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Renee McPherson

The National Climate Assessment summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. A team of more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee produced the report, which was extensively reviewed by the public and experts, including federal agencies and a panel of the National Academy of Sciences. The report can be explored interactively at http://nca2014.globalchange.gov.
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Expanding the Conservation and Adaptation Resources Toolbox (CART) to the South Central United States
The South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) has several Communities of Practice (CoPs) focused on resource manager needs across the region (e.g. understanding at-risk species and ecosystems, building resilient coastal ecosystems, extreme weather and climate change, etc.). Each CoP has expertise in the subject matter and has been working on projects that are relevant to the resource community, including conducting literature reviews and small-scale pilot projects. The current research project will leverage the expertise of the existing CoPs to enhance the content available through the Conservation and Adaptation Resources Toolbox (CART) as identified through the partnership between the South Central...
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Improving Predictive Drought Models with Sensitivity Analysis
Drought is a common consequence of climate variability in the south-central U.S., but they are expected to occur more often and become more intense with climate change. Natural resource managers can improve their planning efforts with advance warnings of impending drought. Using input from resource managers in the Chickasaw Nation, this research team previously created models that forecast droughts up to 18 months in advance with information about their expected timing and intensity. Developed for all climate divisions in Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, these drought models rely on input from predictor variables associated with global weather patterns like El Niño and La Niña. However, it is unclear...
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The design of this survey protocol is based on the indicator framework presented in Wall et. al (2017 https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-16-0008.1) and is intended to evaluate projects funded by Climate Adaptation Science Centers. All survey questions were optional to complete. The intended respondents are stakeholders who were engaged in the creation of scientific knowledge and tools during these projects. The questions cover three topical areas: process (engagement in the process of knowledge production), outputs/outcomes (use of information), and impacts (building of relationships and trust). Results of the survey are presented as summary tables in order to protect personal identifiable information of the respondents....
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Future of Fire in the South Central: Towards a National Synthesis of Wildland Fire Under a Changing Climate
Climate projections for the southern Great Plains, and elsewhere in the U.S., indicate that a hotter future with changes in precipitation amount and seasonality is to be expected. As plants become stressed from these changes, wildfire risk increases. One of the most valuable approaches to reducing the impacts of wildfires is fuel reduction through prescribed burns. Fuel reduction helps minimize the destruction of ecological communities, threats of future flooding, and extensive damages by lessening the intensity of future wildfires. Although safe burning practices can largely minimize the risks, prescribed burns may bring some degree of concern among practitioners. The real and perceived risks may include bodily...
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