Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Invasive Species And Climate Change, Invasive Species Advisory Committee

National Invasive Species Council

ISSUE

Climate change interacts with and can often amplify the negative impacts of invasive species. These interactions are not fully appreciated or understood. They can result in threats to critical ecosystem functions on which our food system and other essential provisions and services depend as well as increase threats to human health. The Invasive Species Advisory Committee to the National Invasive Species Council recognizes the Administration’s commitment to dealing proactively with global climate change. However, unless we recognize and act on the impact of climate change and its interaction with ecosystems and invasive species, we will fall further behind in …

Recent Advances In The Climate Change Biology Literature: Describing The Whole Elephant, A. Townsend Peterson, Shaily Menon, Xingong Li

Shaily Menon

Climate change biology is seeing a wave of new contributions, which are reviewed herein. Contributions treat shifts in phenology and distribution, and both document past and forecast future effects. However, many of the current wave of contributions are observational and correlational, and few are experimental in nature, and too often a conceptual framework in which to contextualize the results is lacking. An additional gap is the lack of effective cross-linking among areas of research, for example, connection of sea-level rise and climate change implications for distributions of species, or evolutionary adaptation studies with distributional shift studies. Although numerous important contributions …

Physical Properties Of The Us Itase Firn And Ice Cores From South Pole To Taylor Dome, Debra A. Meese, Ian Baker

University of Maine Office of Research Administration: Grant Reports

This award supports a project for physical properties research on snow pits and firn/ice cores with specific objectives that include stratigraphic analysis including determination of accumulation rates, annual layers, depth hoar, ice and wind crusts and rates of grain growth with depth. Studies of firn densification rates and how these parameters relate to the meteorology and climatology over the last 200 years of snow accumulation in Antarctica will also be investigated. The project will also determine the seasonality of accumulation by co-registration of stratigraphy and chemistry and determination of chemical species at the grain boundaries, how these may change with …

Marine Bioinvasions And Climate Change, James T. Carlton, Sandra C. Lindstrom, Celia M. Smith, Jennifer E. Smith

National Invasive Species Council

BACKGROUND

Invasive species are second only to habitat destruction as the greatest cause of species endangerment and global biodiversity loss. Invasive species can cause severe and permanent damage to the ecosystems they invade. Consequences of invasion include competition with or predation upon native species, hybridization, carrying or supporting harmful pathogens and parasites that may affect wildlife and human health, disturbing ecosystem function through alteration of food webs and nutrient recycling rates, acting as ecosystem engineers and altering habitat structure, and degradation of the aesthetic quality of our natural resources. In many cases we may not fully know the native animals …

Recent Advances In The Climate Change Biology Literature: Describing The Whole Elephant, A. Townsend Peterson, Shaily Menon, Xingong Li

Peer Reviewed Publications

Climate change biology is seeing a wave of new contributions, which are reviewed herein. Contributions treat shifts in phenology and distribution, and both document past and forecast future effects. However, many of the current wave of contributions are observational and correlational, and few are experimental in nature, and too often a conceptual framework in which to contextualize the results is lacking. An additional gap is the lack of effective cross-linking among areas of research, for example, connection of sea-level rise and climate change implications for distributions of species, or evolutionary adaptation studies with distributional shift studies. Although numerous important contributions …

Global Warming Advocacy Science: A Cross Examination, Jason S. Johnston

All Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholarship has come to accept as true the various pronouncements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientists who have been active in the movement for greenhouse gas (ghg) emission reductions to combat global warming. The only criticism that legal scholars have had of the story told by this group of activist scientists – what may be called the climate establishment – is that it is too conservative in not paying enough attention to possible catastrophic harm from potentially very high temperature increases. This paper departs from such faith in the climate establishment by comparing the …

Trends In Climate Change Education In Nevada's System Of Higher Education, Amy Northrup

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA) (2010 - 2017)

This poster presents research into how climate change is taught in Nevada's colleges and universities. A completed inventory of the types of courses in different disciplines and at different institutions that relay information about climate change to students is discussed.

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 3, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

This report is the third in a series of efforts by students at the Muskie School of Public Service, Community Planning and Development Master’s program, in a core class called “Sustainable Communities.” In this course students seek to understand principles of sustainability and how efforts to implement Sustainability programs can become more successful. The report assembles term papers students completed on particular efforts by municipalities, universities, and other groups to achieve sustainability goals. Students worked on each project in a service learning format with real world clients. They were asked to fashion their papers around lessons learned by other organizations …

A Climate Action Plan For Bucknell University, Wendy Chou, Dina El-Mogazi, Dennis Hawley

Technical Reports

The accelerating pace of human-influenced climate change and our growing awareness of its negative public-health, environmental, and economic consequences compel decisive action. In recent years, many institutions of higher education have taken leadership roles to promote sustainability and climate neutrality at the campus level. In January 2008, Bucknell University became a signatory to the American Colleges and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Under this agreement, Bucknell is required to prepare a comprehensive inventory of greenhouse gas emissions by May 2009, to update the inventory every other year thereafter, and to implement tangible emissions-reducing actions in the short-term (two years). The …

Climate Change And Real Estate: How Environmental Risks And Policies Impact Markets, Adele C. Morris

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Climate change could worsen environmental conditions that affect real estate values, such as extreme weather events and coastal erosion. But policies to prevent climate change can also affect real estate values, for example through higher energy prices and land use regulation. This lecture will examine the linkages between the climate change risks, climate policy, and real estate markets. We will also discuss the likely regional economic effects of recent proposed climate legislation.

Crop Updates 2010 - Farming Systems, Christopher R. Newman, Jonathan England, Stephen Gherardi, Mohammad Amjad, David Ferris, Phil Ward, Roger Lawes, Tim Wiley, Perry Dolling, Philip Barrett-Lennard, John Kirkegaard, Susan Sprague, Hugh Dove, Walter Kelman, Peter Hamblin, Brad Nutt, Angelo Loi, Wayne Parker, Glen Riethmuller, Ken Flowers, Neil Cordingley, Shane Micin, Senthold Asseng, Peter Mcintosh, Mike Pook, James Risbey, Guomin Wang, Oscar Alves, Ian Foster, Imma Farre, Nirav Khimashia, W. Anderson, D. Beard, J. Blake, R. Grieve, M. Lang, J. Lemon, R. Mctaggart, D. Gray, M. Price, D. Stephens, P. Carmody, Doug Abrecht, Greg Kirk, Peter Rowe, Comeron Weeks, Peter Tozer, Derk Bakker, Frank D'Emden, Quenten Knight, Luke Marquis, Roger Mandel

Crop Updates

This session covers twenty papers from different authors:

Pests and Disease

1. Preserving phosphine for use in Grain Storage Industry, Christopher R Newman, Department of Agriculture and Food

Farming Systems Research

2. Demonstrating the benefits of grazing canola in Western Australia, Jonathan England, Stephen Gherardi and Mohammad Amjad, Department of Agriculture and Food

3. Buloke barley yield when pasture-cropped across subtropical perennial pastures, David Ferris, Department of Agriculture and Food, Phil Ward and Roger Lawes, CSIRO

4. Is pasture cropping viable in WA? Grower perceptions and EverCrop initiatives to evaluate, David Ferris, Tim Wiley, Perry Dolling …

Slides: Costs And Benefits Of Oil Shale Development, James T. Bartis

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

Presenter: James T. Bartis, Senior Policy Researcher, Rand Corporation

21 slides

Agenda: The Promise And Peril Of Oil Shale Development, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Fully one-half of the world’s oil shale lies within 150 miles of Grand Junction, Colorado, and about 80% of these reserves are on federal land. Estimates of recoverable reserves in the Green River Formation range from 500 billion to 1.53 trillion barrels. At present consumption rates, this is enough oil to satisfy 100% of U.S. demand for well over 100 years.

Development of oil shale could cause significant impacts on the Colorado Plateau. It would provide for …

Slides: The Peril Of Energy Usage, Mike Tupper

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

Presenter: Mike Tupper, Executive Vice President, Composite Technology Development, Inc.

9 slides

Slides: Oil Shale Water Needs, State Water Planning And The Colorado River Compact, Daniel R. Birch

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

Presenter: Daniel R. Birch, Deputy General Manager & Chief Engineer, Colorado River District

17 slides

Slides: The Elusive Bonanza, Randy Udall

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

Presenter: Randy Udall, Co-founder, Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA

62 slides

Paleo-Environmental Changes In The Uvs Nuur Basin (Northwest-Mongolia), Michael Walther

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Geomorphological, geochemical, sedimentological and palynological results are presented against the background of palaeoclimatic changes during the past 15,000 years, yielding a chrono-, bio- and morphostratigraphical model of landscape evolution in the region of northern Central Asia. Holocene and Late-Glacial climatic fluctuations there are shown to correlate well with conditions in central Europe. Particular attention is given to the importance of the palaeoclimatic interpretation of lake Basin sediments when reconstructing the palaeoenvironment.

Changes In Extreme Climate Indices For The Northeastern United States, 1870-2006, Paula J. Brown, Raymond S. Bradley, Frank T. Keimig

Raymond S Bradley

The northeastern United States is one of the most variable climates in the world, and how climate extremes are changing is critical to populations, industries, and the environment in this region.Along-term (1870–2005) temperature and precipitation dataset was compiled for the northeastern United States to assess how the climate has changed. Adjustments were made to daily temperatures to account for changes in mean, variance, and skewness resulting from inhomogeneities, but precipitation data were not adjusted. Trends in 17 temperature and 10 precipitation indices at 40 stations were evaluated over three time periods—1893–2005, 1893– 1950, and 1951–2005—and over 1870–2005 for a subset …

Climate Change And Sea Level Rise Initiative (Ccslri), Larry P. Atkinson

CCSLRI Brochures

Brochure of the Old Dominion University Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative (CCSLRI)

Projecting The Distribution Of Forests In New England In Response To Climate Change, Guoping Tang, Brian Beckage

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Faculty Publications

Aim To project the distribution of three major forest types in the northeastern USA in response to expected climate change. Location The New England region of the United States. Methods We modelled the potential distribution of boreal conifer, northern deciduous hardwood and mixed oak-hickory forests using the process-based BIOME4 vegetation model parameterized for regional forests under historic and projected future climate conditions. Projections of future climate were derived from three general circulation models forced by three global warming scenarios that span the range of likely anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Results Annual temperature in New England is projected to increase by …

Ancient Dna Analyses Exclude Humans As The Driving Force Behind Late Pleistocene Musk Ox (Ovibos Moschatus) Population Dynamics, Paula F. Campos, Eske Willerslev, Andrei Sher, Ludovic Orlando, Erik Axelsson, Alexei Tikhonov, Kim Aaris-Sorensen, Alex D. Greenwood, Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke, Pavel Kosintsev

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The causes of the late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions are poorly understood. Different lines of evidence point to climate change, the arrival of humans, or a combination of these events as the trigger. Although many species went extinct, others, such as caribou and bison, survived to the present. The musk ox has an intermediate story: relatively abundant during the Pleistocene, it is now restricted to Greenland and the Arctic Archipelago. In this study, we use ancient DNA sequences, temporally unbiased summary statistics, and Bayesian analytical techniques to infer musk ox population dynamics throughout the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Our results reveal …