ECCF - global warming

What do fish and flowers have in common?

mguckian — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 17:15:52 +0000

Dec 18, 2017

A) A photo of my field site in Gothic, CO, where flowers begin blooming early each spring. B) Fish ladder in Parker River, MA where fish are counted each spring. C) A photo of Claytonia lanceoloata (spring beauty), which is one of my study species for my dissertation. D) A photo of Alosa pseudoharengus (alewife), which is the fish species I have been studying at the NE CSC as part of my NSF GRIP program. Photo credit: 1A and 1C by Rebecca Dalton, 1B and 1D by Matthew Devine.

I have answered this question more times than I can count since September. My colleagues, friends, and family members have been curious as to why someone who studies plants, can suddenly switch to studying fish for a semester.

Since starting graduate school, I have been studying how climate change affects the time when plants begin flowering, and how the timing of flowering affects plant-pollinator and plant-plant interactions. Specifically, warming temperatures are causing some flowering species to emerge and reproduce earlier in the season, while others respond to warming temperature by emerging later. If different species in the same place respond unequally to the same environmental cues, populations might experience higher levels of competition for shared resources than in the past. To answer these questions, I have field experiments set up to study early-flowering species in Colorado (Figures 1A and 1C).

Ok, so a scientist who grew up in the land-locked wilds of Pittsburgh and now studies plants in Colorado, both quite far from the ocean, has taken an interest in fish. How did this happen?

Around this time, just about a year ago, I began browsing through the list of projects posted on the web portal for National Science Foundation Graduate Research Internship Program (NSF GRIP)1. The NSF GRIP enables graduate students to work in federally funded research labs including the United States Geological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture, and more. I have always worked in academic research labs, and I wanted to know how federal research labs conduct ecological research. When I searched the key word “phenology,” which means, timing of life cycle events, I found an opportunity to work with Dr. Michelle Staudinger at the Department of the Interior’s Northeast Climate Science Center. Since the NSF GRIP is specifically aimed at increasing professional skills and preparing students for future careers, I decided this might be a good opportunity to expand my understanding of how climate affects timing of life cycle events in a different species… fish. Dr. Staudinger and I prepared a proposal last year, and I am very excited to be here working with her lab group during the fall 2017 semester.

We spent the semester trying to answer the question, “What about the environment best predicts the timing of alewife migration?” Alewives (Alosa pseudoharengus) are one of two river herring species in North America, which migrate to coastal freshwater systems from the ocean to begin reproducing (Figures 1B and 1D). In Massachusetts, there is anecdotal information that some of these migrations are happening earlier in the season as a result of warming temperatures, while others show no discernable trend. To best understand what drives migration, we are working with a range of stakeholders and partners from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and colleagues at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Three months later, we are just about to find out the answer!

But back to my first question, “What do fish and flowers have in common?”, well, they are both organisms which are affected by climate change. They rely on temperature, which is increasing regionally and globally, to begin certain parts of their life cycle (flowering and migrating), but the story is more complex than just temperature alone. For example, the timing of snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains is critical for emergence of spring plants. Similarly, spring stream flow could be another cue alewives use to begin migration. Finally, they are both systems that I have learned to think critically about in terms of how anthropogenic changes affect natural processes, and how complex species interactions may be changing across diverse types of ecosystems.

In addition to studying these two ecological systems, I have learned about the differences between basic and stakeholder-driven research. The main difference between basic and applied research is that the questions pursued in basic research are not necessarily coming from a conservation or management angle, which is the foundation of stakeholder-driven research. The process of finding an interesting question to work on for my PhD required a lot of time alone, reading the literature and finding gaps in our knowledge. The applied research that I have been exposed to this semester is more collaborative and requires relationships with stakeholders, such as state agencies, conservation groups, and/or land managers to determine the highest priority question(s). Not only the relationships with stakeholders vital to forming questions, we also discuss how to produce results that can best inform decision-making. I really enjoyed the chance to engage with our stakeholder for our project, and I hope to take all that I have learned back to my home PhD program at Duke University and apply to my career path after graduation and beyond.

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1The National Science Foundation was created in 1950 to promote research in fundamental science and engineering. As an independent federal agency, they support nearly 25% of all federal funded basic academic research. They are a large supporter of graduate student research, with programs such as the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), which provides three years of funding for graduate students, and the Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, which enables graduate students to pursue independent research. The National Science Foundation offers additional grant opportunities, called Graduate Research Internship Program (GRIP)

Category:

Science & research

Tags:

climate change

fieldwork

fish conservation

fisheries

Author/writer:

Rebecca Dalton

Reef temperature wrangler

mguckian — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:21:12 +0000

Oct 16, 2017

Photo: wildcoast.net

Coral reefs often go unnoticed because they’re underwater; but even though we don’t regularly pay much attention to them, they’re an extremely important part of our everyday lives. Coral reefs have been estimated to provide support for over a quarter of all marine species and this extreme biodiversity makes them a frequent source of discovery for new medicines that can help fight cancer and other diseases. They also protect our coastlines from storm surges, and provide millions of individuals with a source food and income. These are a few of the reasons why the world’s coral reefs are valued at nearly 10 trillion dollars.

Coral Crisis

Unfortunately, we’re in a bit of a coral crisis. Recently we’ve been losing a frightening amount of the world’s coral reefs. The vast majority of the reefs (80%) in the Caribbean, and over half in the Indo-Pacific region have already been lost. This large decline in reefs is predominantly caused by coral bleaching:

Inside the coral live tiny photosynthetic plants – or algae called zooxanthellae - that provide the coral with food and its beautiful color, but when the water around the coral becomes too warm, the algae are forced out of the coral, leaving behind the coral’s white calcium carbonate skeleton, giving it a “bleached” appearance. If the coral goes too long without the support from the algae, they starve, become vulnerable to disease, and frequently die.

Figure 2. PRocess and causes of coral bleaching. Photo: NOAA.

It is expected that as global warming continues to cause water temperatures to rise, coral bleaching will become more frequent and severe. By 2050, it’s projected that between 91 and 98% of the world’s coral reefs will be exposed to bleaching-level thermal stress on an annual basis.

Coral Reef Monitoring

Fortunately, there is a lot of great work being done to address this important issue. The South Florida and Caribbean Network (SFCN) of the National Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring Program has been monitoring water temperature and coral bleaching since the late 1980’s and have collected an amazing supply of data. Through an internship with the Young Leaders in Climate Change (YLCC), I had the opportunity to work with SFCN as a data analyst to make sense of their data. Below are a few of my most important findings.

Figure 3. Stages of coral bleaching. Photo: The Ocean Agency / XL Catlin Seaview / Richard Vevers)

Water Temperature Trends and Coral Bleaching Forecasts

Water temperature has been increasing in the Virgin Islands – one location where SFCN monitors coral bleaching – since the project was started in 1988. Although this long-term trend is expected to continue into the future, it doesn’t suggest that water temperatures will increase consistently on a year-to-year basis.

In order to anticipate what water temperatures can be expected in the near future, we can use past data to create 24-month water temperature forecasts. Since water temperature and coral bleaching have a very strong relationship, our forecast is helpful because it lets us anticipate whether a coming year will be good or bad for reefs and if there will be more or less bleaching. For example, our forecasts for the Virgin Islands found that 2017 will be slightly cooler than previous years, with a relatively low amount of bleaching predicted (22%) - good news for the coral reefs in that region. This type of foresight allows for adaptive resource management and more effective monitoring of coral bleaching, but much more needs to be done to address the issue.

What is being done and what you can do to help

Scientists and researchers around the world are working on many different projects to help minimize the impact of coral bleaching. These projects include: coral nurseries and reef restoration initiatives, studying the factors that increase coral’s susceptibility to bleaching, and even genetically modifying algae to be resistant to warmer ocean temperatures.

Although these researchers’ are making important contributions, they won’t be able to fix the problem alone. Saving our coral reefs is going to require many people making small efforts to help battle coral bleaching and global warming. Separately, these small individual efforts may seem miniscule, but if enough people make them, they will have a large impact overall. After all, it takes millions of individual coral polyps to build a reef.

Figure 4. Coral polyps. Photo: SFCN.

Fortunately, one of the most frequent questions I get when I talk about coral bleaching is “what can I do to help?” Here are a few of the many ways you can help save our reefs:

Reduce your carbon footprint.
Inform others about coral bleaching to spread awareness.
Support organizations dedicated to conserving coral reefs.
Contact your government officials about implementing laws to preserve marine ecosystems.
- Marine protected areas help mitigate coral bleaching.
Reduce water consumption to minimize runoff pollution
If you live near the coast, volunteer for cleanups or participate in citizen science initiatives to report cases of coral bleaching

Resources

Coral reef conservation organizations
Coral bleaching citizen science
- NOAA Coral Reef Watch
- CoralWatch
Netflix documentary
- Chasing Coral
NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Program
- Educational resources
- Water temperature monitoring

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Author/writer:

Brandon Araujo

Climate change and infrastructure impacts

mguckian — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 13:02:23 +0000

Oct 2, 2017

Photo: Toni Klemm

Our infrastructure is designed for the climate in which it was developed; engineering standards and logistical procedures are based on historical weather patterns, and as environmental conditions change, some of these systems may need to be re-configured.

In aviation, aircraft takeoff performance depends on temperature. This is because in the atmosphere, temperature is the key determinant of air density, which in turn affects the amount of lift that an airplane wing generates at a given speed. Pilots refer to this as the “density altitude”, a metric indicating the elevation that would produce a given air density if the temperature was 15°C (standard meteorological conditions). For instance, an airport might be located at a true altitude of 100 feet, but on a very hot day could have a density altitude of 1,000 feet, indicating that the air is less dense because of the heat.

Density altitude is essential in takeoff performance calculations as it determines the airplane’s required takeoff speed. At lower density altitudes, a wing produces less lift, all things equal, and so must travel faster to fly. If the required takeoff speed is high enough, there may not be enough runway available for the aircraft to accelerate; the only option then is to reduce the airplane’s weight, likely by removing payload – passengers and cargo. This is referred to as a “weight restriction”.

The 1°C or so of warming that the earth has experienced since pre-industrial times has already raised the average density altitude by about 100 feet. Future climate change will raise density altitudes further, likely by several hundred more feet. This will make weight restrictions more common, with potentially non-trivial impacts on the payload capacity of airplanes worldwide.

Research that I’ve recently conducted along with Dr. Terry Thompson and Dr. Radley Horton (see here and here) , suggests that by the second half of the 21st century, 10 – 30% of commercial flights taking off near their current maximum takeoff weights (as a long-haul flight often does) could require at least some weight restriction; this in turn comes with overall payload reductions of up to 0.5% as compared to a world with no warming. The small percentage change may sound insignificant, but even minor changes in weight can have large costs both in increased fuel consumption and reduced passenger load when spread across an airline’s fleet. To put this in context, a 0.5% payload reduction adds up to as much as 18 million passengers per year globally at today’s traffic levels.

Weight restriction is just one of several impacts of climate change on the aviation industry. Work by Dr. Paul Williams has shown that turbulence associated with high altitude winds may increase in frequency and intensity due to a strengthening jet stream (see research here and here) , and sea-level rise may damage coastal airports like New York’s LaGuardia or San Francisco International. In addition, amplified heat stress may make it dangerous for people to work outside in some regions, meaning that airport ramp workers will need more frequent breaks and other precautions to avoid severely reduced productivity and potential heat illness.

Most industries face future climate risks to their infrastructure or resource supplies, and most of that risk has not been thoroughly explored or quantified. An enormous amount of work will be needed to adapt our infrastructure and modify our logistical procedures to better prepare for future heat, storms, and sea levels. The sooner this work begins, the more effective adaptation can be; without planning, less hospitable climate conditions will impose higher costs on industries, and increasingly frequent natural disasters will be more damaging and harder to recover from.

Of course, we must keep the focus on why we have this issue in the first place – exponentially growing greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation strategies help us cope with climate impacts that are already in motion, but we must also tackle the root cause of the problem by rapidly reducing fossil fuel consumption, deforestation, and other drivers of climate change. If we fail to avert the worst climate outcomes, we risk spending an increasing percentage of our economic output and societal wealth and energy dealing with the new climate that we’ve created. The costs will come from large natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey, but also from the need to re-engineer and redesign procedures for modified weather patterns, protect infrastructure from sea level rise, and account for the reduced economic performance associated with higher temperatures. Perhaps a better understanding of the costs of climate change will encourage us to work to prevent these worst-case scenarios before they become a reality that we have to adapt to.

References:

Coffel, E. D., Thompson, T. R. & Horton, R. M. The impacts of rising temperatures on aircraft takeoff performance. Climatic Change 1–8 (2017). doi:10.1007/s10584-017-2018-9

Coffel, E. & Horton, R. Climate Change and the Impact of Extreme Temperatures on Aviation. Weather. Clim. Soc. 7, 94–102 (2015).

Williams, P. D. Increased light, moderate, and severe clear-air turbulence in response to climate change. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 34, 576–586 (2017).

Williams, P. D. & Joshi, M. M. Intensification of winter transatlantic aviation turbulence in response to climate change. Nat. Clim. Chang. 3, 644–648 (2013).

Kjellstrom, T., Kovats, R. S., Lloyd, S. J., Holt, T. & Tol, R. S. J. The Direct Impact of Climate Change on Regional Labor Productivity. Arch. Environ. Occup. Health 64, 217–227 (2009).

Burke, M., Hsiang, S. M. & Miguel, E. Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production. Nature 527, 235–239 (2015).

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Author/writer:

Ethan Coffel

LiDAR Applications for Sea Level Rise Mapping

mguckian — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 14:39:13 +0000

Jun 6, 2016

Parts of Key West’s famous Duval Street flooded during rainstorms. Photo: Rob O’Neal/Florida Trend Magazine

Have you ever wondered how we know what coastal sea rise is going to look like at the end of the century? Climate change and sea level rise are strongly connected and pose a threat especially for coastal cities and ecosystems, for example, including in the Florida Keys. The inhabitants of Key West are losing ground quickly and remote sensing can help us visualize what the future holds as the seas rise. Urban planners, policymakers and homeowners can then use that information to make more informed decisions about how to respond and prepare for rising seas.

Study area – City of Key West, FL. Created by Benjamin Ignac and Emily Campbell

A changing climate = a rising sea

One of the most severe consequences of global warming is the rise in global sea levels. According to IPCC projections, by 2100 the average global sea level could rise between 2 and 3 feet. It is estimated that 5 million people in the US live in homes less than 4 feet above high tide. Homes at such low elevations are already at risk and that threat is only going to grow as sea levels rise, partly due to global warming. Some of the effects of a global sea level rise include extensive coastal inundation, ecological damage, property damage, loss of coastal habitats, loss of economic and cultural resources, as well as more extreme weather events. During extreme weather events such as hurricanes, coastal habitats are also at immediate risk due to higher storm-tide flooding. Projections and models for immediate and long-term threats such as climate change, sea level rise, and flood inundation assist legislators in making pragmatic decisions. The challenge is providing accurate, useful data to help inform these decisions. LiDAR is a new technique that shows a lot of promise in providing high quality information.

LiDAR (short for Light Detection And Ranging) was developed in the 1970s as a tool to measure distances and create highly accurate land surface maps. A laser beam attached to a plane scans the surface below it, which allows researchers to then create a 3D model of the scanned area. For our project, we downloaded LiDAR data covering Key West, which amounts to a staggering 67,335,239 individual data points. We chose Key West, an island city at the west end of the Florida Keys, because of its proximity to the ocean and therefore its vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather events (Figure 1). A densely populated area of only 5.9 square miles, Key West is home to around 25,000 people. Its highest elevation is only 18 feet, but most buildings start as low as 3 feet above sea level. In 2005, Hurricane Wilma brought storm tides up to 8 feet above mean sea level, damaging more than half of the buildings on the island. Key West houses important naval military posts, an international airport, as well as cultural and historic sites and over 17,000 homes.

Flood Simulation Maps

The IPCC projects that by 2100 the average sea level will rise 1.97 feet in the best-case scenario and 3.2 feet in the worst-case. This means that Key West would lose between 8% and 20% or 0.5 and 1.2 square miles of its land surface. Hurricane flooding causes even worse damage. In the present day, a storm tide during a category 1 hurricane would flood 2.7 square miles of land, while a category 5 hurricane would flood 4.4 square miles. If we take into account the rising sea level by the end of the century, Key West may be almost entirely flooded during future hurricane events! Based on projections for 2100, Key West could lose 53% or 3.1 square miles of its land surface during a category 1 hurricane and 79% or 4.6 square miles of its land surface during a category 5 hurricane.

Video: The gloomy future of Key West is visualized in this video, which animates the rising sea level up to 25 feet on top of current sea level.

Our project helped visualize and calculate the extent of possible future flooding in Key West, through the use of LiDAR. Working with LiDAR was not only useful, but also exciting, which is how good research should feel, we think. Florida is only one of many coastal settlements that are at risk because of rising sea levels. To many people, the consequences of climate change often seem intangible and far away. It is hard to be alarmed about the consequences of climate change or other environmental disasters if there is not concrete proof or visual evidence. It looks like LiDAR and GIS can, in combination with climate projections, help us visualize threats like sea level rise and perhaps alert people of what might be to come. Hopefully our work and other efforts like it can help people plan accordingly and more effectively for the changes that are coming.

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Benjamin Ignac is a Geography senior at the University of Oklahoma interested in the interaction between human and physical systems on Earth and the use of GIS and remote sensing in geographic research. ignac@ou.edu

Emily Campbell is an Environmental Sustainability senior at the University of Oklahoma interested in remote sensing applications and the natural environment. Emily.J.Campbell-1@ou.edu

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Sources

Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. (2014). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Solomon, S. (2007). Climate change 2007: The physical science basis. Cambridge, UK: Published for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Cambridge University Press.

Category:

Science & research

Tags:

adaptive communication

climate change

climate predictions

coastal systems ecology

Author/writer:

Benjamin Ignac and Emily Campbell

Climate Change Effects on Wildlife in the South-Central US

mguckian — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 01:22:21 +0000

Aug 10, 2015

Virginia Seamster studied how climate change affects habitats of 20 vertebrate species, like the Lesser Prairie Chicken. Photo: Mark Watson, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish

Virginia Seamster. Photo: Jocelyn Apodaca, NMSU Press

Wildlife habitats and wildlife migration are big issues when it comes to effects of climate change. While the planet continues to warm - 2014 was the warmest year on record according to NOAA – warm seasons become longer and cold seasons become shorter in many parts of the US. This allows some species to expand their geographic ranges while other species may experience unsuitable climatic conditions or have to cope with new predators and competitors for food. New research at New Mexico State University (NMSU) highlights how climate change affects ecosystems and species migration in the region, information that can be used to inform decision-making on the state level.

Virginia Seamster finished her Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences in 2010 at the University of Virginia. During her post-doc at NMSU she was part of a team of 6 researchers studying 20 terrestrial vertebrate species, which include mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. "Average annual temperatures are projected to increase across New Mexico and the rest of the south central region that we're focusing on for this project," Seamster says. The team used climate projections for the years 2050 and 2070 from models that were also used in the latest IPCC report. These projections were used as inputs for so-called species niche models, which can estimate a species’ range based on known occurrences of the species. In a reverse engineering kind of approach this allows the researchers to estimate how the distribution of suitable climatic conditions for certain species may change as the regional climate changes.

Virginia Seamster’s post-doc research was funded by the South Central Climate Science Center. The center is one of eight climate science centers (CSC) in the US and conducts applied research in the south-central US with the goal of supporting climate-related decision making in the region. The CSCs conduct a lot of outreach and education in their respective regions, but also fund and conduct scientific research. "This type of project could influence future revisions to New Mexico's State Wildlife Action Plan and work being done by wildlife managers in the state, including biologists at the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish,” Seamster explains. "The study is designed to provide information to land managers and decision makers to assist in their respective efforts," says Ken Boykin, ecologist at NMSU and lead investigator of the project.

Virginia Seamster has recently transitioned from her wildlife-related post-doc position to a job at the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. There she is involved with reviewing and helping to select research and other projects focused on non-game wildlife that the department funds annually through its Share with Wildlife Program. She also helps to maintain the Biota Information System of New Mexico, which provides information on the biology and ecology of thousands of species found in New Mexico. Finally, the Ecological and Environmental Planning Division that Seamster is now a part of is leading the process for revising New Mexico’s State Wildlife Action Plan.

Publications abouts this research are forthcoming.

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Author/writer:

Toni Klemm