Earth is getting warmer.
According to NASA's Vital Signs of the Planet, Earth's average surface temperature in 2024 was the warmest on record since recordkeeping began in 1880. Earth was around 2.65 degrees warmer last year than in the late 19th century, and the 10 most recent years are the warmest on record.
That’s leading to changes in weather patterns in the Ozarks. We’re seeing more intense rain events in the spring and long periods of extreme heat and humidity along with drought in the summer.
Those changes not only directly impact humans, they impact wildlife on which humans depend.
One example is birds, which help us by eating insects, according to Ornithologist Jim Giocomo with the American Bird Conservancy — "eating a lot of the agricultural pests as well as the insects that kind of pester us in cities and towns. I don't have the exact numbers, but it's millions of pounds. Similar to bats at night, birds do it mostly during the day, there's a few nocturnal birds, but they eat those insects — even the seed-eating birds like sparrows eat insects in the breeding season to bring protein for their young so they're doing a lot of work on insects."
And birds contribute to our quality of life and mental health. An article last year in Psychology Today highlights how being in nature and hearing and watching birds can reduce depression, stress and anxiety.
But a 2025 study by a coalition of science and conservation organizations found that more than a third of U.S. bird species are of high or moderate conservation concern. That's due to habitat loss, environmental degradation and extreme weather events, which are increasing due to climate change.
Habitats that birds have relied on for generations are changing due to climate change, and some will no longer be able to support them. And the ABC’s Giocomo said the availability of food sources is changing.
"The timing of insect emergences and fruit and seeds emerging, that's one way — they may show up, and there's no food for them to produce young and support producing young and so their populations will decline," he said. "And then they'll go south and there'll be less habitat for them to winter in, so they don't survive in the winter and then they come back north, you know — and that's our migratory birds and then our resident birds kind of have a double whammy if we change things here for them, you know, they can't breed, but they also don't have a lot of places to survive. So, depending on the species...about half the species are declining."
Many birds can adapt to the changes they're facing. But the stress of relocation on bird populations leads to a decrease in reproductive success and survival rates, according to MAWeb.org.
The American Bird Conservancy and other organizations are working to help birds survive the changing climate. According to the 2025 State of the Birds report, policies to help birds recover also benefit humans since they focus on healthier working lands, cleaner water and resilient landscapes that can withstand fires, floods and drought.
Chris Barnhart is a butterfly expert and runs the Butterfly House at Nathanael Greene-Close Memorial Park.
Butterflies and other pollinators are also being impacted by climate change. A recent study in Science found that butterfly populations in the U.S. saw a 22% decline in abundance from 2000 to 2020. That’s largely due to habitat loss, pesticides and climate change.
Barnhart said the intense rainfall events in the spring caused by climate change can impact butterfly populations.
"You know, we had fairly severe flooding as a result of those heavy rains, and those extreme weather events can do a lot of damage," he said. "They can affect caterpillars and eggs of butterflies."
He said the heavy rains were probably one of the reasons many butterfly species were late showing up in the Ozarks this year.
According to Barnhart, some species are impacted by climate change more than others.
"If it's a species that only has a single brood, which is what you call a univoltine species, it can have a significant impact because they only get one chance each year to reproduce. A lot of the butterflies though are multifold. They'll have several broods in a year. And this goes for the moths, too," said Barnhart. "Some of the moths are single-brooded. Some of them are multi-brooded."
Swallowtails and monarchs are multi-brooded, according to Barnhart. That means they have a chance to build their populations back up before winter.
"But things like the fritillary, for example, or the cecropia moth, which is a big draw in here are the big cecropia moths," he said. "They only get one chance, so they may be more affected by that severe weather we had this spring."
He said another trend we’re seeing because of climate change here in the Ozarks – drought – can impact butterflies because it harms the plants they need for survival and to lay their eggs. But he said longer growing seasons due to warmer temperatures can actually benefit butterflies.
Some things you can do to help include planting butterfly host plants like milkweed for monarchs, parsley and dill for black swallowtails, oaks for a variety of species and pawpaw for zebra swallowtails. And you can plant native flowers and trees like yarrow, buttonbush, coreopsis and showy goldenrod as nectar sources.
Barnhart said native trees like oaks and willows support a variety of animal species.
Missouri State University Biology Professor Sean Maher also suggested planting native to support a variety of animal species. But there are other things you can do to help birds "like...not leaving lights on during migration season. So that's a definite thing for birds is that they get confused, for lack of a better term, by the amount of light in the environment," said Maher. "So shutting our lights off — cities have done this...they shut things down or they put it at a very low level during migration season so the birds make the route. That'll increase the number of birds that survive, which will help viability in the long run."
And he encouraged participation in community science projects, such as iNaturalist, that can help track species.
