The Western Mountain Initiative: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Western Mountain Ecosystems
Project ID: G12AC20297
Federal Agency: U.S. Geological Survey
Partner Institution: University of Washington
Fiscal Year: 2012
Initial Funding: $140,000
Total Funding: $499,999
Project Type: Research
Project Disciplines: Biological
Principal Investigator: Ettl, Greg
Agreement Technical Representative: Fagre, Daniel
Abstract: The US Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK) is offering a funding opportunity to determine vulnerability, including rapidity and magnitude of change, of forest and hydrologic processes and to develop scientific and adaptation methodologies tailored to regions and specific issues. In order to accomplish these objectives, research will focus on fire-climate interactions; fire-carbon dynamics; tree growth-climate interactions; reconstruction of glacier patterns; and, ecosystem modeling. This research will require the development of quantitative relationships between fire occurrence and climate throughout the western United States, the refinement of existing analyses of how climate affects fire area burned, and the exploration of potential effects on future fire severity. In addition, research will quantify the projected effects of increased wildfire on carbon storage and emissions for the Pacific Northwest forest ecosystems, with an emphasis on variations among different ecoregions. This effort will also require the quantification of how various management activities affect the distribution of carbon pools in dry forest ecosystems. In the area of tree growth-climate interaction research, efforts will quantify how future changes in “climate space” will affect growth as mediated by water limitation and energy limitation for different tree species. Research efforts will focus on the North Cascade Range for reconstruction of glacier patterns since this range contains 60% of the glacial ice mass in the conterminous U.S., representing major opportunity to investigate hydrologic changes as mountain glaciers continue to melt. This effort will involve the use of tree ring chronologies to reconstruct the mass balance of South Cascade Glacier, going back several centuries. Finally, research will focus on using ecosystem modeling to understand the effects of climatic variability and change on vegetation and hydrology.