Ecology: Life Interacts with the Earth

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Ecology Life Interacts with the Earth Impact of
Climate Change

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Defining Scientific Inquiry
Inquiry is a question-driven process that
scientists use to explain the world. Scientific
inquiry includes the key practices that
scientists commonly engage in including

• Pose, refine and evaluate questions that guide
  scientific investigations,
• Designing and conducting scientific
  investigations,
• Use representations, models, and mathematics to
  communicate scientific phenomena and solve
  scientific problems,
• Formulating and revising scientific explanations
  using logic and evidence,
• Communicating and defending a scientific argument.

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USTemperature Anomalies

• Western mountain regions dominate recent warming
  as this map of standardized temperature anomalies
  of 20002005 versus 18952000 long-term averages
  shows.
• http//www.fs.fed.us/psw/cirmount/

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US Landforms

• http//education.usgs.gov/common/resources/mapcata
  log/topography.html

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Themes of Research

• Water Supply
• Local and region-wide drought have affected
  cities and agriculture repeatedly over the past
  quarter century. Higher temperatures have raised
  snow levels, shortened the accumulation season,
  reduced the peak snowpack, and hastened spring
  melt. Meanwhile, rapid population growth has
  accelerated demand for assured water. Together,
  these trends increase chances of significant
  regional water shortages.
• Forest Dieback
• Recent severe drought, superimposed on decades
  of fire exclusion and livestock grazing, have
  increased susceptibility of trees to insects and
  disease, and are resulting in widespread and
  rapid forest diebacks throughout western forests.
• Urban-Wildland Issues
• Accelerating suburban development on city
  fringes and exurban development of rural lands
  are increasing scarcity of wildlands and
  associated resources wildfire is placing homes
  in these developments at risk. Poor air quality
  is moving uphill from urban centers. Climate
  changes are accentuating these problems.

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Themes of Research

• Wildfire
• Enormous, destructive crown fires, outside the
  range of 20th-century sizes and severity, are
  consuming forests stressed from drought,
  extensive tree mortality, and long-term fire
  exclusion. These fires burn severely, threatening
  biodiversity, watershed stability, water supply,
  and human lives and property.
• Biodiversity and Wildlife
• Development of sparsely settled areas, massive
  forest dieback, extensive high severity crown
  fires, landscape fragmentation, and changes in
  high-altitude ecosystems are threatening
  biodiversity and wildlife habitat.

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Snow melt

• Cumulative trend in simulated timing of peak
  snowpack (number of days changed from 1951 to
  2000).
• From Hamlet A.F., Mote P.W., Clark M.P.,
  Lettnmaier, D.P., 2005 Effects of temperature
  and precipitation variability on snowpack trends
  in the western U.S. Journal of Climate, 18 (21)
  45454561.

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Mountain Ecosystems

• Vertically stacked mountain ecosystems may be at
  risk as climate changes.

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Western Mountain Warming Trends

• Warming trends of the 20th century seen in annual
  temperature for 11 western United States. Blue
  line is 11-year mean.

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Drought

• Percentage of western United States in severe
  drought during 18952005 (Palmer Drought Severity
  Index). H. Diaz, NOAA.

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Historical Photographs of Glacial Retreat

• Retreat of S. Cascade Glacier,WA 1928 (USFS)2000
  (USGS).

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Tree Ring Records
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Plant Migration in the Alps

• Fig. 1. The study site map from Pirola (1959)
  redrawn by using CTR, C2d3 sheet (Regional
  Technical Map of Lombardy, original scale
  110.000). The figure also shows the transect
  along which the upward migration of plants was
  studied.

Gilberto Paroloa and Graziano Rossi. 2008. Upward
migration of vascular plants following a climate
warming trend in the Alps. Basic and Applied
Ecology. 9(2) 100-107.
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Plant Migration in the Alps

• Fig. 2. Trend in mean annual air temperature
  (MAAT) during 19262003, recorded at the Lanzada
  meteorological station (983 m a.s.l. Sondrio).

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Plant Migration in the Alps

• Fig. 3. Increase in vascular plant species
  numbers per altitudinal range of 100 m between
  the periods 1959 and 2005.

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Plant Migration in the Alps

• Fig. 4. Maximum altitudes reached by the 52
  migrated species in 1959 and 2005. A linear
  regression was fitted and used to separate fast
  migrants from slow migrants.

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Does Climate Impact People Too?
Look at the history of China.
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Environment and Human History
The Tabulation of Wars in Ancient China
(Editorial Committee of Chinas Military History
1985) is a multivolume compendium scrupulously
recording the wars that took place in China from
800 bc to ad 1911. It includes an appendix
detailing each war, including year of inception,
type of participants, location, causes, and in
most cases, the numbers of soldiers or
combatants, causalities, progress, and results.
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USGS Office of Climate Change

• http//www.usgs.gov/global_change/