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.
Most alcids breed in dense colonies near the sea, but not this one. Kittlitz’s Murrelets nest in isolated pairs at high elevations well inland in Alaska and Siberia. Not surprisingly, the species is little known. But what we do know is distressing, as the species is in sharp, possibly catastrophic, decline. Audubon's climate model, focusing on climatic conditions in winter, forecasts additional trouble: an almost complete loss of the current range. Melting glaciers, warming seas, and increased disturbances from extractive industries are among the challenges this murrelet faces.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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