This page provides links to data that were presented in Michalak et al. 2018 (full citation below). These data represent the distribution of potential climatic refugia and locations with potentially disappearing regional climates given projected mid- and end-of-century climate conditions. Refugia are defined as locations with increasingly rare climatic conditions.

We identified these locations by tracking projected changes in the total area and distribution of climate analogs over time. Locations with regionally disappearing climates are defined as locations with current climatic conditions with no climate analogs present in the future time period within the specified search radius. We developed two biologically-derived thresholds to define analogs (0.9 and 1.5 PCA units) based on an analysis of climatic conditions with the current range boundaries of over 1,000 North American mammal, bird, amphibian and tree species. The smaller value (0.9) represents species that tolerate a narrower range of climatic conditions (i.e. are more climate sensitive) and the larger value (1.5) represents species that tolerate wider range of climatic conditions (i.e. are less climate sensitive).

We also limited analog searches using four radial distances to account for dispersal limitations: 0.5, 1, 5, and 10-kilometers annually. We multiplied the annual distance by the number of intervening years so that a dispersal capacity of 0.5-km/year, for example, translates to a search radius of 40-km for the 2050s (0.5 x (2050-1970)) and 55-km for the 2080s (0.5 x (2080-1970)). We identified refugia and disappearing climates using each combination of analog threshold and dispersal radius providing results for eight representative species types. We also generated maps of refugia for all representative species types combined in which any location identified as refugia/disappearing climate for at least one species type is counted as such in the final layer. Further details are given in Michalak, J. L., Lawler, J. J., Roberts, D. R. and Carroll, C. (2018), Distribution and protection of climatic refugia in North America. Conservation Biology. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13130 (pdf available on request from first author, read-only version available here).

Figure 1. The extent and distribution of climatic refugia for at least one representative species type for the (a) 2050s and (b) 2080s. Extents projected for each GCM are overlaid with darker colors representing scenarios with greater warming and precipitation changes projected.

Data

The archives linked below provides results from the study in the 7-zip format. The 7-zip format allows smaller file sizes, but requires the 7-zip software for extraction. 7-zip software is freely available for Windows (link) as well as Mac and Linux systems (link).

These data have been prepared as part of the AdaptWest project and their development was funded by the Wilburforce Foundation.