Southwestern Colorado is already experiencing the effects of climate change in the form of larger and more severe wildfires, prolonged drought, and earlier snowmelt. Climate scientists expect the region to experience more summer heat waves, longer-lasting and more frequent droughts, and decreased river flow in the future. These changes will ultimately impact local communities and challenge natural resource managers in allocating water under unpredictable drought conditions, preserving forests in the face of changing fire regimes, and managing threatened species under shifting ecological conditions.   In light of the wide-ranging potential impacts of climate change in the region, this project sought to help decision-makers develop strategies to reduce climate change impacts on people and nature. Scientists, land managers, and local communities worked together to identify actions that can be taken to reduce the negative impacts of climate change. Known as “adaptation strategies”, these actions are an essential component of effective planning under shifting climate conditions. To facilitate the planning process, researchers aimed to provide information on the vulnerability of ecosystems, model plausible future climate conditions, and identify the social contexts in which adaptation decisions are made.   The project focused on the San Juan and upper Gunnison river basins of southwestern Colorado, though the goal was to develop an adaptation toolkit that can be applied to other landscapes. By identifying appropriate adaptation actions, this project was designed to help improve the resilience of local communities and ecosystems in the face of an uncertain future. Learn more about how this project is progressing in its second phase: Building Social and Ecological Resilience to Climate Change in Southwestern Colorado: Phase 2

Climate change is poised to alter natural systems, the frequency of extreme weather, and human health and livelihoods. In order to effectively prepare for and respond to these challenges in the north-central region of the U.S., people must have the knowledge and tools to develop plans and adaptation strategies. The objective of this project was to build stakeholders’ capacity to respond to climate change in the north-central U.S., filling in gaps not covered by other projects in the region. During the course of this project, researchers focused on three major activities:   Tribal Capacity Building: Researchers provided tribal colleges and universities with mini-grants to develop student projects to document climate-related changes in weather and culturally or traditionally significant plants. These efforts, carried out in collaboration with other organizations, contributed to building the Indigenous Geography Phenology Network, a locally grounded, national network for documenting the impacts of climate change on plants and animals. Researchers also helped the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy determine how climate science could be integrated into management decisions in the resource-rich Missouri River Basin.   Climate Training for Resource Managers: Researchers offered two climate change vulnerability assessment courses – one in Jackson, Wyoming and another in La Crosse, Wisconsin – designed to build the knowledge and skills of resource managers. Additional trainings on climate-smart conservation are being planned.   PhenoCam Deployment: Researchers co-supported the deployment of PhenoCams (streaming cameras) in locations throughout Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Observations collected by the PhenoCams will help scientists track seasonal changes across the region and better understand how climate impacts living things.

The north-central region of the U.S. has experienced a series of extreme droughts in recent years, with impacts felt across a range of sectors. For example, the impacts of a 2002 drought are estimated to have resulted in a $3 billion loss to the agricultural sector in Nebraska and South Dakota. Meanwhile, the ecological impacts of drought in the region have included increased tree mortality, surges in the outbreak of pests, and intensifying forest fires.   Located within this region is the Missouri River Basin, an important agricultural production area home to approximately 12 million people, including 28 Native American tribes. Tribal governments and multiple federal agencies manage land and natural resources in the drought-impacted Basin. The goal of this project was to understand how federal and tribal natural resource managers experience and deal with drought in this landscape. To do this, researchers documented how managers perceive drought impacts, how their decisions are affected by these perceptions, and their capacity to respond to and prepare for drought.   This information is expected to enable researchers to determine the types of climate data and tools that will help managers operating under drought conditions. Locally-specific “drought stories” are being developed, detailing historic trends and future projections of drought, as well as the risk perceptions, decisions, and adaptive capacities of local managers. Understanding the different perceptions and impacts of drought felt by managers can help provide a foundation for fostering more collective resource management across the region in the face of future drought. This project team is part of the North Central Climate Science Center’s Foundational Science Area Team, which supports foundational research and advice, guidance, and technical assistance to other NC CSC projects as they address climate science challenges that are important for land managers and ecologists in the region.  

Abstract (from  http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0111669): Projected climate change at a regional level is expected to shift vegetation habitat distributions over the next century. For the sub-alpine species whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), warming temperatures may indirectly result in loss of suitable bioclimatic habitat, reducing its distribution within its historic range. This research focuses on understanding the patterns of spatiotemporal variability for future projected P.albicaulis suitable habitat in the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) through a bioclimatic envelope approach. Since intermodel variability from General Circulation Models (GCMs) lead to differing predictions regarding the magnitude and direction of modeled suitable habitat area, nine bias-corrected statistically down-scaled GCMs were utilized to understand the uncertainty associated with modeled projections. P.albicaulis was modeled using a Random Forests algorithm for the 1980-2010 climate period and showed strong presence/absence separations by summer maximum temperatures and springtime snowpack. Patterns of projected habitat change by the end of the century suggested a constant decrease in suitable climate area from the 2010 baseline for both Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 8.5 and 4.5 climate forcing scenarios. Percent suitable climate area estimates ranged from 2-29% and 0.04-10% by 2099 for RCP 8.5 and 4.5 respectively. Habitat projections between GCMs displayed a decrease of variability over the 2010-2099 time period related to consistent warming above the 1910-2010 temperature normal after 2070 for all GCMs. A decreasing pattern of projected P.albicaulis suitable habitat area change was consistent across GCMs, despite strong differences in magnitude. Future ecological research in species distribution modeling should consider a full suite of GCM projections in the analysis to reduce extreme range contractions/expansions predictions. The results suggest that restoration strageties such as planting of seedlings and controlling competing vegetation may be necessary to maintain P.albicaulis in the GYA under the more extreme future climate scenarios. This publication was developed as part of the project,  Informing Implementation of the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee’s (GYCC) Whitebark Pine (WBP) Strategy Based on Climate Sciences, Ecological Forecasting, and Valuation of WBP-Related Ecosystem Services.

The conversion of grassland to cropland in the Dakotas could imperil wildlife such as nesting waterfowl and contribute to the degradation of water quality in the Mississippi River watershed. However, high crop prices in recent years have contributed to a high rate of grassland to cropland conversion on private lands. In addition to these economic factors, changes in climate could exacerbate the challenge of protecting grasslands, as conditions may become more amenable to row crop production.   The goal of this project was to work with grassland conservation managers to better target the use of funds allocated toward incentivizing grassland preservation in the Dakotas. Researchers identified the vulnerability of crop production to climate change, assessed the likelihood of grassland conversion to cropping, and calculated the costs of protecting grasslands under different future economic and climate scenarios.   Working with land conservation managers, researchers aimed to use these results to identify land parcels where grassland conservation investments would be most effective. For example, researchers aimed to develop a land conversion choice calculator that will compare long-run expected returns from different land uses under alternative climate and economic scenarios. By developing tools such as the land conversion choice calculator, this project is designed to help inform a critical component of grassland conservation – deciding which parcels to target for protection.  

The Wind River Indian Reservation in west-central Wyoming is home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, who reside near and depend on water from the streams that feed into the Wind River. In recent years, however, the region has experienced frequent severe droughts, which have impacted tribal livelihoods and cultural activities.   Scientists with the North Central Climate Science Center at Colorado State University, the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and several other university and agency partners are working closely with tribal water managers to assess how drought affects the reservation, integrating social, ecological, and hydro-climatological sciences with local knowledge. The findings were intended to help inform the creation of a climate monitoring system and drought management plan, which are being supported with additional technical and financial support from the High Plains Regional Climate Center and NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System. The drought plan integrated climate science with hydrologic, social, and ecological vulnerabilities and risks, and identify response capacities and strategies to support the Tribal Water Code and related resources management. Ultimately, the plan was designed to help the tribes ensure that agricultural and other societal needs are met during times of drought.   As part of the project, tribal water managers and the public were engaged in educational activities related to water resources and drought preparedness through joint activities with Wyoming Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research to build the tribes’ ability to respond to future drought. Additionally, the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado-Boulder and the project team evaluated team processes and outputs to document “lessons learned” from the collaborative process to support the transfer of knowledge to other tribes and non-tribal entities in the region and beyond.

One of the biggest challenges facing resource managers today is not knowing exactly when, where, and how climate change effects will unfold. While models can be used to predict the types of impacts that climate change might have on a landscape, uncertainty remains surrounding factors such as how quickly changes will occur and how specific resources will respond.   In order to plan for this uncertain future, managers have begun to use a tool known as scenario planning. In this approach, a subset of global climate model projections are selected that represent a range of plausible future climate scenarios for a particular area. Through a series of facilitated workshops, managers can then explore different management options under each scenario, enabling them to be proactive in the face of uncertainty. However, selecting and synthesizing climate information for scenario planning requires significant time and skills, and it can be difficult to predict exactly how resources might respond to a combination of climate, management actions, and other factors.   Therefore, the goals of this project were to develop a process for creating regional climate summaries that can also be used for local scenario planning, and to pilot an approach for enhancing scenario planning through simulation modeling. Researchers drew on global climate model projections to develop several climate summaries for the northern Great Plains region. The summaries are expected to be used for local-scale climate adaptation planning efforts for Badlands National Park (South Dakota) and Knife River Indian Villages National Historical Site (North Dakota) and surrounding federal and tribal lands. A final step was to develop a simulation model for the South Dakota site to help managers address the “what if” questions regarding how management actions might affect focal resources under the different scenarios.   Not only is this project meant to improve climate adaptation efforts in the northern Great Plains region, but it is also expected to result in a new, integrative approach for identifying how climate change might affect key resources of management concern at a local-scale and what actions can be taken to protect these resources – a method that could be applied to management units across the country.

This capacity-building activity supported three tribal college and university (TCU) mini-­grants to initiate student phenological and meteorological observation projects in support of climate change research, to document impacts of climate change and development of indigenous geography curriculum.  Students made observations of culturally and/or traditionally significant plants to generate data sets for use in climate change impact assessment of these plants and plant communities. The activity contributed to the larger national efforts of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian’s “Indigenous  Geography” curricula, by engaging with students at tribal colleges to explore the linkage between the “seasonality” and “living world” themes. The program promoted the education of the students by introducing them to two national observation networks: the USA National Phenology Network  and the  Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. Data collected as part of these fellowships followed the protocol of these networks and, as such, contribute high-­quality data to the networks.  

The National Climate Assessment summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. A team of more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee produced the report, which was extensively reviewed by the public and experts, including federal agencies and a panel of the National Academy of Sciences. The report can be explored interactively at http://nca2014.globalchange.gov.