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This project brought together a team of researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and universities to develop a comprehensive web-based dataset of high-resolution (or ‘downscaled’) climate change projections, to enable scientists and decision-makers to better assess climate related ecosystem impacts. Currently, scientists and resource managers often find it difficult to use downscaled climate projections because of the multiple methodologies used to produce them and the time-consuming process required to obtain model output. In response, the research team implemented a three-part plan to provide high resolution climate data for the impact modeling community. First, a database was developed of up-to-date...
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The purpose of this grant was to provide research opportunities to students and staff working with the Southeast Climate Science Center (SE CSC) with a focus on decision analysis and science communication. Research activities occured primarily within the framework of existing SE CSC-funded projects. Student research supported project activities associated with the development and use of science-based information to make climate adaptation management decisions. Student abilities to participate in these research activities were enhanced by participation in a course entitled “Introduction to Structured Decision Making” taught at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) in Shepherdstown, WV. In addition to participation...
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The NE CASC Fellows Program is a training initiative to develop skills in engagement, communication, and collaboration to help inform climate change adaptation for natural and cultural resources management. Students and postdocs from the NE CASC consortium universities make up the fellows cohort and hail from diverse disciplines, including ecology, engineering, and earth and environmental sciences. Our common goal is to fulfill the mission of the NE CASC, which is to deliver science to help wildlife, ecosystems, and people adapt to a changing climate. Our challenge is to identify and build relationships with stakeholder partners to collaboratively design research that will meet their climate adaptation needs.
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The South Central CASC supports Communities of Practice who are dedicated to finding solutions to the challenges of a changing climate. The Communities of Practice comprise researchers and stakeholders who share a common interest and choose to invest their time in learning from others and developing new collaborations. As of March 2021, the South Central CASC is actively supporting six Communities of Practice. The Communities of Practice members meet together regularly and engage in a formal check-in with South Central CASC staff on a quarterly basis. The groups are also a key part of our Annual Fall Science Meeting where they outline goals and objectives for their group over the next year. The topics of interest...
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Fruit-producing shrubs such as huckleberries, salal, and hazelnut are an important component of social history and traditional tribal diets in the Pacific Northwest. The fruits of these shrubs are also an important food source for foraging wildlife and pollinators, and serve as the basis for both non-tribal harvesting and small-scale commercial operations. Among land managers and tribes, there is a strong interest in preserving and restoring these culturally important plant species across the Pacific Northwest. However, limited knowledge is available on the current ranges of shrub species, or how climate change will impact future ranges or the timing of flowering and fruiting for key Northwest shrub species. ...
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There is increasing and broad recognition of the importance of Indigenous and local knowledge in leading climate change adaptation. Indigenous peoples and nations are on the front lines of climate change impacts, yet they are also leading the way in many innovative adaptation actions, such as traditional or cultural burning practices - a form of low-intensity understory-burning that promotes ecosystem health and builds cultural resilience. The overarching goal of this project is to better understand and establish traditional burning as a robust adaptation strategy, based on the practice’s own merits and/or as a complementary approach to other conventional ecosystem restoration practices. Focusing on central California,...
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Wildfire is a natural and essential process in forest ecosystems, but characteristics of fire regimes that have shaped these landscapes over long time scales are changing with climate change and human activities. In some places, changes in fire size, frequency, and severity threaten to degrade essential ecosystem services that produce clean air and water, fertile soil for crop and wood production, and habitat for plant and animal species. Hence, it is urgent to understand how both our actions and inactions contribute to the vulnerability of forest ecosystems and to develop management practices that help sustain and conserve vegetation and wildlife communities in vulnerable forest systems. Our project will address...
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California - one of the nation's most populous states - hosts extensive public lands, crown-jewel national parks, and diverse natural resources. Resource managers in federal, state, tribal, and local agencies face challenges due to environmental changes and extreme events such as severe droughts, heat waves, flood events, massive wildfires, and forest dieback. However, state-of-the-art research that could aid in the management of natural resources facing these challenges is typically slow to be applied, owing to limited time and capacity on the part of both researchers and managers. This project aims to accelerate the application of science to resource management by facilitating the translation and synthesis of...
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The Northwest and North Central Climate Adaptation Science Centers (NW and NC CASCs) work in partnership with regional natural resource management communities to provide high priority science information and products needed for climate adaptation. In parallel with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Region 6, the NW and NC CASCs prioritize science to inform sagebrush steppe and grassland ecosystem conservation, emphasizing the application of climate adaptation strategies that support at-risk populations and human-ecological communities within these ecosystems. To improve their ability to deliver effective and actionable science, the NW and NC CASCs must continually engage with regional partners and stakeholders...
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Climate change threatens many wildlife species across the Pacific Northwest. As the climate continues to change, wildlife managers are faced with the ever-increasing challenge of allocating scarce resources to conserve at-risk species, and require more information to prioritize sites for conservation. However, climate change will affect species differently in different places. In fact, some places may serve as refuges for wildlife—places where animals can remain or to which they can easily move to escape the worst impacts of climate change. Currently, different datasets exist for identifying these resilient landscapes, known as climate refugia, but they are often not readily useable by wildlife managers. To address...
As the Earth’s climate changed in the ancient past, many species moved across the landscape to track adequate environmental conditions. Some species took shelter in remaining pockets of suitable climates, referred to as refugia. For example, refugia harbored species when vast glaciers covered much of the land, allowing them to survive and migrate again across the landscape as temperatures warmed and ice melted. Modern changes in climate are similarly compelling species to move, and some of those species may seek shelter from increasingly hostile conditions in refugia. Modern climate refugia will likely take many different forms. For example, larger-scale macrorefugia may be areas of relative climate stability that...
This fact sheet was prepared by Jessica Halofsky, David Peterson and Brian Harvey, University of Washington, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Editorial assistance from Patti Loesche and Darcy Widmayer. Funding for this work provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center. This fact sheets goes with the following synthesis paper: https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-019-0062-8.
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Extreme weather events (such as floods, ice storms, tropical cyclones, and tornadoes) are increasing in frequency and causing severe consequences throughout the U.S. and particularly in Louisiana. These natural disasters are especially devastating for farmers, whose livelihoods depend on the environment. Most climate research and extension outreach focus on large-scale farmers and tend to reach White farmers who outnumber other farming communities, often failing to connect with smallholding and African American farmers. While these farmers make up less of the total agricultural population and economy, they are a critical part of the agricultural and ecological systems and a crucial component in building sustainable...
University of Arizona (HOST) The University of Arizona (UArizona) is the SW CASC host institution, and the state’s land grant institution. UArizona is a national leader in climate and environmental science, co-production of science and policy research, engagement, and outreach and climate adaptation science, planning and implementation. The SW CASC is housed within the Arizona Institute for Resilient Environments and Societies (AIRES) at UArizona, which has over 300 affiliated faculty and houses many long-term initiatives with experience in co-production of actionable science. UArizona SW CASC co-PI Alison Meadow and DRI co-PI Tamara Wall are evaluating SW CASC projects using a framework they developed for...
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Ongoing and future climate change throughout Alaska has the potential to affect terrestrial ecosystems and the services that they provide to the people of Alaska and the nation. These services include the gathering of food and fiber by Alaskan communities, the importance of ecosystems to recreation, cultural, and spiritual activities of people in Alaska, and the way that land cover and vegetation in ecosystems affect temperature and water flow (runoff, flooding etc.) throughout the state. Assessments of the effects of climate change on these “ecosystem services” have been hindered by a lack of tools (e.g. computer models) capable of forecasting future landscapes in a changing climate while taking into account numerous...
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For the Upper Yukon area of interior Alaska, climate change has become a daily fact of life, causing a wide range of impacts to the environment, and in some cases to community health. In 2015 the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center organized a series of assessments to better understand the impacts of climate change being observed in this region, including the communities Arctic Village, Fort Yukon, and Venetie. Support for this project was provided by USGS and by local tribal partners including Arctic Village Traditional Council, Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Tribal Council, and the Venetie Village Council. The assessments were also performed in partnership with three...
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As the climate continues to change, vulnerable wildlife species will need specific management strategies to help them adapt to these changes. One specific management strategy is based on the idea that some locations that species inhabit today will remain suitable over time and should be protected. The climate conditions at those locations will continue to be good enough for species to survive and breed successfully and are referred to as climate refugia. Another management strategy is based on the idea that species will need to shift across the landscape to track suitable conditions and reach climate refugia locations as climate and land uses change over time. The more opportunities we can give species to safely...
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The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) spreads over 29 atolls and has a population of over 50,000 people; over 27,000 of those people live on the Majuro Atoll, RMI’s capital. Sea level rise threatens the very existence of RMI as high-end projections of sea level rise by the end of the century exceed the average elevation of these low atoll reef islands. Already, waves wash over Majuro during “king tides” when strong winds blow from the west across the broad lagoon, or when there are high open ocean waves. Flooding waves breach island shores in multiple locations and wash into homes, cemeteries, across roads, and into commercial districts. Over the past decade, there has been a widespread exodus of residents...
Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JHM-D-13-0167.1): Drought indices are often used for monitoring interannual variability in macroscale hydrology. However, the diversity of drought indices raises several issues: 1) which indices perform best and where; 2) does the incorporation of potential evapotranspiration (PET) in indices strengthen relationships, and how sensitive is the choice of PET methods to such results; 3) what additional value is added by using higher-spatial-resolution gridded climate layers; and 4) how have observed relationships changed through time. Standardized precipitation index, standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), Palmer drought severity index,...
Detecting change in ecosystems requires observations of living and non-living components over time. Many different organizations make observations that are relevant to understanding global change processes, but the data are often not easily discoverable by other interested scientists and managers. This project pulls into a centralized location information about many of these observational networks. This phase of the project enhanced a pilot publicly available web-based portal that provides a means to discover, search, and connect to many types of environmental and biological data collected in the southeastern United States that are relevant to characterizing potential effects of climate and land use change on land,...
map background search result map search result map Development of the Geo Data Portal to Make Climate Projections and Scientific Data More Accessible to Users Development of the Alaska Integrated Ecosystem Model to Illustrate Future Landscape Change Supporting Students and Early Career Researchers in the Development of Science to Inform Adaptation Management Decisions Simulating and Projecting Future Impacts of Sea Level Rise on Majuro Atoll Climate Impacts on the Locations and Availability of Traditional Food Sources from Native Northwestern Shrubs Community Observations on Climate Change: Arctic Village, Fort Yukon, and Venetie, Alaska Climate Refugia and Resilience Atlas: Identifying Priority Areas for Conserving Species of Concern in a Changing Climate Improving and Accelerating the Application of Science to Natural Resource Management in California Cultural Burning as a Climate Adaptation Strategy Communities of Practice Fellows Program Mapping Connections across Ecosystems in the Northeast to Inform Climate Refugia Assessing Vulnerability of Vegetation and Wildlife Communities to Post-Fire Transformations to Guide Management of Southwestern Pine Forests and Woodlands Assessing the Needs and Adaptation Practices of Smallholding and African American Farmers Facing Extreme Weather Events in Louisiana Partnerships to Inform Climate Adaptation and Natural Resource Management in the Northwest and North Central U.S. Simulating and Projecting Future Impacts of Sea Level Rise on Majuro Atoll Community Observations on Climate Change: Arctic Village, Fort Yukon, and Venetie, Alaska Assessing the Needs and Adaptation Practices of Smallholding and African American Farmers Facing Extreme Weather Events in Louisiana Climate Impacts on the Locations and Availability of Traditional Food Sources from Native Northwestern Shrubs Climate Refugia and Resilience Atlas: Identifying Priority Areas for Conserving Species of Concern in a Changing Climate Improving and Accelerating the Application of Science to Natural Resource Management in California Cultural Burning as a Climate Adaptation Strategy Assessing Vulnerability of Vegetation and Wildlife Communities to Post-Fire Transformations to Guide Management of Southwestern Pine Forests and Woodlands Mapping Connections across Ecosystems in the Northeast to Inform Climate Refugia Communities of Practice Fellows Program Partnerships to Inform Climate Adaptation and Natural Resource Management in the Northwest and North Central U.S. Supporting Students and Early Career Researchers in the Development of Science to Inform Adaptation Management Decisions Development of the Alaska Integrated Ecosystem Model to Illustrate Future Landscape Change Development of the Geo Data Portal to Make Climate Projections and Scientific Data More Accessible to Users