Water Birds on the Edge: First circumpolar assessment of climate change impact on Arctic breeding water birds

The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential impacts of climate change on a number of water bird species breeding in the Arctic. The study applies the HadCM2GSal general circulation model (GCM) of the Hadley Centre to assess the direct impacts of a changing climate on the breeding conditions of five selected Arctic water bird populations. Additionally, the current distribution of 25 species is compared with changes in vegetation predicted by two climate scenarios, a moderate one based on rise in temperature of only 1.7°C (HadCM2GSal) and an extreme scenario with a rise of 5°C (UKMO) at the time of C02 doubling (2070-2099).