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While we know climate change will impact individuals, populations, and communities, we lack a cross-scale synthesis for understanding global variation in climate change impacts and predicting their ecological effects. Studies of latitudinal variation in individuals' thermal responses have developed primarily in isolation from studies of natural populations' warming responses. Further, it is unclear whether latitudinal variation in temperature-dependent population responses will manifest into latitudinal patterns in community stability. Integrating across scales, we discuss the key drivers of latitudinal variation in climate change effects, with the goal of identifying key pieces of information necessary to predict warming effects in natural communities. We propose two experimental approaches synthesizing latitudinal variability in climate change impacts across scales of biological organization. Climate change will affect individuals, populations, and communities, but it is unclear whether these cross-scale effects will be larger in tropical versus temperate areas. Latitudinal variation in the shape and position of thermal performance curves, while better understood than variation in population and community responses, may not scale to population responses to warming, nor is it clear how such effects translate into community stability. Evidence for latitudinal variation in temperature effects on individual performance and population growth rate is mixed, and there is not enough data to identify latitudinal patterns in community responses to warming. Effects of warming on populations and communities will be modulated by latitudinal variation in other factors, such as natural selection, seasonal warming rates, species richness, and the impact of species interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]