HR: 08:45h
AN: B41E-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Update on Plans to Establish a National Phenology Network in the U.S.A.
AU: * Betancourt, J
EM: jlbetanc@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey and University of Arizona, 1675 W. Anklam Rd., Tucson, AZ 85745 United States
AU: Schwartz, M
EM: mds@uwm.edu
AF: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, WI 53201 United States
AU: Breshears, D
EM: daveb@ag.arizona.edu
AF: University of Arizona, 1311 E. Fourth Street , Tucson, AZ 85721 United States
AU: Cayan, D
EM: dcayan@ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093 United States
AU: Dettinger, M
EM: mddettin@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093 United States
AU: Inouye, D
EM: inouye@mail.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, 1210 Biology-Psychology, College Park, MD 20742 United States
AU: Post, E
EM: esp10@psu.edu
AF: Penn State University, 326 Mueller Lab., University Park, PA 16802 United States
AU: Reed, B
EM: reed@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, 2255 North Gemini Drive, Flagstaff, AZ 86001 United States
AU: Gray, S
EM: stgray@usgs.gov
AF: U.S. Geological Survey, 1675 W. Anklam Rd., Tucson, AZ 85745 United States
AB: The passing of the seasons is the most pervasive source of climatic and biological variability on Earth, yet phenological monitoring has been spotty worldwide. Formal phenological networks were recently established in Europe and Canada, and we are now following their lead in organizing a National Phenology Network (NPN) for the U.S.A. With support from federal agencies (NSF, USGS, NPS, USDA-FS, EPA, NOAA, NASA), on Aug. 22-26 we organized a workshop in Tucson, Arizona to begin planning a national-scale, multi-tiered phenological network. A prototype for a web-based NPN and preliminary workshop results are available at http://www.npn.uwm.edu. The main goals of NPN will be to: (1) facilitate thorough understanding of phenological phenomena, including causes and effects; (2) provide ground truthing to make the most of heavy public investment in remote sensing data; (3) allow detection and prediction of environmental change for a wide of variety of applications; (4) harness the power of mass participation and engage tens of thousands of "citizen scientists" in meeting national needs in Education, Health, Commerce, Natural Resources and Agriculture; (5) develop a model system for substantive collaboration across different levels of government, academia and the private sector. Just as the national networks of weather stations and stream gauges are critical for providing weather, climate and water-related information, NPN will help safeguard and procure goods and services that ecosystems provide. We expect that NPN will consist of a four-tiered, expandable structure: 1) a backbone network linked to existing weather stations, run by recruited public observers; 2) A smaller, second tier of intensive observations, run by scientists at established research sites; 3) a much larger network of observations made by citizen scientists; and 4) remote sensing observations that can be validated with surface observations, thereby providing wall-to-wall coverage for the U.S.A. Key to the success of NPN will be formal linkages with other ecological networks (e.g., LTER, AmeriFlux, NEON, USDA-FS Inventory and Analysis, NPS Inventory and Monitoring) and strategic co-location of phenological measurements with weather stations (e.g., NOAA's Real-Time Observation Network and state mesonets). Establishment and operation of NPN will require partnerships among multiple federal and state agencies, universities, and NGO's. Interagency agreements will facilitate data sharing, staff commitments, and the transfer of funds, while demonstrating policy-level support for NPN and smoothing the path for use of phenological data in decision-making. A formal implementation report will be completed and circulated for review by Dec. 1, 2005. As soon as the network can start assimilating observations from the public at large (tier 3), NPN will start recruiting observers through NGO's, as well as regional and national media. Every effort will be made to start making observations and expanding the monitoring network by Spring 2006.
DE: 0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics (4815)
DE: 0476 Plant ecology (1851)
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
DE: 9350 North America
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005