The Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (note our new name!) is proud to present its 2017 annual report. Recent projects, events, research activities, and Fellow’s work are highlighted.
Mary Ratnaswamy will be leaving the service of the Federal government when she retires from the USGS on April 30 after serving a rich and varied career. Mary joined the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (NE CASC, our new name as of March 2018) as Federal Director in 2012 when the NE CASC was in early stages of establishment. She was instrumental in shaping our work in this region.
Toni Lyn Morelli has no shortage of enthusiasm for her job as a USGS research ecologist NE CSC. Her research focuses on the impacts of climate change, but this comprises a wide variety of projects spanning many years, a number of territories, and countless plant and animal species.
A new publication has highlighted the growing importance of adjusting forest management decisions as climate changes. Looking at the Midwest and Northeast regions the study sought to discover the concerns that land managers tend to plan for and how this influences adaptation strategies.
Michelle Staudinger, Science Coordinator of the NE CSC, was an invited panelist for the session “Involving Stakeholders to Improve Outcomes: Lessons From the Climate Science Centers."
NE CSC Graduate Fellow, Marketa Zimova, published two papers on how the worldwide decrease in snow cover already may have dramatic impacts on animals that change coat colors with the seasons.
A new assessment is available of the vulnerability of forest ecosystems across the New England region (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, northern New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) under a range of future climates.
The NE CSC-funded decision-support tool and interactive website, Shifts in Fish Habitat Under Climate Change, won a prestigious USGS award in communications, the Shoemaker Award for External Communications Excellence.
This spring the NECSC will host several webinars on ranging from the management of floodplains and ecosystems across the country to policy impacts of climate change.
NE CSC Federal Deputy Director Olivia LeDee worked with Kenny Blumenfeld (State Climatology Office, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources) and Amanda Kueper (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources) to plan and lead two climate trainings designed for MN DNR in St. Paul and Duluth, MN.
NE CSC's Research Ecologist with the USGS, Toni Lyn Morelli, and co-authors have recently published in a special edition of Frontiers in Ecology describing novel ways we can improve our roles as researchers.
Wildfire frequency and distributions in the Northeast will directly be affected by climate change, but little is known about wildfire activity in the past.
NE CSC Postdoctoral Fellow Tom Bonnot looked into the varying population size and distribution of two critical bird species, the prairie warbler and wood thrush, by modeling their population distribution across the central hardwoods and then predicting how these variables will change up to the year 2100.
