation shows where the bird can find a suitable climate today (based on data from 2000). The next three frames predict where this bird’s suitable climate may shift in the future—one frame each for 2020, 2050, and 2080.
You can play or pause the animation with the orange button in the lower left, or select an individual frame to study by clicking on its year.
This behemoth of a tern—it is as big as a midsize gull—is widely scattered in summer in the U.S. and Canada. It winters mainly along, and south of, our southern shores. Audubon's climate model shows relatively modest changes in winter: a slight loss of the total amount of climatically suitable regions, with an overall shift inland. The summer situation is much more dynamic, however, with major losses forecast in core areas of currently suitable climate and the possibility of newly created range far to the north. Caspian Terns have recently expanded their breeding range into southeastern Alaska, a possible hint of things to come
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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