HR: 13:40h
AN: GC33B-01 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Data gathering and simulation of climate change impacts in mountainous areas
AU: * Bachelet, D
EM: dbachelet@tnc.org
AF: The Nature Conservancy, 2505 Vista Ave SE, Olympia, WA 98501, United States
AU: Baker, B
EM: bbaker@tnc.org
AF: The Nature Conservancy, 2505 Vista Ave SE, Olympia, WA 98501, United States
AU: Hicke, J
EM: jhicke@uidaho.edu
AF: University of Idaho, McClure Hall Room 203 PO Box 443021, Moscow, ID 83844-3021, United States
AU: Conklin, D
EM: david.conklin@oregonstate.edu
AF: Oregon State University, 444 NW 35th Street, Corvallis, OR 98330, United States
AU: Mckelvey, K
EM: kmckelvey@fs.fed.us
AF: USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Station, Missoula, MT 59715, United States
AB: High mountains include species most at risk in a warming environment and are a critical link in the water supply chain for both human and natural systems. Scientists are monitoring and simulating these systems as snowpack depth changes, snowmelt timing changes, frozen soils melt and destabilize, and low elevation populations migrate upslope. Natural climate cycles and human activities interact with climate change trends and complicate the interpretation of the signal we observe. For ex. over the past 4 years in Yunnan (China), we documented that herbaceous alpine meadows are contracting as forest tree line advances and alpine shrub biomass increases. This is a result of interactions between human land use alteration and observed shifts in climate. In North America as snowpack decreases, wolverines and lynx denning conditions are jeopardized as human pressure reduces their extent. Coarse scale vegetation shift models using downscaled future climate scenarios fail to capture complex terrain features and microclimatic conditions that can either ensure critical habitat for the in-situ survival of threatened species or make things worse (ex. rockfalls) for climate migrants. Recent simulation efforts focus on high resolution models that address aspect, slope, soil types, and microclimate variations that affect local and migrating plants, their associated pollinators and insect herbivores, modifying habitat availability for birds and mammals
DE: 0476 Plant ecology (1851)
DE: 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE
DE: 1615 Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling (0412, 0414, 0793, 4805, 4912)
DE: 1616 Climate variability (1635, 3305, 3309, 4215, 4513)
DE: 1637 Regional climate change
SC: Global Environmental Change [GC]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting