Fine-grained climate velocities reveal vulnerability of protected areas to climate change.

ABSTRACT: Climate change velocity is an increasingly used metric to assess the broad-scale climatic exposure and climate change induced risks to terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, the utility of this metric in conservation planning can be enhanced by determining the velocities of multiple climatic drivers in real protected area (PA) networks on ecologically relevant scales. Here we investigate the velocities of three key bioclimatic variables across a nation-wide reserve network, and the consequences of including fine-grained topoclimatic data in velocity assessments. Using 50-m resolution data describing present-day and future topoclimates, we assessed the velocities of growing degree days, the mean January temperature and climatic water balance in the Natura 2000 PA network in Finland. Th

SUBMITTER: Heikkinen RK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6997200 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature