Climate velocity describes the pace of climate change, or the speed and direction an organism would need to move to maintain a constant temperature. Thus, climate velocity provides a means of assessing how climate change is impacting different regions of the earth, and can help to explain potential shifts in the distribution of organisms. However, studies to date have largely focused on poleward shifts in distribution, and some species are not shifting poleward as expected based on climate velocity alone. In addition, climate change may have fundamentally different impacts on ectotherms and endotherms. Distributional shifts in response to warming have been well documented in marine ectotherms but impacts of climatic warming on marine endotherms are poorly understood. It is largely assumed that ectotherms will respond more quickly to warming than endotherms. However, we found poleward shifts in the distribution of multiple odontocetes that exceeded climate velocity and far exceeded the rate of shifts for fish and invertebrate prey species.

Many marine ectotherms are able to move deeper in the water column to seek thermal refuge, and several studies have shown that fish and invertebrates have moved into deeper waters in response to warming waters. We are assessing vertical climate velocity, and our results suggest that vertical velocity may better predict shifts of marine species than horizontal climate velocity. Accounting for vertical climate velocity would improve our understanding of how marine species respond to warming waters, and of climate impacts on marine ecosystems.