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The Northeast United States and Atlantic Canada share many of the same types of forests, wetlands, and natural communities, and from a wildlife perspective the region is one contiguous forest. However, resources are classified and mapped differently on the two sides of the border, creating challenges for habitat evaluation, species modeling, and predicting the effects of climate change. To remedy this, ecologists from The Nature Conservancy collaborated with a committee of scientists from various Canadian institutions to produce the first international map of terrestrial habitats for northeast North America. The project used extensive spatial data on geology, soils, landforms, wetlands, elevation and climate. Additionally,...
Water temperature is one of the important characteristics of a stream that can be impacted by anthropogenic change. Such change can have significant ecological implications for the health of riparian systems. It is important for decision-makers to understand the impact of various physical characteristics on the stream temperature regime in a watershed. This research applies a statistical stream temperature model (Mohseni et al, 1998) to 905 sites across the northeastern United States to determine if such models can be useful to resource managers. Statistical analysis on the calibrated model parameters across the best-fit sites is used to provide information on watershed characteristics which may be critical to stream...
Abstract: Statistical downscaling (SD) is commonly used to provide information for the assessment of climate change impacts. Using as input the output from large-scale dynamical climate models and observation-based data products, SD aims to provide a finer grain of detail and to mitigate systematic biases. It is generally recognized as providing added value. However, one of the key assumptions of SD is that the relationships used to train the method during a historical period are unchanged in the future, in the face of climate change. The validity of this assumption is typically quite difficult to assess in the normal course of analysis, as observations of future climate are lacking. We approach this problem using...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: South Central CASC
Climate in the southeastern U.S. is predicted to be changing at a slower rate than other parts of North America; however, land use change associated with urbanization is having a significant effect on wildlife populations and habitat availability. We sought to understand the effect of global warming on both beneficial and pest insects of trees. We used urban warming as a proxy for global warming in as much as many cities have already warmed as much, due to heat island effects, as they are expected to warm due to climate change by 2050 or even 2100. We were able to develop good predictive models of how warming influences beneficial and pest insects for cities in the Southeast and across the east coast more generally....
The increasing availability of climate projections provides natural resource managers and scientists with a number of scenarios from which to estimate variability in hydrologic response to future climatic conditions. This presents a need for consistent and efficient conversion of climate data into model-ready format, archiving and indexing of model simulation results, and the visualization and summation of model simulation results. Furthermore, decision-makers need this information at specific locations and for specific periods of record to effectively manage their water resources. This final report summarizes a collaborative effort to help address these issues through the construction of the Monthly Water Balance...
The threat of droughts and their associated impacts on the landscape and human communities have long been recognized in the United States, especially in high risk areas such as the south-central region. However, little is known on whether existing drought indices can predict the damages and how different human communities respond and adapt to the hazard. This project examines whether existing drought indices can predict the occurrence of drought events and their actual damages, how the adaptive capacity (i.e., resilience) varies across space, and what public outreach and engagement effort would be most effective for mitigation of risk and impacts. The study region includes all 503 counties in Arkansas, Louisiana,...
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Topographic predictors of local microclimate that that were derived from ASTER 30-m resolution digital elevation model (DEM) data from gdex.cr.usgs.gov/gdex/ and clipped to selected 12-digit hydrologic units that included ibutton sensor locations and adjacent hydrologic units in each mountain range.
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These present data on sediment carbon within submerged aquatic vegetation beds from fresh to saline coastal locations in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. Water quality, site location, vegetation biomass and species composition are presented. This project was co-funded by the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center and the Gulf Coast Prairie Landscape Conservation Cooperative and Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks LCC. An alternate reference to this product can be found here.
This project snapshot provides a brief overview of the project "Very Fine Resolution Dynamical Downscaling of Past and Future Climates for Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on the Islands of O`ahu and Kaua`i".
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The Georgia Basin supports a globally unique mix of dry forest and savannah habitats that evolved under historic climates and First Nations land management. These extraordinary areas still provide ecosystem services essential to human health and well-being and are widely recognized for their outstanding beauty, recreational and economic values. However, most of this habitat has been converted to human use and what remains will be lost without further investment in conservation and restoration activities. We use leading-edge methods to prioritize stewardship actions, identify conservation networks likely to facilitate species persistence under climate change, and maximize return on conservation investments.
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL062803/abstract): Observations from the main mountain climate station network in the western United States (U.S.) suggest that higher elevations are warming faster than lower elevations. This has led to the assumption that elevation-dependent warming is prevalent throughout the region with impacts to water resources and ecosystem services. Here we critically evaluate this network's temperature observations and show that extreme warming observed at higher elevations is the result of systematic artifacts and not climatic conditions. With artifacts removed, the network's 1991–2012 minimum temperature trend decreases from +1.16°C decade−1 to +0.106°C decade−1...
Managing plant and wildlife species under climate change offers a substantial challenge. Federal agencies have adapted a framework for considering climate change when implementing management actions. This project was designed to demonstrate how elements of that framework, climate science, ecological forecasting, and natural resource management, can be linked to best maintain natural resources under climate change. The project focused on the whitebark pine (WBP) tree. This species occupies high mountain forests and uniquely provides foods and habitats for other species. WBP populations have undergone massive die-offs over the past decade due to pest outbreaks associated with climate warming. In the Greater Yellowstone...
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This study set out to answer the question: “What data and modeling frameworks are needed to provide scientists reliable, climate-informed, water temperature estimates for freshwater ecosystems that can assist watershed management decision making?” To accomplish this, the study gathered existing stream temperature data, identified data gaps, deployed stream temperature monitoring devices, and developed and tested a stream temperature model that could be regionalized across the Northeast domain. We partnered with another funded project team, led by Jana Stewart at WI USGS to collect data from over 10,000 locations across the climate science center domain. This collection effort aided in identifying data gaps where...
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The scaled quail is an important species that indicates the overall health of the habitats they occupy in the arid Southwest. Some populations are declining, which may be linked to the long-term trend in warmer, drier conditions and reduced monsoonal rainfall across their range. It’s believed that temperature and humidity levels have been too high, reducing the survival of eggs and chicks. Climate models project decreasing rainfall and warming temperatures to continue for the region, so understanding this linkage is becoming increasingly critical. To address this need, researchers sought to measure the success of scaled quail nests at locations across their range, to determine if nest success is related to temperature,...
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Snowshoe hares are the primary food source of the federally threatened Canada lynx. In western Montana for example, snowshoe hare make up 96% of lynx diet. In fact, hares are critical players in forest ecosystems because most carnivores prey on them. The main way that snowshoe hares escape predation is through camouflage. In response to changes in day length, snowshoe hares molt seasonally, changing color from brown to white in the winter to blend in with the snowfall and hide from predators. However, due to shorter snow seasons caused by recent changes in climate, snowshoe hares are turning white before it snows, making them more visible to predators. Because 21 other species around the world also undergo these...
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Fisheries and aquatic habitats throughout the United States are in dire need of protection or restoration because human activities have resulted in severe degradation of those habitats. Further, future climatic changes will continue to affect human land-use, temperature, and water flows. Natural resource managers need to identify and prioritize habitats so that limited time and funding can be focused on habitats that are in most need of protection both now and in the future, based on projected climate changes. This project was comprised of a team of scientists from the US Geological Survey, Kansas State University, Michigan State University, Penn State University, the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the University...
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Climate change has emerged as a key environmental concern of the 21st century and a major challenge for land and wildlife managers. Although scientists have made tremendous progress in predicting the impact of climate change on a regional and global scale, drilling down such projections to a locally applicable form has been difficult. A major project of the US Geological Survey's (USGS) Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC), funded by the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC), drew on the work of an interdisciplinary team of scientists to help close the gap between theory and practical application in the arid southwestern U.S. Climate change in this region is predicted to be extreme,...
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In collaboration with the University of Missouri and Iowa State University, this project advanced efforts to understand and accommodate uncertainty by applying to Missouri River sturgeon population dynamics the tools of multi-scale climate models and hierarchical Bayesian modeling frameworks, linking models for system components together by formal rules of probability. While a complete climate prediction may be intractable at this time -- for instance, the climate projections may not incorporate land use changes and solar fluctuations into the boundary conditions -- we proposed a framework to quantify known uncertainty that is also flexible enough to adapt to advances in climate predictions. A key advantage of the...
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The gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is a familiar species across the southeastern Coastal Plain, but its population has declined significantly over the decades. One reason is that much of its primary habitat, sparse stands of mature pine, has been replaced by development or agriculture. Another is that periodic ground fires, which are important for providing needed forage for the tortoise, have been largely suppressed on the landscape. The gopher tortoise is a “keystone” species, meaning that its disappearance from the landscape would jeopardize the existence of many other species that make use of its underground burrows. Besides tortoise habitat, the uplands of the Coastal Plain contain isolated seasonal...
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We routinely encounter uncertainty when we make decisions – from picking a new morning coffee to choosing where to live. Even decisions that are supported by science contain some level of remaining uncertainty. In the context of conservation and wildlife management, the potential for uncertainty to influence decisions is perhaps most obvious when we think about predicting how actions (or non-actions) will have lasting impacts into the future. Our abilities to precisely predict future climatic and ecological conditions and determine the exact consequences of our actions are, and will remain, limited. Conservation practitioners and land and wildlife managers must navigate these challenges to make science-informed...
map background search result map search result map Can Camouflage Keep up with Climate Change? Connecting Climate Projections to Adaptation for the Snowshoe Hare Projecting Future Impacts to River Systems and Large River Fish: Missouri River Sturgeon Example Forecasting Climate Impacts on Wildlife of the Arid Southwest at Regional and Local Scales Using Downscaled Climate Models Science to Inform Future Management of the Nation's Fisheries and Aquatic Habitat Bringing People, Data, and Models Together – Addressing Impacts of Climate Change on Stream Temperature Turning Uncertainty into Useful Information for Conservation Decisions Science to Support Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Making for Gopher Tortoise Conservation The Effects of Climate on Scaled Quail Reproduction and Survival Sediment carbon, submerged aquatic vegetation and environmental variables in deltaic southeast Louisiana (2015-2016) Final Report: : Cross-boundary Planning for Resilience and Restoration of Endangered Oak Savannah and Coastal Douglas-fir Forest Ecosystems Topographic Variables Useful for Microclimate Modeling for Chisos Mountains, West Texas, USA Topographic Variables Useful for Microclimate Modeling for Chisos Mountains, West Texas, USA Can Camouflage Keep up with Climate Change? Connecting Climate Projections to Adaptation for the Snowshoe Hare Sediment carbon, submerged aquatic vegetation and environmental variables in deltaic southeast Louisiana (2015-2016) Final Report: : Cross-boundary Planning for Resilience and Restoration of Endangered Oak Savannah and Coastal Douglas-fir Forest Ecosystems Science to Support Adaptive Landscape Planning and Decision Making for Gopher Tortoise Conservation The Effects of Climate on Scaled Quail Reproduction and Survival Projecting Future Impacts to River Systems and Large River Fish: Missouri River Sturgeon Example Bringing People, Data, and Models Together – Addressing Impacts of Climate Change on Stream Temperature Forecasting Climate Impacts on Wildlife of the Arid Southwest at Regional and Local Scales Using Downscaled Climate Models Turning Uncertainty into Useful Information for Conservation Decisions Science to Inform Future Management of the Nation's Fisheries and Aquatic Habitat