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 Alaskan counterpart of the Purple Sandpiper breeds on dry tundra and disperses to rocky seacoasts in winter. Currently the Rock Sandpiper doesn’t penetrate much farther south along the coast in winter than the northwestern Lower 48—a situation unlikely to change much if the results of Audubon's climate model are upheld. The scenario in the eastern high Arctic is more interesting, however, as the model shows a considerable amount of potentially new climatically available space currently unoccupied by the species. Even with the extensive opening of the Arctic sea ice expected by many scientists, it seems unlikely that the Rock Sandpiper could colonize as far east as eastern Baffin Island.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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