New study finds both positive and negative impacts possible
Date: December 10, 2018
Source: Cornell University
Under future climate scenarios, changing winds may make it harder for North American birds to migrate southward in the autumn, but make it easier for them to come back north in the spring. Researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology came to this conclusion using data from 143 weather radar stations to estimate the altitude, density, and direction birds took during spring and autumn migrations over several years. They also extracted wind data from 28 different climate change projections in the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Their findings were published today in the journal Global Change Biology.
"We combined these data to estimate how wind assistance is expected to change during this century under global climate change," explains lead author Frank La Sorte, a Cornell Lab of Ornithology scientist. "This matters for migratory birds because they use more energy flying into headwinds. But they get a nice boost from tailwinds so they can conserve energy during flight."
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