NASA: Canada In 'Hot Spot' Of Ecological Change

A new NASA study predicts massive ecological changes for Canada's Prairies and boreal regions by the year 2100. Those areas are in "hot spots" highly vulnerable to massive environmental changes this century due to global warming, the study states. Much of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba is predicted to see major shifts northward of plant and animal species.

"By about 2100, the climate change projections that we have today would suggest that there would be pressure on that grassland so prevalent in [the Canadian Prairies] to move further northward — and at the expense of the forest moving further northward as well," said NASA climate scientist Duane Walliser.

Walliser said that all across the globe, whole ecological zones such as deserts and tundra will be on the move because of "unprecedented" warming at a pace faster than at any time in 10,000 years. But Western Canada will be among the areas hardest hit.