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North America Climate

North America, the third-largest continent, is home to approximately 515 million people. It stretches from the Central American peninsula north to the Arctic, and will experience a wide range of effects from climate change. These effects will be most intense in the Arctic. The region will not only suffer impacts from climate change, but is having a large impact on climate change: North America has produced a greater share of greenhouse gas emissions over time than any other continent. This is due mostly to the contribution of the United States, historically the world's largest single emitter of human-released greenhouse gases. The United States is now the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, just behind China. Climate change is already being observed in North America, including shifted rainfall patterns and dramatic warming in the Arctic.

Various effects of climate change have already been observed in North America. Average air temperature increased from 1955 to at least 2005, with most warming occurring in Alaska, northwestern Canada, and the continental interior. The growing season has increased by about two days per decade since 1950 in Canada and the United States, mostly due to earlier springs. This warming has been caused both by a combination of human-released gases and fine particles (aerosols) and by natural causes. Annual precipitation (rain and snow) has increased for most of North America, but has decreased in the southwestern United States, eastern Arctic, and Canadian prairies. Water flowing in streams has increased by 25% in the eastern United States over the last 60 years but has decreased by about 2% per decade in the Rocky Mountains.

The effects of climate change on populations and range distributions of wildlife are expected to be species specific and highly variable, with some effects considered negative and others considered positive. In North America the ranges of habitats and wildlife are predicted to generally move northward as temperatures increase. Variations in this overall pattern will be dependent upon specific local conditions, changing precipitation patterns, and the response of different species to different components of climate change. It follows that the structure of plant–animal communities will also change. Ignoring climate change is likely to increasingly result in failure to reach wildlife management objectives. Wildlife managers need to become knowledgeable about climate change, ways to cope with it, and ways to take advantage of it. Management options currently available include protecting coastal wetlands to allow for sea level rise, reducing the risks to wildlife from potential catastrophic events, adjusting yield and harvest models, accounting for known climatic variations, and taking climate change into consideration when selecting the location and other characteristics of conservation areas. Wildlife managers also need to expect the unexpected and reduce nonclimate stressors on ecosystems. Overall, wildlife managers can minimize negative impacts to wildlife and take advantage of positive aspects by planning ahead and employing adaptive management.