Climate Change Pressures in the 21st Century: Shifts in Growing Degree Days, Plant Hardiness Zones and Heat Zones

The “Climate Change Pressures in the 21^st Century” story map provides users with an overview of three metrics that influence plant growth: growing degree days, plant hardiness zones, and heat zones. Each section contains a brief description of the metric, as well as an interactive map of the metric comparing recent conditions (1980-2009) to projected conditions (2070-2099) under a high emissions scenario (RCP 8.5).

More information on the methods used to develop these maps is available in the report  Assessing potential climate change pressures across the conterminous United States: mapping plant hardiness zones, heat zones, growing degree days, and cumulative drought severity throughout this century  by Stephen Matthews, Louis Iverson, Matthew Peters, and Anantha Prasad. This dataset is also available for download on the  Research Data Archive.