HR: 14:10h
AN: GC33B-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Climate Forced Alpine Tundra Ecosystem Dynamics: A Model Approach
AU: * Jarosch, A H
EM: ajarosch@eos.ubc.ca
AF: Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of British Columbia, 6339 Stores Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
AU: Clarke, G K
EM: clarke@eos.ubc.ca
AF: Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of British Columbia, 6339 Stores Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
AU: Danby, R K
EM: rdanby@ualberta.ca
AF: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, 11455 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9, Canada
AU: Hik, D S
EM: dhik@ualberta.ca
AF: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, 11455 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9, Canada
AB: Insights concerning the future evolution of alpine ecosystems depend on understanding and simulating their response to climate change. Comprehensive studies of these regions require novel spatio-temporal computational models of climate-forced landscape/ecosystem interactions. As part of the International Polar Year (IPY) we are examining alpine tundra landscapes and ecosystems in the Kluane region of southwest Yukon, Canada. Based on the combination of long-term geophysical and ecological field studies and driven by different climate change scenarios, such a model is being used to explore the range of possible future scenarios for the region. As the first step in building such a complex model, we present a simplified, grid-based model to demonstrate potential changes in plant community distribution driven by key climate variables such as temperature and precipitation. A linear orographic precipitation model is used to downscale climate data which, in combination with a digital elevation model, forms the geophysical input for the model. Simplified ecological rules describing the potential state transition of different plant communities and land cover types are incorporated in the model in a cellular automation fashion. The response of the ecosystem to several different climate scenarios will be presented, including a set of North American Regional Reanalysis climate data. This simplified model is used to demonstrate the potential of such interdisciplinary simulations to gain deeper understanding of ecosystem evolution with climate change.
DE: 0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics (4815)
DE: 0515 Cellular automata
DE: 0545 Modeling (4255)
DE: 1622 Earth system modeling (1225)
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
SC: Global Environmental Change [GC]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting