West

The West Coast of the United States is a diverse region, ranging from Canada all the way to Mexico through the states of Oregon, Washington, and California. This landscape includes everything from deserts and sagebrush to alpine meadows and snowy peaks, temperate rainforests, wild rivers, and hundreds of miles of coastline.

Snow packs serve as water reserves, releasing melt water all year long into western rivers and streams. But with rising temperatures, snow packs are projected to seriously decline, leading to earlier melt, lower stream-flows, and warmer water that seriously threatens cold-water loving salmon and trout. Earlier snow melt can also lead to both drier summers and heavier spring floods, endangering wildlife and human communities alike.

Global warming is also contributing to more frequent and more destructive wildfires and a longer summer fire season. Drier, hotter summers create conditions favorable to both insect infestations and fire. In addition, rising sea levels will threaten many coastal wetlands up and down the Pacific coast. Increases in landslides and erosion along the coastline are similarly expected.

• Download a fact sheet on California wildlife threatened by global warming (pdf)
• Download a fact sheet on Northwest wildlife threatened by global warming (pdf)

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Species in the region:

• American Pika
• Desert Bighorn Sheep
• Grey Whale
• Joshua Tree
• Lynx
• Monarch Butterfly
• Mountain Goat
• Mountain Yellow-legged Frog
• Northern Pintail Duck
• Pacific Salmon
• Wolverine