Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Climate Variability Has A Stabilizing Effect On The Coexistence Of Prairie Grasses, Peter B. Adler, Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, Phaedon C. Kyriakidis, Qingfeng Guan, Jonathan M. Levine

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

How expected increases in climate variability will affect species diversity depends on the role of such variability in regulating the coexistence of competing species. Despite theory linking temporal environmental fluctuations with the maintenance of diversity, the importance of climate variability for stabilizing coexistence remains unknown because of a lack of appropriate long-term observations. Here, we analyze three decades of demographic data from a Kansas prairie to demonstrate that interannual climate variability promotes the coexistence of three common grass species. Specifically, we show that (i) the dynamics of the three species satisfy all requirements of ‘‘storage effect’’ theory based on recruitment …

Agenda: Climate Change And The Future Of The American West: Exploring The Legal And Policy Dimensions, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Climate Change and the Future of the American West: Exploring the Legal and Policy Dimensions (Summer Conference, June 7-9)

Sponsors: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; BP America; Holland & Hart; Patrick, Miller & Krope, P.C.; The Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, Rocky Mountain Natural Resource Center of the National Wildlife Federation, Western Water Assessment.

Exploring the legal and political dimensions that climate change will bring to the American West will be the focus of the CU-Boulder Natural Resources Law Center's 27th Annual Summer Conference.

Titled "Climate Change and the Future of the American West: Exploring the Legal and Policy Dimensions," the conference will be held June 7-9 at the Fleming Law Building on the University of Colorado at …

Ambassadors Of The Bay: 2005 Final Report, Maine Sea Grant College Program

Maine Sea Grant Publications

The MDI Water Quality Coalition has been working with citizens on water quality related projects in Frenchman Bay since 1997. Over the last decade, many issues of concern to the residents and users of the bay have come up. These issues include polluted runoff from paved streets and parking lots, increasing development in the upper reaches of coastal watersheds as well as right on the shoreline, nutrient enrichment of bays, over harvesting of marine resources, shifting of mussel harvesting techniques to aquaculture, building of piers, increasing visitation by cruise ships, contamination of swim areas, declining eelgrass populations, shoreline erosion, and …

Some Like It Wet – Biological Characteristics Underpinning Tolerance Of Extreme Water Stress Events In Antarctic Bryophytes., J. Wasley, Sharon A. Robinson, C. E. Lovelock, M. Popp

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

Antarctic bryophyte communities presently tolerate physiological extremes in water availability, surviving both desiccation and submergence events. This study investigated the relative ability of three Antarctic moss species to tolerate physiological extremes in water availability and identified physiological, morphological, and biochemical characteristics that assist species performance under such conditions. Tolerance of desiccation and submergence was investigated using chlorophyll fluorescence during a series of field- and laboratory-based water stress events. Turf water retention and degree of natural habitat submergence were determined from gametophyte shoot size and density and ?13C signatures respectively. Finally, compounds likely to assist membrane structure and function during desiccation …

Historical Glacier And Climate Fluctuations At Mount Hood, Oregon, Karl Lillquist, Karen Walker

Geography Faculty Scholarship

Terminus fluctuations of five glaciers and the correspondence of these fluctuations to temperature and precipitation patterns were assessed at Oregon's Mount Hood over the period 1901–2001. Historical photographs, descriptions, and climate data, combined with contemporary GPS measurements and GIS analysis, revealed that each glacier experienced overall retreat, ranging from −62 m at the Newton Clark Glacier to −1102 m at the Ladd Glacier. Within this overall trend, Mount Hood's glaciers experienced two periods each of retreat and advance. Glaciers retreated between 1901 and 1946 in response to rising temperatures and declining precipitation. A mid-century cool, wet period led to glacier …

Loop Current Warming By Hurricane Wilma, Lie-Yauw Oey, Tal Ezer, Dong-Ping Wang, S. J. Fan, Xun-Qiang Yin

CCPO Publications

Hurricanes mix and cool the upper ocean, as shown here in observations and modeling of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico during the passage of hurricane Wilma. Curiously, the upper ocean around the Loop Current warmed prior to Wilma's entrance into the Gulf. The major cause was increased volume and heat transports through the Yucatan Channel produced by storm-induced convergences in the northwestern Caribbean Sea. Such oceanic variability may have important impacts on hurricane predictions.

Threats To Water Supplies In The Tropical Andes, Raymond S. Bradley, Mathias Vuille, Henry F. Diaz, Walter Vergara

Raymond S Bradley

Climate models predict that greenhouse warming will cause temperatures to rise faster at higher than at lower altitudes. In the tropical Andes, glaciers may soon disappear, with potentially grave consequences for water supplies.

Uncertainty, Climate Change And Nuclear Power, David M. Hassenzahl

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Long time-horizon environmental risks with potential for global impacts have increased in visibility over the past several decades. Such issues as climate change, the nuclear fuel cycle, persistent synthetic chemicals, and stratospheric ozone depletion share some characteristics, including intergenerational impacts, strongly decoupled incidence of risks and benefits, substantial decision stakes and extreme uncertainty. What is not well understood are the similarities and differences among sources and implications of uncertainty among these global environmental threats, especially those associate with current and future human behavior. This describes the uncertainties associated with managing two global concerns: the nuclear (fission) fuel cycle and anthropogenic …

Artists' Depictions Of Catsteps In The Loess Hills Of Iowa: Evidence For Mid-Nineteenth Century Climate Change, Kimberly R. Dillon, Steven H. Emerman, Pamela K. Wilcox

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Catsteps are the staircase-like features common on hillslopes of the Loess Hills of western Iowa. The record of artistic depictions of the Loess Hills was examined to determine when catsteps appeared. George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, and John James Audubon traveled up the Missouri River m 1832, 1833 and 1843, respectively, and between them, produced 31 works of art depicting either the Loess Hills or the loess bluffs on the Nebraska side of the river. Only three works by Bodmer of Blackbird Hill on the Nebraska side possibly show catsteps. The Assistant State Geologist, Orestes St. John, produced six sketches of …

Diurnal Temperature Range Over The United States: A Satellite View, D. Sun, R. T. Pinker, Menas Kafatos

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Diurnal temperature range (DTR) is an important climate change index. Information on this parameter comes primarily from sparse and unevenly distributed observations of shelter air temperature. In this study, five years of GOES- 8 based estimates of land surface temperature (LST) over the United States are used to evaluate DTR at high spatial resolution. The spatial and temporal patterns that emerged show a high degree of consistency with independent satellite estimates of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Specifically, the arid regions in the western and central U.S. have larger DTRs than the eastern United States or the northwest coast. …