VoCC: An r package for calculating the velocity of climate change and related climatic metrics

Abstract

Climate change is a primary global driver of biodiversity reorganization. The velocity of clisecondary functions, or to produce output for display (see mate change and related metrics describe the spatial change of climatic variables over time, allowing quantification of climate change exposure and connectivity, facilitating insights into the potential scope of species’ range-shift responses. These metrics have been extensively used in climate-change ecology research and provide useful information for conservation. Multiple extensions to the original concept of climate velocity have been proposed since first presented nearly a decade ago. However, despite its utility, no software application is currently available that brings all these methods together. The r package VoCC fills this gap by providing a comprehensive collection of functions that calculate climate velocity and related metrics from their initial formulation to the latest developments. Here, we introduce the core package functionality through a series of applied examples. The collection of functions in the VoCC package represents a new, useful addition to the existing portfolio of tools with which to assess risks posed by climate change to species and ecosystems.