NECSC News

New York State's Division of Watershed Water Quality Science and Research in the New York City Department of Environmental Conservation convened a meeting of scientists to review the “Climate Change Integrated Modeling Project – Phase I:  Assessment of Impacts on the New York City Water Supply.”  The meeting was held on September 18-19, at the Ashokan Center, near one of the major NYC water supply reservoirs, the Ashokan Reservoir.   NE CSC University Director, Richard Palmer, and Dr. Radley Horton, PI of the NE CSC at Columbia University attended the meeting.  
 

The impacts of climate change on tribal natural and cultural resources are taking center stage in a newly released Special Issue of the journal Climatic Change[1] (Vol. 20, Issue 3). Released on-line on September 15, 2013, this is the first time a peer-reviewed scientific journal has exclusively devoted an entire edition to climate change and its impacts on indigenous communities across the United States.
 

NE CSC Federal Director, Dr. Mary Ratnaswamy, will present at the Association for Environmental Health and Sciences Foundation's East Coast conference on "Soils, Sediments, Water, and Energy" on October 23rd, 2013 at UMass Amherst.  The session is titled, "Climate Change Trends and Adaptation".

New grant awarded to NE CSC Consortium Insitution College of Menominee Nation through the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center (GLISA) to work with regional tribes in the Upper Great Lakes region in developing climate change adaptation planning scenarios. 

The NE CSC introduces the first webinars in a new series for the 2013-2014 academic year focusing on extreme events and climate change adaptation.  Here in the Northeast region, extreme events are a critical concern for managers in charge of safeguarding important resources. 

The College of Menominee Nation (CMN), in partnership with the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS – a division of the Northern Research Station of the USDA Forest Service), hosted a one-and-a-half day workshop on the CMN campus on August 20-21.  Forest and natural resource managers from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Forest Service Northeastern Area, and multiple tribes participated in the Forest Adaptation Planning and Practices (FAPP) training.

Funded by the NE CSC in 2012, the first stakeholder-directed research project is completed.  Researchers with U.S. Geological Survey Water Science Centers in Iowa, Kansas and Massachusetts collaborated to conduct a comprehensive literature search of both published and ongoing research (2000-present) that sheds light on the interactions between climate change, agriculture and water quality across the combined geographies of the Eastern Tallgrass Prairie and Big Rivers LCC and neighboring Upper Midwest and Great Lakes LCC.

On August 8th, the NE CSC hosted the first Monthly LCC-CSC Coordination Call. The purpose of this call was to have an open discussion on joint CSC-LCC science priorities, and the potential role of the NE CSC in pairing the expertise of our Consortium members and institutions with the LCCs to address outstanding science questions. 

Consortium member, Tony D'Amato from University of Minnesota was appointed to Upper Midwest and Great Lakes (UMGL) LCC Forest Focal Area Work Group.  D'Amato participated in work group call on July 24 to discuss strategies for linking forest conservation efforts throughout region with ongoing, related work being led by UMGL LCC and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. 

Michelle Staudinger, Science Coordinator for the NE CSC attended a successful fisheries science meeting in Providence, RI on July 23, "Understanding Climate Impacts on Fish Stocks of the Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem:  Key research needs and future directions".

The NE CSC is featured in UMass Magazine's summer 2013 issue in an article titled, "Climate Change Clarified".  The article highlights past, present, and future of climate change research at UMass Amherst.  NE CSC Graduate Fellow Lynn Brennan is featured on the cover!