Skip to main content

NE CSC Newsletter

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

------ NE CSC NEWS: -----------------------

Upcoming Webinar: ”Extending the Northeast Terrestrial Habitat Map to Atlantic Canada"     On Wednesday, April 1 at 3:30pm ET; presented by Mark Anderson, The Nature Conservancy. The Northeast US and Atlantic Canada share many of the same types of forests, wetlands, and natural communities, and from a species perspective the region is one contiguous forest. However, resources are classified and mapped differently on the two sides of the border creating challenges for species modeling and ecosystem evaluation. To remedy this, ecologists from The Nature Conservancy collaborated with a committee of scientists from various Canadian institutions to produce the first international map of terrestrial habitats for the region.  Read more >>

 

Upcoming Webinar: "Fire, Bugs, and Humans: Modeling Interacting Disturbances in Anthropogenic Landscapes"    April 15, 3:30pm ET; presented by Brian R. Sturtevant, US Forest Service.  Human actions strongly influence vegetation dynamics over much of the globe.  The cumulative effects of these actions interact with natural disturbances such as wildfire and insects, leading to complex disturbance behavior affecting human safety, sustainability of natural resources, and biodiversity.  Read more >>

 

NE CSC Fellow Highlight: Designing Sustainable Landscapes in Partnership with Stakeholders     NE CSC Postdoctoral Fellow Bill DeLuca is part of the research team "Designing Sustainable Landscapes," which works closely with the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative to use climate science research to inform conservation planning and identify lands that should receive priority for future conservation efforts in the NA LCC region.  Read more >>

 

NE CSC Co-PIs Palmer and Bradley visit MA State House     Drs. Richard Palmer and Ray Bradley of UMass Amherst visited the Massachusetts State House for a Forum on Climate Change & Resiliency.  They were invited as part of a team of UMass system climate researchers to speak to the State Legislature on the impacts of climate change in Massachusetts and existing efforts to build resiliency of our ecosystems and infrastructure in adapting to climate change.  Read more >>

 

TranStorm Tool Featured on US Climate Resilience Toolkit     NE CSC PI Ken Potter and Affiliated Investigator David S. Liebl at University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a tool that allows communities to identify vulnerability to high runoff flows and flooding from extreme rainfall events, before damage occurs.  Read more >>

 

Making Decisions in Complex Landscapes: Deerfield Headwater Stream Workshop    This NE CSC-funded workshop is a “proactive approach” to making management decisions, as compared to the usual reactive management approaches following events or disasters.  Read more >>

 

NE CSC Guest lecture on climate change impacts on coastal and marine biodiversity     Dr. Michelle Staudinger, Science Coordinator at the NE CSC, will be giving an invited guest lecture at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT on March 16th as part of an undergraduate course on Climate Change Science.  Michelle will be speaking with undergraduate students in the marine and environmental science programs about species and habitat responses to impacts of climate change such as increases in temperature, sea-level rise and trophic interactions.

 

Newest intern at College of Menominee Nation    The College of Menominee Nation's Sustainable Development Institute has engaged an undergraduate intern to assist with NE CSC-funded project, "Collaboration in Action: Using the Menominee Model of Sustainability to Assess, Plan, and Build Capacity for Tribal Communities to Address Climate Change”  Read more >>

 

Upcoming presentations from the NE CSC:

•                Morelli, T.L. et al. Science for Parks, Parks for Science. Presentation: Climate Change Refugia as a Tool for Climate Adaptation. March 27, 2015. Berkeley, CA.

•                Schaefer, M. and Caldwell, C.  Society for Applied Anthropology. Presentation: “Collaboration in Action: Building Bridges between Tribes and Climate Scientists”. Panel: “Researcher and Community Engagement: The Politics of Doing Research”. March 26, 2015. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

•                Grant, Evan and colleagues. "An integrated application for modeling environmental change, population response and management alternatives in streams." Northeast Fish and Wildlife Conference. April 21, 2015.

•                Jacobsen, R. Keynote speaker at Mississippi River Research Consortium. April 22-24, 2015.

 

Recent Publications from the NE CSC: 

•                Slesak, R.A., C.F. Lenhart, K.N. Brooks, A.W. D’Amato, and B.J. Palik.  2014.  Water table response to harvesting and simulated emerald ash borer mortality in black ash wetlands, Minnesota USA. Canadian Journal of Forest Research





 

------ FEATURED RESOURCE: --------------------------------------

Changing the Atmosphere, Anthropology, and Climate Change    This new report's objectives are: to provide a guiding document on anthropology and climate change in its broadest sense, including anthropology's contributions to, and concerns about, climate change and climate change policy and discourse; to provide commentary on interdisciplinary research relationships; and to identify research frontiers for anthropology with respect to climate change. Read more >>

 

 

------ UPCOMING EVENTS: ----------------------------------------------------

Climate Adaptation for Coastal Communities      April 14-16, Wells Reserve at Laudholm, Wells, Maine. This intensive and highly interactive three-day training course provides individuals with a climate adaptation toolkit to proactively address adaptation planning priorities in the context of local government priorities. Course modules are taught by NOAA Office for Coastal Management expert training staff and local partners.You will learn about local climate adaptation efforts from expert practitioners working in Maine.Through individual work and group discussions, you will apply what you learn in each module to your issue and identify and document steps that your organization can take to effectively integrate climate adaption strategies into policies, plans, and programs.  Read more >>

 

 

------ OTHER NEWS: ----------------------------------------------------

USDA to Invest $84 Million to Help Communities Recover from Natural Disasters      The Emergency Watershed Protection Program provides critical resources to local sponsors to help communities eliminate imminent hazards to life and property caused by floods, fires, wind-storms and other natural occurrences. Read more >>

 

Gauging sea-level rise effects on piping plovers     How are climate change and management decisions affecting the future of Piping Plover? Sarah M. Karpanty from the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech discusses her work on forecasting the impacts of sea-level rise on barrier island nesting habitat for the federally protected shorebird. Read more >>

 

NIACS Highlight: Watershed Restoration on the Monongahela National Forest     Restoring the natural flow of water through a forested landscape can be one way to build resilience to climate change. This video highlights ongoing efforts of the Monongahela National Forest and their partners to improve watershed health by decommissioning roads. Not only is this good for native brook trout and other aquatic organisms, but it can help buffer streams against both heavy precipitation and periods of drought that may become more common as the climate changes. Read more >>

 

Examining climate change impacts on contaminants, nutrients     The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Environmental Contaminants program is helping to lead a collaborative effort to investigate how rising temperatures, more intense storms, droughts, and sea-level rise are changing the way contaminants and nutrients interact with the environment in the North Atlantic region. Read more >>

 

Video from the SC CSC    The South Central Climate Science Center is excited to debut a short video capturing our 2014 Early Career Professional Development Workshop! Read more >>

 

 

------ RESOURCES: -----------------------------------------------------

NOAA Quarterly Regional Climate Outlooks, March 2015     These Regional Climate Outlooks offer an engaging two-page snapshot of recent weather and climate events and anomalies; discusses regional weather impacts on the region's ecosystems and economy; and offers a climate forecast for the coming three months. Eastern US >>;  Gulf of Maine >>

 

MRCC Highlight: High Resolution Drought Monitoring    Drought monitoring increasingly takes place on smaller and smaller scales, intensifying the demand for localized information. To meet this growing need, McRoberts and Nielsen-Gammon (2012) developed a computational procedure for calculating the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) that incorporates high-resolution, radar-based estimates of precipitation.  Read more >>

 

NOAA and Partners Publish Article:"An Extreme Event of Sea-Level Rise along the Northeast Coast of North America in 2009-2010"     Within this 2-year period, the coastal sea level north of New York City jumped by 128 mm. The study shows that this extreme sea-level rise event is a combined effect of two factors. During the twenty-first century, climate models project an increase in magnitude and frequency of extreme interannual sea-level rise events along the densely populated Atlantic coast.  Read more >>

 

U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit Releases Water Resources as Topic Area    Explore climate-related risks and opportunities related to municipal water supplies, flooding, drought, and water-related ecosystems. Read more >>

 

Nature Communications Journal Article: "Climate Science: The Future of Coastal Ocean Upwelling"    Many climate models predict that coastal upwelling will intensify in three of the most productive marine ecosystems of the world. This result comes at a time when scientists are still debating the evidence supporting an increase in coastal upwelling and its effects on coastal ecosystems and global carbon cycling. Increased upwelling currents will strongly affect marine ecosystems at Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems, but the long-term future of coastal acidification, dead zones, and primary productivity probably depends on the properties of the water that comes to the surface. Read more >>

 

New Publication Compares Hydrologic Models for Ecological Flows and Water Availability    A new article, funded by the Southeast Climate Science Center (SE CSC) helps resource managers decide which hydrologic model to use in forecasting streamflow.  Read more >>

 

 

------ OPPORTUNITIES: --------------------------------------------------------

Postdoctoral Research Associate Position     The Harvard Forest invites applications for a post-doctoral research position to contribute to a multi-institutional study of future land-use scenarios and their consequences on ecosystem functions and services in New England. Read more >>

 

 

------ WEBINARS: --------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, March 25, 1:00pm ET

Safeguarding Wildlife from Climate Change webinar series presents, 

"Enhancing the Climate Resilience of America's Natural Resources"

Mariel Murray, White House Council on Environmental Quality and Dr. Mark L. Shaffer, Ph.D., U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

To register, visit:  https://nctc.adobeconnect.com/safeguarding03252015/event/event_info.html

 

Wednesday, April 1, 3:30pm ET

Northeast Climate Science Center presents, 

”Extending the Northeast Terrestrial Habitat Map to Atlantic Canada"  

Mark Anderson, The Nature Conservancy’s Eastern U.S. Region

To join, visit: https://necsc.umass.edu/webinars/extending-northeast-terrestrial-habitat-map-atlantic-canada

 

Wednesday, April 8, 2:00pm ET

USDA Forest Service Social Vulnerability Webinar Series presents, 

"Understanding Risk and Exposure in an Urban Case Study"

Patricia Winter and Pamela Padgett

To register, visit: http://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/webinar-series/social-vulnerability/

 

Friday, April 10, 1:00pm ET

The Sustainable Adaptive Gradients in the Coastal Environment (SAGE) Program presents, 

“Coastal Climate Challenges in Tourism-Dependent Caribbean”

Dr. Lorna Veronica Inniss

To join, visit: http://www.resilient-infrastructure.org/sage-webinars.html

 

Tuesday, April 14, 2:00pm ET

OneNOAA Science Seminar presents, 

"NOAA Climate Modeling Strategy"

Speakers TBD

To join, visit: http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/seminars/index.html

 

Monday, Apr 13, 1:00 PM ET

NOAA Climate Program Office’s Webinar Series on Climate Information for Managing Risks in Water Resources presents,

“The U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit”

David Herring, Nancy Beller Simms (NOAA)

To register, visit: http://cpo.noaa.gov/ClimatePrograms/ClimateandSocietalInteractions/SARPProgram/WebinarsandWorkshops.aspx

 

Wednesday, April 15, 3:30pm ET

Northeast Climate Science Center presents, 

"Fire, Bugs, and Humans: Modeling Interacting Disturbances in Anthropogenic Landscapes" 

Brian R. Sturtevant, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station

To join, visit:  https://necsc.umass.edu/webinars/fire-bugs-and-humans-modeling-interacting-disturbances-anthropogenic-landscapes

  

Thursday, April 16, 1:00pm ET

Conservation Biology Institute presents, 

"Navigating the Data Basin Platform: A Guided Tour"

Tosha Comendant

To register, visit: http://consbio.org/newsroom/events/data-basin-guided-tour-April-2015

 

Wednesday, April 29, 3:30pm ET

Northeast Climate Science Center presents, 

”Changes in forest composition and structure under alternative climate scenarios in the Northeastern U.S."  

Frank R. Thompson, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station and University of Missouri Columbia

To join, visit:  https://necsc.umass.edu/webinars/changes-forest-composition-and-structure-under-alternative-climate-scenarios-northeastern-