Climate change is affecting the winter migration patterns of snowbirds and sunbirds

For more than 50 years, Florida and other sunny Southern states have had a migration pattern: an influx of snowbirds, a rare breed of Northerners who want to escape the winter by flocking south to join their sunbird counterparts. But now the opposite trend is starting: Some sunbirds are coming out, driven by the growing effects of climate change.

A new study sheds light on population changes across the South, particularly in areas that have been hit hardest by climate change like Florida and Texas. The heat appears to be playing a role in this northward migration, but that doesn’t tell the whole story – people are also moving on a smaller scale to cities, leaving increasingly flooded communities.

The heat is driving people north

The US South has always been hot, making it a challenging place to live before the 1960s. High temperatures and humidity can mean heat illness or even death for those without adequate means of cooling. But then came air conditioning, a life-saving invention that changed the world. In fact, despite warming conditions due to climate change, heat-related deaths are still down by about 3,600 per year due to widespread HVAC systems.

Because of this new internal comfort, Americans flocked to the South in droves. Snowbirds, tired of the bitter cold in the North, famously migrated to warmer climates in their golden years – but it wasn’t just retirees. The population in the Southern states is increasing significantly across all age groups and education levels.

That is, until recently.

Sylvian Leduc and Daniel J. Wilson, both researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, looked at migration trends and found a clear signal: Fewer people are moving to the South.

Their study, “Snow Belt to Sun Belt Migration, End of an Era?” looking at population changes in regions with extreme cold and extreme heat. From the 1970s to the 2010s, there was a consistent increase in Southern communities that experienced extreme heat.

But now the authors are finding that some US residents are moving from places where extreme temperatures are rising, a shift they attribute to climate change.

How hot is it?

With global temperatures rising, it’s no surprise that our hottest days are also increasing. Heat waves, defined as two or more days of extreme heat, are increasing almost everywhere, but in the US, the trend is said to be in the South.

The graphs above use data from long-term weather stations monitored by NOAA.

Places like Miami, Tampa, and New Orleans are not only hotter than they were in the 1960s when AC first came to town. They encountered more than eightadditionalheat waves each year. Not only that, those hot flashes last longeragainthe period in which they occur has increased by more than 80 days.

Similarly, the days considered to be the coldest are decreasing.

In the map above showing the change in the number of unusually cold days since 1948, Where’s Waldo is true to find areas that have seen any increase. Communities that have seen a drop in colder days dominate the map.

Leduc and Wilson say the change adds to the reversal of the trend and sending, or keeping, more people north.

Their study also looked at demographics and found that the demographics were not changing equally – young adults, highly educated professionals and retirees saw the most significant move away from the South. Both teams are traditionally the best. Snowbirds have long flocked to the South for their golden years to escape the cold, but the study found those numbers have changed over the past 10 to 20 years.

To escape the flood

As climate change causes heavy rains and rising sea levels, floods are becoming more frequent. And that’s creating big changes in how and where Americans choose to buy real estate.

40 percent of the population lives near the coast, where sea level rise contributes to flooding. Although the average rise is five to eight inches, it is rising faster along the East and Gulf Coasts. This means that when storms threaten these areas, they cause even more dangerous storm surges.

South Florida, where sea levels have already risen by a foot and could add two more feet by 2050, is a clear example of this trend. Jeremy Porter leads climate research at First Street, an organization that links climate change to financial risk. He said that in Miami, flooding has received so much media coverage in recent years that home buyers have begun to deliberately avoid flood prone areas because they have seen them on the news.

Porter and his team examined the migration patterns of people living in flood-prone areas with a fine-toothed comb. Their study found 818,000 “climate dumping grounds” – areas that had lost people directly due to increased flood risk due to climate change. That adds to the estimated 3 million people who have already moved and an additional 2.5 million who are expected to leave areas at high risk of flooding over the next 30 years.

The study was able to identify movements that others missed: those that occur in space. Unwilling to stay at home under the increased threat of flooding due to climate change but unable to leave the city for work or family, people are moving out of flood-prone areas while staying in their communities.

Hurricanes Ian, Helene, and Milton have all caused significant damage to parts of the west coast of Florida in the past two years. Porter said the devastation is likely to drive massive population change in the near future.

“There is this rare event that happens and they can’t remember it anymore, people don’t respond to that,” he said. “But if you are hit by an event and then next year you are hit by another event and maybe two years have passed since you were hit by another one, people end up getting tired of leaving there.”

Whether climate change is forcing people from their homes due to flooding or opting for a cooler future, migration patterns in the US are changing – with potential consequences for communities in the South if climate change goes unchecked.

– Kait Parker