NC CASC looks forward to CIRES' Rendezvous!
The NC CASC looks forward to the upcoming CIRES Rendezvous at the CU Boulder campus, where we'll present a poster on the work that we do to advance actionable climate adaptation science through a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach.
Consortium Partner Talk: April 22, 2025
Dr. Ana Davidson, of Colorado State University (one of the NC CASC's consortium partners) will be giving a talk on Tuesday, April 22 (Earth Day!), on conservation planning for prairie dogs.
Next Webinar: May 8, 2025
Our next webinar, titled "Exploring the carbon effects of forest transformation and exotic annual grassland restoration in the North Central U.S.", will take place at 11 AM on May 8, 2025.
When
The webinar will cover two complementary studies of how forest transformations (Nagy) and restoration of areas invaded by exotic annual grasses (Maxwell) affect carbon storage across the North Central United States. In the first part of the session, Dr. Maxwell will share preliminary results from a study seeking to quantify the potential carbon benefits and soil health co-benefits of successful restorations of heavily invaded exotic annual grasslands. The NC CASC-funded study spanned 48 sites across Montana, Wyoming and Colorado from low-elevation grasslands to high elevation meadows in Rocky Mountain National Park. Focusing on soil carbon, where the majority of carbon is stored in these semi-arid rangelands, this presentation will explore how different restoration practices, climate, and time all interact to affect when, and whether carbon benefits should be expected when exotic annual grasses are eradicated from a site. In the second part of the session, Dr. Nagy will share preliminary findings from a study to quantify the changes in carbon storage due to ecological transformations associated with wildfire and invasive plants in forests across the North Central U.S. Using satellite data to track annual changes in vegetation indices, this study detects areas that have experienced transformation (e.g., forest to shrubland or grassland) and quantifies the accompanying changes in aboveground biomass. This NC CASC-funded project involves collaboration with stakeholders from agencies and organizations across the North Central region to inform the remote sensing analysis and co-produce a management menu.
The 2025 CIRES Science Summit
The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) hosted its inaugural Science Summit on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, at the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Community (SEEC) auditorium at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Sagebrush Transformation - Annotated Bibliography
This is an annotated bibliography covering socioecological transformation in the sagebrush ecosystems of the North Central US region. It was compiled during the 2024 Rapid Climate Assessment Program (RCAP).
Sagebrush & Climate Change NC CASC Workshop
The North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center’s (NC CASC) Sagebrush and Climate Change Workshop occurred on August 20 and 21, 2024 at the University of Colorado Boulder, the NC CASC’s university host.
Sagebrush Science Synthesis - Focal Theme and Questions
The goal of the Working Group Science Synthesis (WGSS) is to inform management for adapting to environmental change in the eastern sagebrush biome (Montana, Wyoming & Colorado).