HR: 08:00h
AN: U51A-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Integrating Climate and Ecosystem-Response Sciences in Temperate Western North American Mountains: The CIRMOUNT Initiative
AU: * Millar, C I
EM: cmillar@fs.fed.us
AF: USDA Forest Service, PSW Research Station, P.O. Box 245, Berkeley, CA 94701 United States
AU: Fagre, D B
EM: dan_fagre@usgs.gov
AF: USGS Science Center, Glacier National Park, West Glacier, MT 59936 United States
AB: Mountain regions are uniquely sensitive to changes in climate, vulnerable to climate effects on biotic and physical factors of intense social concern, and serve as critical early-warning systems of climate impacts. Escalating demands on western North American (WNA) mountain ecosystems increasingly stress both natural resources and rural community capacities; changes in mountain systems cascade to issues of national concern. Although WNA has long been a focus for climate- and climate-related environmental research, these efforts remain disciplinary and poorly integrated, hindering interpretation into policy and management. Knowledge is further hampered by lack of standardized climate monitoring stations at high-elevations in WNA. An initiative is emerging as the Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT) whose primary goal is to improve knowledge of high-elevation climate systems and to better integrate physical, ecological, and social sciences relevant to climate change, ecosystem response, and natural-resource policy in WNA. CIRMOUNT seeks to focus research on climate variability and ecosystem response (progress in understanding synoptic scale processes) that improves interpretation of linkages between ecosystem functions and human processing (progress in understanding human-environment integration), which in turn would yield applicable information and understanding on key societal issues such as mountains as water towers, biodiversity, carbon forest sinks, and wildland hazards such as fire and forest dieback (progress in understanding ecosystem services and key thresholds). Achieving such integration depends first on implementing a network of high-elevation climate-monitoring stations, and linking these with integrated ecosystem-response studies. Achievements since 2003 include convening the 2004 Mountain Climate Sciences Symposium (1, 2) and several special sessions at technical conferences; initiating a biennial mountain climate research symposium (MTNCLIM), the first to be held in spring 2005; developing a strategy for climate-monitoring in WNA; installing and networking high-elevation (>3000m) climate-monitoring stations; and completing three target regions (Glacier National Park, MT; Sierra Nevada and White Mountains, CA) of the international GLORIA (Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments) plant-monitoring project, the first in WNA. CIRMOUNT emphasizes integration at the regional scale in WNA, collaborating with and complementing projects such as the Western Mountain Initiative, whose mandate is more targeted than CIRMOUNT's, and global programs such as GLORIA and the international Mountain Research Initiative. Achievement of continuing success in WNA hinges on the capacity to secure long-term funding and institutional investment. (1) See associated URL for paper and poster pdfs (2) Discussing the future of western U.S. mountains, climate change, and ecosystems. EOS 31 August 2004, 85(35), p. 329
UR: http://www.fs.fes.us/psw/mcss
DE: 3309 Climatology (1620)
DE: 1812 Drought
DE: 1851 Plant ecology
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (3309)
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting