Question: How will climate change affect animals

Kevin Arbuckle answered on 11 Mar 2014:

There is actually lots of research going on at the moment to try to understand this, which is another way of saying we don’t really know for sure yet. It is always difficult to try to predict what will happen in the future but lots of things can effect how an animal will respond to climate change so that makes it even harder to predict what any given species will do.

That said, there are four main ways that an animal can respond to climate change. Firstly, they might not be able to cope with it at all and could go extinct. Secondly, they might be able to move somewhere better suited to them, and so can change where they live to some extent. Thirdly, they might be able to stay where they are but tolerate the change (as long as the change isn’t too severe). Finally, they might stay where they are but over time (if they have enough time) evolve to cope with the changes in climate. But again, which of these options a species might actually do is difficult to say with certainty.