With Warming Climate, Planting Zones Are Changing: Animals Are Noticing Too

When it comes to science, when it comes to climate, data is always involved to help tell the story, and what a story it is. The implications are enormous.

At the beginning of this planting season our warming temperatures offer some new planting opportunities. Note the chart titled, “Albany, NY Warming Planting Zones” from Climate Central that was published April 30, 2025.



This chart may look simple but it has a lot of information packed into it so let’s start. The U.S. is divided into 13 plant hardiness zones as seen across the top of the image. Each of these zones are then divided in half designated as an “a” and a “b” to give finer detail. It goes from colder, on the left, to warmer as we move to the right.

Below the 13 hardiness zones are three large boxes of varying color labeled “Past,” “Present” and “Future.” For Albany, the average coldest temperature for a past 30-year period indicated was minus 16.3 degrees Fahrenheit [F] which makes it Zone 5a. The center box shows the hardiness zone for the current 30-year period indicated for Albany. It is now Zone 6a with the average coldest temperature for that period of minus 8 degrees F.

For gardeners and farmers this is a major change.

Finally, to the right we have the anticipated future period from 2036 – 2065 where Albany is now expected to be in Zone 7a. Here the average coldest temperature will now be 0.1 degrees F. This opens up, from a temperature point of view, new crops and planting opportunities for farmers and gardeners. Drought, excessive rainfall, and other potential extreme weather events are not known and thus not included in this chart.

But the data shows a definite warming trend.



Animals too are telling us the same story. The opossum or possum is a case in point. This marsupial originally inhabited the center portion of the U.S. i.e., east coastal areas, Maryland, PA, etc. It was rarely seen here in the North Country and the Champlain Valley until just a few decades ago. They are now fairly common [see photo of possum from Wikipedia] and, unfortunately, they are slow moving and are often seen as roadkill. They do not hibernate and are active except in very cold temperatures. According to Wikipedia they frequently get frost bite on the hairless parts of their bodies, especially on their ears and paws.

Their diet consists mostly of insects, seeds, eggs, grains and most anything. One item of interest is that while grooming themselves they eat ticks and help check the population of this unwelcome critter.

How about a review of a map of the Earth illustrating temperature changes?

An accurate map of our planet has always been a challenge for cartographers. How does one present the information from a 3-dimenional sphere onto a 2-dimentional flat surface? The standard map projection, called the Mercator projection, was first developed in about 1569 in an attempt to deal with this problem. It was not perfect however, and distorted sizes and distances were still evident.

However, Berkeley Earth, a climate research group, has improved it as shown in the image of planet Earth labeled “2024.” The varying shades of yellow, orange, and red indicate how our planet has responded temperature-wise to the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases [GHG] in Earth’s atmosphere. Some areas have warmed much more than other areas. Portions of the Arctic, Europe, and Russia [see top of map] have warmed up to 6 degrees Centigrade [~ 11 degrees Fahrenheit] while areas of the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of South America have warmed hardly at all.



This significant warming of the higher latitudes, the Arctic, has serious implications for Earth’s climate. It will cause more thawing of the permafrost, more release of GHG stored there, resulting in more warming. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.



When the ice in the permafrost melts the soil structure is lost and the land slumps. See the photo by Scott Zolkos of a thaw slump in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

And now, for the first time in human history the world has come together with a common goal to protect nature [biodiversity]. In December 2022, over 190 countries adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. It is a worldwide initiative for governments to designate 30% of Earth’s land and ocean as protected areas by 2030.

See photo of the attendees at the conference in Montreal [Wikipedia]. Nine states in the US have now jumped on board and have policies, plans and goals to preserve 30% of the land [farms and woodlands] in their state.



Recently, Maryland became the first to achieve this goal and has protected nearly 1.9 million acres from development. The state has set a new target: 40% by 2040!

The map of Maryland shown here, and published by the New York Times on 4/27/25, highlights in green the locations of this land. Bi-partisan support at the state level, federal agencies, nonprofit groups, and land trusts have worked together on these shared goals and helped the state meet its target sooner than expected.



Image: NYTimes 4/27/25, Maryland.

In other news we have the following:

--In 2024 for the first time since 1882, the UK will have no coal-fired power plants.

--In April 2025, Finland shut down its last utility-scale coal plant.

--In 2024 renewable energy made up 62.7% of Germany’s electricity and which just happens to be the third largest economy in the world.

--In March 2025, electric vehicle [EV’s] sales in China reached 52% of market share.

--EV’s are now 19% of world auto sales.

Change is happening.

...and so it goes.


The scientific career of Raymond N. Johnson, Ph.D., spanned 30 years in research and development as an organic/analytical chemist. He is currently founder and director of the Institute of Climate Studies USA (www.ICSUSA.org). Climate Science is published monthly.