Cover crops, crop rotation and no-till practices can improve soil health, improve nutrient and water-use efficiency and boost yields while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Photo: NRCS

 

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is a Department of Agriculture agency that helps farmers, ranchers and other landowners both mitigateand adapt to the consequences of climate change.

For example, the NRCS promotes conservation practices that store, or sequester, carbon in the soil, reducing the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gasses while simultaneously adding organic matter to the soil. Farmers benefit not only from increased soil fertility but from the expanded capacity of such soil to capture and retain water, which builds resiliency to several recognized hallmarks of climate change: extreme precipitation events, high temperatures and drought.

Another NRCS program attacked the root cause of climate change, the burning of fossil fuels, by providing financial assistance to replace old combustion engines with newer, less polluting ones.

Studies conducted by the NRCS help farmers and ranchers understand and prepare for what they are likely to face under climate change. Identifying conservation standards that positively reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon sequestration, the NRCS enables conservation planners to choose practices that are most effective in addressing the consequences of a rapidly changing climate. The NRCS has developed the world’s largest soil carbon data set, establishing a benchmark against which future soil carbon levels can be measured. (more…)

Among presentations at the National Climate Change Adaptation Forum April 2-4, 2013 were case studies of projects in different ecosystems that are addressing the effects of climate change. Short videos tell stories unfolding in three locations.

Scenic Hudson:

Sunrise at Black Creek Preserve.
Photo: R Rodriguez, Jr., www.scenichudson.org

Protecting and restoring freshwater tidal migration zones along the Hudson River

Although during Hurricane Sandy they proved the value of natural habitats in mitigating flood damage, the tidal wetlands of the Hudson River could nonetheless drown as sea levels rise. The nonprofit organization Scenic Hudson is undertaking a number of measures to protect the river and its valley from this consequence of climate change, such as building resilient structures; encouraging community conversations about climate-change readiness, land conservation and stewardship; and conducting acquisition and restoration projects.

Grand Canyon Trust:

Beaver near its lodge. Photo: NPS

Restoring a natural ecosystem engineer to provide riparian areas in Southern Utah 

Can a nocturnal, semi-aquatic rodent  become a superhero in the fight against climate change? The Grand Canyon Trust thinks its possible. By forming ponds, wetlands and meadows, beaver restore and expand riparian habitat that numerous species depend on. As climate change lengthens droughts and produces more extreme precipitation events, beaver dams could increase the volume of water retained in the mountains, raise the water table and expand riparian areas. To encourage the work of these natural engineers, the Trust is reintroducing beaver in scores of stream segments in southern Utah.

Cutthroat trout
Photo: USGS

Trust for Public Land:

Using climate science to strategically guide habitat conservation

Saving the entire earth is a daunting prospect, but identifying and protecting areas that offer the most important conservation opportunities is a size of task that collaborative efforts can tackle. In Montana, the Trust for Public Land worked with Trout Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to conserve and restore 52,000 acres identified as potentially resilient and pertinent to two at-risk coldwater fisheries, bull trout and Westslope cutthroat trout. The project has multiple benefits both for the species dependent on this habitat and for modeling an approach to public investment in landscape-level conservation.

In a story special to Beyond Seasons’ End, the author of The Spine of the Continent, Mary Ellen Hannibal, uses the example of the wolf to explore how predators at the top of the food chain are essential to a diverse and healthy ecosystem. “Wolves are a keystone species,” Hannibal explains, “playing an outsize role in connecting ecological processes.” The presence of wolves changes the behavior of grazing animals and consequently improves native flora, enhances soil carbon sequestration and increases biodiversity throughout the food web. “A more resilient landscape is better able to withstand the extremes of climate change, reducing the costs of severe weather events,” Hannibal notes.

Because of the far-reaching impact of top predators such as wolves on the landscape, Hannibal argues that everyone has a stake in their preservation. She points out that the removal of keystone species worldwide leads to increasingly simplified and less stable ecological networks. “This is a conversation everybody needs to get in on,” she says. “One thing is certain about global change: we’re all in it together.”

It’s a study of the intricate balance of nature.

A man, 6″2″ tall, stands among willows near a river’s edge in Yellowstone Park. Photo: NPS

The twentieth century disappearance of wolves in Yellowstone Park loosened control of elk populations, which led to over-foraging of willow in riparian habitats. With the reintroduction of wolves to the area, elk numbers have declined but willows have not made a come-back. Missing, a study published February in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (fee required) and summarized in an article in Science Now postulates, are beaver.

Although they eat willows and use them as building material, beaver enhance the growth of willows by creating mud flats and raising the level of the water table. Without these hydrologic influences, willow growth is less robust and unable to sustain a thriving beaver population.

Some scientists believe that time will resolve this circular problem. With fewer elk eating willows before the plants can reproduce, willows may eventually grow large and numerous enough to be able to support greater numbers of beaver.

More jack pines are cut as weather limits access to other species. Graphic: dnr.wi.gov

Winter warming is reducing lumberjack access to New England forests, declare loggers who have worked outdoors in upstate New York for decades. Late freeze dates and early thaws are shortening the harvest season and lengthening the seasons of mud, during which forests become inaccessible. Unreliable winter roads reduce the number of work days for loggers and increase costs as outfits build gravel roads to ensure access to operations. Converting skidders to swamp “balloon” tires to ply the mud is possible, but poses risks to the environment as knubby tires on heavy equipment can tear up fragile soils and cause silting in streams

The loggers’ observations, related in a story first published in The Daily Climate, are corroborated by a study of seven Wisconsin counties that correlated records of public-land harvests to temperatures over the past 60 years . The study determined that frozen-ground conditions have declined by two to four weeks since 1949. Weather also influences the kind of tree cut: as winter conditions become more variable, Wisconsin loggers are favoring cutting timber grown on sandy, well-drained soils.

Native brook trout. Photo, USDA Forest Service

Testing the assumption that stream temperatures rise in correspondence with air temperatures, researchers from the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Geological Survey delivered good news for brook trout in the Appalachian region.  Because these native trout do not thrive in waters warmer than 70 degrees, forecasts for the trout’s survival in all but the highest headwaters looked grim.  Then scientists from the two agencies started calculating  additional factors affecting stream temperature, such as slope aspect, stream bed composition, forest canopy and elevation, variables omitted in large-scale climate models. Field measures verified that stream temperatures are not always coupled with air temperatures, revealing “unexpected resilience in mountain streams.”

A more accurate picture of factors affecting the quality of stream habitats helps fish and wildlife managers project and prioritize locations where native trout could survive.  “This (trout) life cycle is susceptible to disruption from climate change, as warm winter temperatures may cause the trout to emerge too early, when there’s nothing to eat, and many could starve,” says FS project leader Andrew Dolloff. “It looks like the winter effects of climate change … could impact coldwater species, but the the resistance we found of stream temperatures to changes in air temperature promises some protection.”

Sure seems like apple trees were blooming this time last year, or is that just a failure of memory? Was last year normal, or is this year? Are we experiencing customary annual fluctuations, or a trend toward a different climate norm?

In order to answer such questions the National Phenology Network relies on volunteers across the continent reporting their observations. Set up under the aegis of the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Science Foundation, the network aims to develop a technical daybook of seasonal changes. Beyond satisfying the simply curious and the scientifically minded, such data is useful in agricultural forecasting, wildlife management and health advisories.

The more widespread the observation points and thorough the data collection, the more valuable the collected data will be. Therefore there is an ongoing need to enlist volunteers willing to do local observation, species inventory and project monitoring. The network provides broad support for individuals, groups and organizations interested in recording what’s happening to local plant and animal populations, either seasonally or on a long-term basis.

The network attracts even those who never set a foot outdoors. People can delve into data on the network’s web site and get answers about when those apple trees flowered in past years. Interactive tools make it easy to select sites, map species, track present and historic phenology and overlay temperature and precipitation information. Reports available for downloading summarize regional observations, booklets describe monitoring methodologies and a bibliography has links to papers examining various aspects of phenology and climate change.

That this story was deemed worthy of an article in the Wall Street Journal might harbinger another kind of change: could mainstream media’s interest in and coverage of climate issues be warming up?

The increasing acidity of sea water, caused by oceanic absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide, contributes to weakened shells of living sea snails, according to researchers examining specimens of the pteropod Limacina helicina antarctica.

The specimens were collected from places in the Southern Ocean where winds mixed the upper layers of sea water with deep upwellings of colder water. The thinning of the pteropods’ aragonite shells is attributed to the mixture of the more acidic surface water with the more corrosive deep water. Because ocean acidity will increase with continuing carbon dioxide emissions and windy conditions will likely accelerate as the climate changes, the scientists project that a severe shortage of aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate, will occur in much of the Southern Ocean by winter, 2050 and year-round by 2100.

Thinning shells seem not to kill the sea snails directly, but do make them more vulnerable to disease and prey. While the menus of five-star restaurants won’t be immediately affected by the decline of Limacina helicina antarctica, these sea snails are important food sources for fish and birds and are an indicator of ecological health in polar regions.

The team of international scientists studied specimens collected from a 2008 voyage. They published their findings in November, 2012 in the journal Nature Geoscience (subscription required). While laboratory experiments have indicated that ocean acidification has the potential to affect marine organisms, this study is among the first to demonstrate damage caused to living creatures in their natural environment by a climate change-induced phenomenon. According to NOAA, the acidity of surface sea water has increased by 30 percent over the past 200 years, and will increase to 150 percent by the end of the century if carbon emissions are not curtailed.

While scientific research supports concern over the effects of ocean acidification on shell-building organisms, a laboratory experiment suggests that some species of

Emiliania huxley chosen for its rapid reproduction

phytoplankton with short generation times will speedily evolve to adapt to more acidic conditions. While all test groups exhibited a slower rate of growth under conditions of increased CO₂, the adaptive group’s rate was not as slow as the non-adapted group’s rate. The authors write,  “We suggest that contemporary evolution could help to maintain the functionality of microbial processes at the base of marine food webs in the face of global change.”

Does this mean the marine biosphere will naturally overcome the threats posed by climate change? Not so fast, say critics – and indeed, the authors themselves – of the study published in Nature Geoscience (subscription required). They caution that they chose the phytoplankton

Further, the scientists have yet to prove that studies conducted in actual ocean conditions will support the laboratory experiment’s conclusions. To that end, the German researchers plan to conduct follow-up tests.i for its rapid reproduction rate and large population size. Longer-lived organisms producing fewer offspring have less adaptive potential. “Earth history tells a convincing story about the limitations to evolutionary adaptation,” says one study author, Prof. Ulf Riebesell. “Environmental changes comparable to what happens right now in the oceans have repeatedly resulted in mass extinctions, even though these changes were 10-100 times slower than what we observe today”.

Whatever the conclusions of this singular study, there is widespread doubt that the speed of climate change will outstrip many species’ capability to adapt.

Interested in understanding, modeling, or managing stream ecosystems at spatial scales larger than an individual stream?  A new website offers a set of analytical tools incorporating ecology, geospatial science and statistics to improve predictions of the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of stream networks. The unique models have practical applications for designing monitoring strategies and deriving information from databases with non-random sample locations.

Developed by the Rocky Mountain Research Station, U.S. Forest Service, the website provides a toolbox to pre-process stream datasets and develop auxiliary information. The package for the R statistical program, example datasets, and tutorials on using the GIS tools and R scriptsis available as freeware.