If recent winters seem toastier than usual, you are on to something: Winter has become the most rapidly warming season as the effects of human-caused climate change continue.
To assess the effects of climate change and land use on birds in the United States, researchers looked at 90 years of data on 89 bird species stretching from 1930 to 2019. They studied bird species whose preferred winter habitat overlapped with places where volunteers did bird counts — mostly in the eastern United States.The researchers created a model that took into consideration the average temperature, precipitation, and the habitat’s use by humans.
The declines in grasslands and wetlands affected birds who are constrained to those habitats most — think water birds such as herons. These days, they only spend the winter where those kinds of habitat remain — a shrinking number.
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