People are now mapping the speed at which a climate moves across the face of the earth due to climate change. This is a little obtuse, but it’s an interesting idea. This isn’t the rate of a specific weather patterns or the rate of temperature change at a specific location, but rather the rate of a specific climate’s movement across the globe. It’s based off of three separate points:

1. The further you move away from the equator, the cooler the locations is.
2. Climate change is heating the world at predictable rates.
3. You can calculate how far to travel away from the equator in a period of time to maintain your climate.

Data around these points are being collected and projections are being made, though there are complexities around latitude, altitude, changes to the rates of temperatur changes over time, etc.

There’s even a tool to see the numbers for a given location. (I should move .88 km north this year to maintain my climate, apparently. Of course if I do that, eventually I’ll move into an area with a different change rate.)

Why is this useful? Here’s an example: plants and animals generally require specific climates to live in, and have limits to how fast they can travel or propagate themselves to new areas. By comparing the rate at which life in a specific environment can travel to the rate at which it will need to travel to maintain it’s climate, we can see what biological systems will be impacted by climate change.

Links:

• Io9 article that brought this to my attention.
• Nature article (Article behind paywall. Some graphs available.)
• Loarie’s project website. (Text, tool, links, etc.)

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