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The Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling (SAHM) has been created to both expedite habitat modeling and help maintain a record of the various input data, pre- and post-processing steps and modeling options incorporated in the construction of a species distribution model through the established workflow management and visualization VisTrails software. This paper provides an overview of the VisTrails:SAHM software including a link to the open source code, a table detailing the current SAHM modules, and a simple example modeling an invasive weed species in Rocky Mountain National Park, USA.
Abstract (from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10113-014-0585-0): Drought is a part of the normal climate variability and the life and livelihoods of the Western United States. However, drought can also be a high impact or extreme event in some cases, such as the exceptional 2002 drought that had deleterious impacts across the Western United States. Studies of long-term climate variability along with climate change projections indicate that the Western United States should expect much more severe and extended drought episodes than experienced over the last century when most modern water law and policies were developed, such as the 1922 Colorado River Compact. This paper will discuss research examining...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Drought, North Central CASC
Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/WCAS-D-15-0042.1): Drought is a natural part of the historical climate variability in the northern Rocky Mountains and high plains region of the United States. However, recent drought impacts and climate change projections have increased the need for a systematized way to document and understand drought in a manner that is meaningful to public land and resource managers. The purpose of this exploratory study was to characterize the ways in which some federal and tribal natural resource managers experienced and dealt with drought on lands managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and tribes in two case site examples (northwest Colorado and southwest...
Abstract (from http://www.srmjournals.org/doi/abs/10.2111/REM-D-13-00079.1): Big sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata Nuttall (Asteraceae), is the dominant plant species of large portions of semiarid western North America. However, much of historical big sagebrush vegetation has been removed or modified. Thus, regeneration is recognized as an important component for land management. Limited knowledge about key regeneration processes, however, represents an obstacle to identifying successful management practices and to gaining greater insight into the consequences of increasing disturbance frequency and global change. Therefore, our objective is to synthesize knowledge about natural big sagebrush regeneration. We identified...
Abstract (from ScienceDirect): Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) plant communities are found in western North America and comprise a mix of shrubs, forbs, and grasses. Climate, topography, and soil water availability are important factors that shape big sagebrush stand structure and plant community composition; however, most studies have focused on understanding these relationships at sites in a small portion of the big sagebrush region. Our goal was to characterize detailed stand structure and plant composition patterns and identify environmental variables related to those patterns by sampling 15 sites distributed across the western United States. In each site, we characterized stand structure at the individual...
The North Central Climate Science Center funded research activities in order to provide pertinent climate information to natural resource managers in our region to evaluate impacts of climatic changes and to develop strategies to respond to changes affecting their natural and cultural resources. These funded activities provided improved past and current climate data sets, such as the high resolution temperature data, regional reconstruction. In addition, we have developed climate information from the latest international climate projections. We used this information and additional climate information to evaluate and assess impacts on ecosystem and natural resources. Ecosystem responses were studied across the region...
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.4127/abstract): Gridded topoclimatic datasets are increasingly used to drive many ecological and hydrological models and assess climate change impacts. The use of such datasets is ubiquitous, but their inherent limitations are largely unknown or overlooked particularly in regard to spatial uncertainty and climate trends. To address these limitations, we present a statistical framework for producing a 30-arcsec (∼800-m) resolution gridded dataset of daily minimum and maximum temperature and related uncertainty from 1948 to 2012 for the conterminous United States. Like other datasets, we use weather station data and elevation-based predictors of temperature,...
Land managers in the Pacific Northwest have reported a need for updated scientific information on the ecology and management of mixed-conifer forests east of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington. Of particular concern are the moist mixed-conifer forests, which have become drought-stressed and vulnerable to high-severity fire after decades of human disturbances and climate warming. This synthesis responds to this need. We present a compilation of existing research across multiple natural resource issues, including disturbance regimes, the legacy effects of past management actions, wildlife habitat, watershed health, restoration concepts from a landscape perspective, and social and policy concerns. We provide...
We assessed the vulnerability of ecological processes and vegetation to climate change in the US Northern Rocky Mountains with a focus on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. We found that climate has warmed substantially since 1900 while precipitation has increased. An index of aridity decreased until about 1980 and then increased slightly. Projected future climate indicates warming of about 3-7 degrees C by 2100 and a substantial increase in aridity, depending on climate scenario. Snow pack, soil moisture, runoff, and primary productivity are projected to decrease dramatically in summer under future climate scenarios, with snow pack and runoff declining annually. Habitat suitability for the four subalpine tree species...
This research element supports vulnerability assessment for climate adaptation (Glick et al. 2011) by focusing on the provision of best available climate information for the region in order to inform analysis of ecosystem exposure to change. Climate in the North Central United States (NCUS) is driven by a combination that includes large-scale patterns in atmospheric circulation, the region’s complex topography extending from the High Rockies to the Great Plains, and geographic variations in water and surface-energy balance. Hydroclimatic variability within the NCUS determines the sustainability of ecosystems in the region as well as the ecosystem goods and services they provide. We propose, therefore, to use...
Abstract (from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378014000065): Climate change impacts threaten existing development efforts and achieving future sustainability goals. To build resilience and societal preparedness towards climate change, integration of adaptation into development is being increasingly emphasized. To date, much of the adaptation literature has been theoretical, reflecting the absence of empirical data from activities on the ground. However, the Funds established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and managed by the Global Environment Facility, the Least Developed Countries Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund and the Strategic Priority for Adaptation,...
This report was submitted to the Colorado Energy Office in 2015 and was edited by Eric Gordon (University of Colorado Boulder) and Dennis Ojima (Colorado State University). It was based on a study that evaluated Colorado's climate vulnerability in the ecosystems, water, agriculture, energy, transportation, recreation/tourism, and public health sectors.
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: North Central CASC
An important component in the fields of ecology and conservation biology is understanding the environmental conditions and geographic areas that are suitable for a given species to inhabit. A common tool in determining such areas is species distribution modeling which uses computer algorithms to determine the spatial distribution of organisms. Most commonly the correlative relationships between the organism and environmental variables are the primary consideration. The data requirements for this type of modeling consist of known presence and possibly absence locations of the species as well as the values of environmental or climatic covariates thought to define the species habitat suitability at these locations....
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/15-1061/abstract): Weather and climate affect many ecological processes, making spatially continuous yet fine-resolution weather data desirable for ecological research and predictions. Numerous downscaled weather data sets exist, but little attempt has been made to evaluate them systematically. Here we address this shortcoming by focusing on four major questions: (1) How accurate are downscaled, gridded climate data sets in terms of temperature and precipitation estimates? (2) Are there significant regional differences in accuracy among data sets? (3) How accurate are their mean values compared with extremes? (4) Does their accuracy depend on spatial resolution?...
Abstract (from http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/13-0905.1): Many protected areas may not be adequately safeguarding biodiversity from human activities on surrounding lands and global change. The magnitude of such change agents and the sensitivity of ecosystems to these agents vary among protected areas. Thus, there is a need to assess vulnerability across networks of protected areas to determine those most at risk and to lay the basis for developing effective adaptation strategies. We conducted an assessment of exposure of U.S. National Parks to climate and land use change and consequences for vegetation communities. We first defined park protected-area centered ecosystems (PACEs) based on ecological...
Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JAMC-D-15-0276.1): Remotely sensed land skin temperature (LST) is increasingly being used to improve gridded interpolations of near-surface air temperature. The appeal of LST as a spatial predictor of air temperature rests in the fact that it is an observation available at spatial resolutions fine enough to capture topoclimatic and biophysical variations. However, it remains unclear if LST improves air temperature interpolations over what can already be obtained with simpler terrain-based predictor variables. Here, the relationship between LST and air temperature is evaluated across the conterminous United States (CONUS). It is found that there are significant...
Chapter on Adaptation for the 2014 National Climate Assessment. Adaptation refers to action to prepare for and adjust to new conditions, thereby reducing harm or taking advantage of new opportunities. Adaptation planning is occurring in the public and private sectors and at all levels of government but few measures have been implemented.
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Assessment, North Central CASC
Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00027.1): The way in which people perceive climate change risk is informed by their social interactions and cultural worldviews comprising fundamental beliefs about society and nature. Therefore, perceptions of climate change risk and vulnerability along with people’s “myths of nature”—that is, how groups of people conceptualize the way nature functions—influence the feasibility and acceptability of climate adaptation planning, policy making, and implementation. This study presents analyses of cultural worldviews that broaden the current treatments of culture and climate change mitigation and adaptation decision making in communities. The authors...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Culture, North Central CASC, Society
Abstract (from http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0070454): Managers of protected natural areas increasingly are confronted with novel ecological conditions and conflicting objectives to preserve the past while fostering resilience for an uncertain future. This dilemma may be pronounced at range peripheries where rates of change are accelerated and ongoing invasions often are perceived as threats to local ecosystems. We provide an example from City of Rocks National Reserve (CIRO) in southern Idaho, positioned at the northern range periphery of pinyon-juniper (P-J) woodland. Reserve managers are concerned about P-J woodland encroachment into adjacent sagebrush steppe, but the rates...