Modeling Climate Change Effects

By John D Alexander, Klamath Bird Observatory Executive Director, posted on 31 January, 2013

This article is the second installment in the series Achieving Partners in Flight Strategic Goals and Objectives.

One of Partners in Flights strategic goals is to increase capacity to support full life cycle conservation.  To do this we must maintain and expand the scientific foundation for full life cycle conservation by completing climate change species vulnerability assessments to support the work of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives and other groups and initiatives. Landscape Conservation Cooperatives facilitate large-scaled collaborations that take a science-based approach to meet natural resource management needs within the context of global climate change.  In partnership with the North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperatives and many partners, the Klamath Bird Observatory, PRBO Conservation Science, and American Bird Conservancy developed a tool to inform management about the effects of climate change on bird species found in Western Washington, Oregon, and California. This tools allows users to (1) view spatially explicit projections of climate change impacts to 26 bird species, (2) explore regions of high conservation priority, (3) analyze changes in bird habitat and bird communities, (4) identify new monitoring locations which can improve our understanding of climate change impacts, and (5) Download our model results to use for additional analyses.  To view this tool visit Avian Knowledge Northwest (www.AvianKnowledgeNorthwest.net) and follow the links to “North Pacific Modeling”.