Digital Commons Network^™

Global Warming And Population Responses Among Great Plains Birds, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

Based on an analysis of 47 years (1967–2014) of Audubon Christmas Bird Counts (CBC), evidence for population changes and shifts in early winter (late December) ranges of nearly 150 species of birds in the Great Plains states is summarized, a region defined as including the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the Texas panhandle. The rationale for this study had its origins in Terry Root’s 1988 Atlas of North American Wintering Birds. Root’s landmark study provided a baseline for evaluating the nationwide winter distributions of 253 North American birds in the mid-20th century, using data from the National Audubon Society’s …

Biogeochemical Analysis Of Ancient Pacific Cod Bone Suggests Hg Bioaccumulation Was Linked To Paleo Sea Level Rise And Climate Change, Maribeth S. Murray, C. Peter Mcroy, L. K. Duffy, Amy Hirons, J. M. Schaaf, Robert P. Trocine, John Trefry

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Deglaciation at the end of the Pleistocene initiated major changes in ocean circulation and distribution. Within a brief geological time, large areas of land were inundated by sea-level rise and today global sea level is 120 m above its minimum stand during the last glacial maximum. This was the era of modern sea shelf formation; climate change caused coastal plain flooding and created broad continental shelves with innumerable consequences to marine and terrestrial ecosystems and human populations. In Alaska, the Bering Sea nearly doubled in size and stretches of coastline to the south were flooded, with regional variability in the …

Up-To-Date Probabilistic Temperature Climatologies, Nir Krakauer, Naresh Devineni

Publications and Research

With ongoing global warming, climatologies based on average past temperatures are increasingly recognized as imperfect guides for current conditions, yet there is no consensus on alternatives. Here, we compare several approaches to deriving updated expected values of monthly mean temperatures, including moving average, exponentially weighted moving average, and piecewise linear regression. We go beyond most previous work by presenting updated climate normals as probability distributions rather than only point estimates, enabling estimation of the changing likelihood of hot and cold extremes. We show that there is a trade-off between bias and variance in these approaches, but that bias can be …

Agenda: Seeds Of Change: Responding To Global Change In A Bottom-Up World, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law, Posner Center For International Development, Resolve (Firm), Newmont Mining Corporation

Seeds of Change: Responding to Global Change in a Bottom-Up World (Martz Winter Symposium, February 12-13)

Sponsors: Posner Center for International Development, RESOLVE, Inc., Newmont Mining Corporation, and Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment.

Conference moderators, panelists and speakers included University of Colorado Law School professors Phil Weiser, Sarah Krakoff, Britt Banks, and Lakshman Guruswamy.

This conference is made possible through the generous support of donors who sponsored this year’s Martz Sustainability Symposium (including Newmont Mining Corporation) and those who have invested in our Clyde O. Martz Endowed Fund for Natural Resources Management (including Brian Dolan and Davis Graham and Stubbs LLP). The Martz Natural Resources Management Fund was established in the memory …

New Coastal Resilience Director Brings Track Record, Expertise, Insideodu, Old Dominion University

News Items

No abstract provided.

Water Column Productivity And Temperature Predict Coral Reef Regeneration Across The Indo-Pacific, Bernhard Riegl, Peter W. Glynn, Evie A. Wieters, Samuel J. Purkis, C. D'Angelo, Joerg Wiedenmann

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Predicted increases in seawater temperatures accelerate coral reef decline due to mortality by heat-driven coral bleaching. Alteration of the natural nutrient environment of reef corals reduces tolerance of corals to heat and light stress and thus will exacerbate impacts of global warming on reefs. Still, many reefs demonstrate remarkable regeneration from past stress events. This paper investigates the effects of sea surface temperature (SST) and water column productivity on recovery of coral reefs. In 71 Indo-Pacific sites, coral cover changes over the past 1-3 decades correlated negative-exponentially with mean SST, chlorophyll a, and SST rise. At six monitoring sites …

Advantages Of A Polycentric Approach To Climate Change Policy, Daniel H. Cole

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Lack of progress in global climate negotiations has led scholars to reconsider polycentric approaches to climate policy. Several examples of subglobal mechanisms to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions have been touted, but it remains unclear why they might achieve better climate outcomes than global negotiations alone. Decades of work conducted by researchers associated with the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University have emphasized two chief advantages of polycentric approaches over monocentric ones: they provide more opportunities for experimentation and learning to improve policies over time, and they increase communications and interactions — formal and …

Does The Production Of Isoprene Affect The Productivity Of Poplars?, Erik J. Mcfarland, Elizabeth Ann Parra, Greg Barron-Gafford, Rebecca Larkin Minor, Maggie Heard

STAR Program Research Presentations

Poplar trees are known to produce a chemical called isoprene that plays a complex, and not fully understood, role in the chemical process of photosynthesis. Understanding why plants produce isoprene and under what conditions will help scientists make more accurate predictions about poplars’ photosynthetic capabilities in future climates.

What benefit could isoprene provide a plant? The literature suggests its production could help plants tolerate heat stress. We studied two genetic lines of trees in a common garden of Populus, one line with the gene for producing isoprene and a second line without that gene. We subjected some trees of …

How Climate Change Has Affected The Spatio-Temporal Patterns Of Precipitation And Temperature At Various Time Scales In North Korea, Won-Ho Nam, Eun-Mi Hong, Guillermo A. Baigorria

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Detecting changes in the spatio-temporal patterns of temperature and precipitation is a prerequisite for developing effective adaptation options and strategies for the future. An effective method for assessing climate change and for providing information to decision makers and stakeholders is needed to implement appropriate adaptation strategies. The objective of this study was to determine whether climate change has caused spatio-temporal changes in meteorological elements in North Korea. We delineated the spatio-temporal patterns of temperature and precipitation caused by climate change in specific time periods based on statistically significant differences using a statistically robust method. Historical weather data from 27 meteorological …

Navigating A Pathway Toward Colorado's Water Future: A Review And Recommendations On Colorado's Draft Water Plan, Lawrence J. Macdonnell, Colorado Water Working Group

Books, Reports, and Studies

40 pages (includes color illustrations).

Climate Driven Changes To Malaria Transmission Patterns In Ethiopian Highlands, Amir Said Siraj

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the highlands of East Africa, the most populated regions in Africa, temperature is assumed to be intimately connected to the patterns of malaria both in time and space. A large section of the Ethiopian population in this region has historically been shielded from the disease mainly due to the altitudes in the highland regions that have remained free of the disease. However, the region has also seen a large part of its population being affected by malaria in epidemic outbreaks that seem to follow climatic anomalies, especially those of inter-annual increases in temperature. This project examines the inter-annual variability …

The Impacts Of Climate Change Mitigation Strategies On Animal Welfare, Sara Shields, Geoffrey Orme-Evans

Animal Welfare Collection

The objective of this review is to point out that the global dialog on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in animal agriculture has, thus far, not adequately considered animal welfare in proposed climate change mitigation strategies. Many suggested approaches for reducing emissions, most of which could generally be described as calls for the intensification of production, can have substantial effects on the animals. Given the growing world-wide awareness and concern for animal welfare, many of these approaches are not socially sustainable. This review identifies the main emission abatement strategies in the climate change literature that would negatively affect animal welfare and …

The Slow Violence Of Climate Change In Poor Rural Kenyan Communities: “Water Is Life. Water Is Everything.”, Jennifer L. Willett

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Climate change is the most pressing global environmental problem and the most unyielding worldwide environmental injustice of our time. Although some social workers have begun to address climate change, this literature is centered on its generalized impact, rather than its specific effects on vulnerable populations. As a concept, slow violence offers a frame to understand the slow occurring effects of climate change on the global poor. This study used an ethnographic approach to examine the effects of climate change on two poor rural Kenyan communities. Findings discussed include the consequences of droughts, the connection between droughts and deforestation, failed governmental …

Consequentialism, Climate Harm And Individual Obligations, Christopher Morgan-Knapp, Charles Goodman

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

Does the decision to relax by taking a drive rather than by taking a walk cause harm? In particular, do the additional carbon emissions caused by such a decision make anyone worse off? Recently several philosophers have argued that the answer is no, and on this basis have gone on to claim that act-consequentialism cannot provide a moral reason for individuals to voluntarily reduce their emissions. The reasoning typically consists of two steps. First, the effect of individual emissions on the weather is miniscule: the planet’s meteorological system is so large, and the size of individual emissions so tiny, that …

Integrated Simulation Model For Maintenance And Repair Optimization For Rubble Mound Coastal Structures Using Markov Chains, Regression And Genetic Algorithms, A. H. El Hakea, S. Abu-Samra, Ossama Hosny, M. Iskander, H. Osman

Faculty Book Chapters

[abstract not available]

A Historical Perspective On Nebraska’S Variable And Changing Climate, Martha Shulski, William Baule, Crystal J. Stiles, Natalie A. Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Nebraska is situated at the intersection of the northern and southern Great Plains, exhibiting a dramatic longitudinal gradient for precipitation and humidity, and benefiting from groundwater resources. The continental climate is highly variable temporally both for temperature and precipitation. Our assessment of long-term meteorological observations shows that over the last century the annual average temperature in Nebraska has warmed approximately 0.6°C, which is similar to the increase in the global average temperature over the same time period. Furthermore, we found minimum temperatures have warmed more than maximum temperatures, and winter and spring show the strongest warming. We found no significant …

Climate Change Impact And Adaptation In Temperate Grassland And Livestock Industries, Afshin Ghahramani, Andrew D. Moore

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Climate is projected to have negative impact on temperate grassland and livestock productions across the globe. Moderately elevated atmospheric CO₂ in the near future is expected to increase plant photosynthetic rates but this is likely to be limited by soil nitrogen deficits. However, in Australia at least it is unlikely that positive effect of elevated CO₂ on plant production be able to offset the negative impacts of climate change. Currently there is a considerable gap between actual and achievable production and profit in Australian grazing systems and many management and genetic improvements for climate adaptation would operate by …

Caribbean Heat Threatens Health, Well-Being, And The Future Of Humanity, Cheryl C. Macpherson, Muge Akpinar-Elci

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Climate change has substantial impacts on public health and safety, disease risks and the provision of health care, with the poor being particularly disadvantaged. Management of the associated health risks and changing health service requirements requires adequate responses at local levels. Health-care providers are central to these responses. While climate change raises ethical questions about its causes, impacts and social justice, medicine and bioethics typically focus on individual patients and research participants rather than these broader issues. We broaden this focus by examining awareness among health-care providers in the Caribbean region, where geographic and socioeconomic features pose particular vulnerabilities to …

Assessing The Carbon Impacts Of Colby College’S Biomass Plant, Alice Hotopp

Honors Theses

Biomass energy plants are considered to be carbon neutral systems under some definitions. However, this concept of carbon neutrality needs to be rethought in order to understand the true carbon impact of biomass plants upon global climate change. A biomass plant’s wood source, the extent to which the biomass plant emits carbon dioxide, and the timescale over which the biomass plant emits carbon should all be taken into account. In this study, I consider the Colby College biomass plant’s role in carbon cycling. Colby’s Physical Plant Department provided me with information on how much carbon (tons of woodchips) is used …

Regional Scale Cropland Carbon Budgets: Evaluating A Geospatial Agricultural Modeling System Using Inventory Data, Xuesong Zhang, Roberto C. Izaurralde, David H. Manowitz, Ritvik Sahajpal, Tristram O. West, Allison M. Thomson, Min Xu, Kaiguang Zhao, Stephen D. Leduc, Jimmy R. Williams

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Publications

Accurate quantification and clear understanding of regional scale cropland carbon (C) cycling is critical for designing effective policies and management practices that can contribute toward stabilizing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. However, extrapolating site-scale observations to regional scales represents a major challenge confronting the agricultural modeling community. This study introduces a novel geospatial agricultural modeling system (GAMS) exploring the integration of the mechanistic Environmental Policy Integrated Climate model, spatially-resolved data, surveyed management data, and supercomputing functions for cropland C budgets estimates. This modeling system creates spatiallyexplicit modeling units at a spatial resolution consistent with remotely-sensed crop identification and assigns cropping systems …

A Bird’S- Eye View Of The Usa National Phenology Network: An Off-The-Shelf Monitoring Program, Jherime Kellerman, Caroline A. F. Enquist, Diana L. Humple, Nathaniel E. Seavy, Alyssa Rosemartin, Renée L. Cormier, Lorianne Barnett

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Phenology is central to the biology and ecology of organisms and highly sensitive to climate. Differential responses to climate change are impacting phenological synchrony of inter- acting species, which has been implicated in the decline of migratory birds that rely on seasonal resources. However, few studies explicitly measure phenology of seasonal habitat resources on the breeding and wintering grounds and at stopover sites. While avian monitoring methods are widely standardized, methods of monitoring resource phenology can be highly variable and difficult to integrate. The USA National Phenology Network (USA- NPN) has developed standardized plant and animal phenology protocols and a …

Long-Term Litter Decomposition Controlled By Manganese Redox Cycling, Marco Keiluweit, Peter Nico, Mark E. Harmon, Jingdong Mao, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Markus Kleber

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Litter decomposition is a keystone ecosystem process impacting nutrient cycling and productivity, soil properties, and the terrestrial carbon (C) balance, but the factors regulating decomposition rate are still poorly understood. Traditional models assume that the rate is controlled by litter quality, relying on parameters such as lignin content as predictors. However, a strong correlation has been observed between the manganese (Mn) content of litter and decomposition rates across a variety of forest ecosystems. Here, we show that long-term litter decomposition in forest ecosystems is tightly coupled to Mn redox cycling. Over 7 years of litter decomposition, microbial transformation of litter …

A Southern Hemisphere Sea Level Pressure-Based Precursor For Enso Warm And Cold Events, B. D. Hamlington, R. F. Milliff, H. Van Loon, K.-Y. Kim

CCPO Publications

Past studies have described large-scale sea level pressure (SLP) variations in the Southern Hemisphere that lead to El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) warm and cold events (WE and CE). By relying on this description and the importance of the related variability in the lead up to WE and CE, Southern Hemisphere SLP variations in May-June-July (MJJ) are shown here to be excellent predictors for the peak warm/cold events in sea-surface temperatures (SST) and sea level pressure that mark the mature phase of a warm/cold event in November-January of the same year. Cyclostationary empirical orthogonal functions (CSEOFs) are used to extract the …

Quantifying Florida Bay Habitat Suitability For Fishes And Invertebrates Under Climate Change Scenarios, Kelly A. Kearney, Mark J. Butler Iv, Robert Glazer, Christopner R. Kelble, Joseph E. Serafy, Erik Stabenau

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The Florida Bay ecosystem supports a number of economically important ecosystem services, including several recreational fisheries, which may be affected by changing salinity and temperature due toclimate change. In this paper, we use a combination of physical models and habitat suitability index models to quantify the effects of potential climate change scenarios on a variety of juvenile fish and lobster species in Florida Bay. The climate scenarios include alterations in sea level, evaporation and precipitation rates, coastal runoff, and water temperature. We find that the changes in habitat suitability vary in both magnitude and direction across the scenarios and species, …

A Long-Term Investigation Of The Federally Threatened Desert Tortoise (Gopherus Agassizii) At A Wind Energy Facility In Southern California, Mirza Mickey Agha

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

With the recent increase in utility-scale wind energy development and current climate variation in the desert southwest US, researchers have become increasingly concerned with the reaction of wildlife and critical habitat. Understanding the relationships among monitoring efforts, climate, industrial landscapes and wildlife is critical to effective management. Given the need for information available on how these potential stressors affect terrestrial wildlife, my objective was to determine how climate variation, wind energy facilities (WEF) and monitoring efforts by researchers influence behavior and survivorship in a population of the federally threatened desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii). Data were collected via surveys, …

Imber- Research For Marine Sustainability: Synthesis And The Way Forward, Eileen Hofmann, Alida Bundy, Ken Drinkwater, Alberto R. Piola, Bernard Avril, Carol Robinson

CCPO Publications

The Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) project aims at developing a comprehensive understanding of and accurate predictive capacity of ocean responses to accelerating global change and the consequent effects on the Earth system and human society. Understanding the changing ecology and biogeochemistry of marine ecosystems and their sensitivity and resilience to multiple drivers, pressures and stressors is critical to developing responses that will help reduce the vulnerability of marine-dependent human communities. This overview of the IMBER project provides a synthesis of project achievements and highlights the value of collaborative, interdisciplinary, integrated research approaches as developed and implemented through …

Climate, Environmental And Socio-Economic Change: Weighing Up The Balance In Vector-Borne Disease Transmission, Paul E. Parham, Joanna Waldock, George K. Christophides, Deborah Hemming, Folashade Agusto, Katherine J. Evans, Nina Fefferman, Holly Gaff, Abba Gumel, Shannon Ladeau

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Arguably one of the most important effects of climate change is the potential impact on human health. While this is likely to take many forms, the implications for future transmission of vector-borne diseases (VBDs), given their ongoing contribution to global disease burden, are both extremely important and highly uncertain. In part, this is owing not only to data limitations and methodological challenges when integrating climate-driven VBD models and climate change projections, but also, perhaps most crucially, to the multitude of epidemiological, ecological and socio-economic factors that drive VBD transmission, and this complexity has generated considerable debate over the past 10-15 …

Comment On Maxine Burkett's "Rehabilitation: A Proposal For A Climate Compensation Mechanism For Small Island States", Randall S. Abate

Journal Publications

No abstract provided.

Participacion Regional En Las Iniciativas Para Reducir Emisiones De Deforestación Y Degradación Forestal En Ucayali, Peru, Megan Wing, Hasia White, Christian Graven, Mary Finley-Brook

Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications

Esta investigación analiza la participación regional de las iniciativas de Reducción de Emisiones de Deforestación y Degradación Forestal (REDD) en Ucayali, Perú. Utilizamos el enfoque de escala para entender los roles de las agencias gubernamentales, las organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG), las universidades, el sector privado, y las federaciones indígenas de la región. Nuestra metodología combina la revisión de literatura internacional con entrevistas, encuestas, y observaciones en Pucallpa y Lima efectuadas durante junio y julio del 2013 y 2014. Los resultados sugieren que: (1) existen varias tensiones dentro de los procesos de planificación de REDD en el Perú; y (2) la …

Application Of Hydrodynamic Models In Simulating The Thermal Regime Of Lake Superior, Rasika K. Gawde

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

In large systems, such as the Great Lakes and coastal oceans, physical processes have a significant influence on chemical and biological phenomena. Hydrodynamic modeling assists in describing these physical characteristics and in recent years, these models have been extensively applied in the Great Lakes basin to study the response of the lake ecosystem to long-term meteorological forcing conditions.

Due to its role in mediating physical, biological and chemical processes in lake environments, water temperature (and the attendant thermal regime) has been the parameter of interest in many of these mathematical modeling studies and was adopted as the primary metric for …