Fact Sheet / Brief
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The primary goal of this project was to assess the effect of climate change on carbon cycling in mature sagebrush ecosystems. We used initial soil characteristics and carbon values for three location and modeled future climate at those locations for four different climate scenarios. We found that mature sagebrush ecosystems continued to act as carbon sinks into the future under all different climate change scenarios. The magnitude of carbon storage differed depending on initial conditions and soil characteristics at each site. Climate change may affect the potential for sequestration by increasing carbon loss through respiration, but we found that increased losses were offset by increased gains through greater primary production.
Forecasts of sagebrush distribution across western land management agencies: Who owns the sagebrush?
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Species distribution models were used to predict how sagebrush distribution could change in response to climate change across land management agencies in the West. Models predict that sagebrush habitats will shift northward and upward in elevation and decrease greatly in extent. Mountainous higher elevation areas were predicted to maintain more sagebrush. U.S. Forest Service lands were predicted to lose proportionally less sagebrush area than non-federal land or the BLM. Analysis suggests that some agencies such as the BLM with the most experience managing sagebrush will lose much of this habitat, while other agencies such as the USFS may have new sagebrush habitats to manage.
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In the future, areas where sagebrush will expand, the leading edge, are predicted to be on the northern edge of its current range—predominately northeast Montana. Conversely, areas where the current sagebrush distribution is predicted to contract, the trailing edge, reside at the southern edge of the current distribution, including the Great Basin. Both of these projected shifts are most likely in response to predicted increased minimum temperature and changes in precipitation amount and seasonality. Climate and hydrological factors have the potential to strongly affect sagebrush regeneration because sagebrush does not reproduce asexually and depends solely on germination rates and seedling survival. By exploring these relationships using an ecohydrologic simulation model, we found that sagebrush germination is not expected to be limiting at either the leading or trailing edge. However, seedling survival was expected to decrease at the trailing edge while increasing at the leading edge.
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Paleovegetation studies show that even prior to anthropogenic influence, sage steppe communities were dynamic, and in some cases, susceptible to replacement by other vegetation communities (including forests) under changing climatic conditions.
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Public land management agencies are under increasing pressure to consider climate change impacts in their land-use planning process. As a first step, many agencies are conducting vulnerability assessments to identify the components of an ecosystem, or conservation targets, most at-risk from climate change. Vulnerability assessment is the first step towards a climate change adaptation plan.
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Smoke is challenging. It can be lofted high into the atmosphere to interact with cloud processes. It can smolder near the ground, depositing emissions. The combination of aerosols and trace gases create their own chemical mix, with reactions that are as yet unidentified. Temperature and atmospheric water content interact with the smoke plume and fog processes. Smoke also blocks the transmission of solar radiation, hindering photolysis reactions. Many of the trace gases emitted from wildland fires have yet to be identified, as do the intermediary products produced in a plume. With the outlook for more wildfires in the future, especially in a changing climate—and with tighter health standards—understanding these processes will become more critical in the years to come.
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The climate of the US is strongly connected to the changing global climate. The statements below highlight past, current, and projected climate changes for the US and the globe.
Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8°F (1.0°C) over the last 115 years (1901–2016). This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe. These trends are expected to continue over climate timescales.
This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.
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This brief provides an overview of the JFSP’s mission, values, science delivery focus, and unique role in the greater fire science community – including leveraging partnerships for the greater good.
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This study used a team with widely diverse expertise that gathered information from private, state, federal, and tribal landowners about their current forest and fire management practices and then built a computer model that can be used to facilitate collaborative decision making about forest management in fire-prone environments. The model allows stakeholders to compare alternative management scenarios to see how various approaches affect wildfire behavior, risk, and the associated delivery of valued ecosystem services. The model is now being used with two forest collaborative groups in central Oregon to help stakeholders understand the potential tradeoffs associated with management options.
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In this paper, the authors describe an approach to facilitate development and implementation of climate change adaptation options in forest management which they applied to a case study area in southwestern Oregon, USA. Their approach relied on participation of local specialists across multiple organizations to establish a science–manager partnership, development of climate change education in multiple formats, hands-on development of adaptation options, and application of tools to incorporate climate change in planned projects.