Projected impacts of climate change on protected areas

Abstract In this article we use temperature and precipitation for the current period and outputs from a Global Climate Model to analyze projected future climate compared to the current conditions of the World's Protected Areas. We stratified the Global Land Cover 2000 into major latitudinal bands and broad landcover extents including forest, woodland/grassland, managed/bare, and water, and projections were generated using the HadCM3 model and two different scenarios, the A1FI and B1. Based on these landcover types, we combined precipitation and temperature outputs for 2050 versus the current conditions with the landcover data and extracted areas of change, those projected to experience greater than one standard deviation above the mean change in either precipitation or temperature, and areas of no-change to assess how different landcover types may be impacted. We also compared the projected range in annual mean monthly amounts of precipitation and temperature for the Protected Areas in each latitudinal ba...