MTNCLIM 2005

A Science Conference on Mountain Climates & Effects on Ecosystems

Sponsored by: Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT)

March 1 - 4, 2005 Chico Hot Springs Pray, Montana

http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/mtnclim/

Conference Purpose

MTNCLIM aims to advance the sciences related to climate and its interaction with physical, ecological, and social systems of western North American mountains. Within this arena, MTNCLIM goals are to: • Provide a biennial forum for presenting and encouraging current, interdisciplinary research through invited and contributed oral and poster sessions. • Promote active integration of science into resource-management application through focused sessions, panels, and ongoing problem-oriented working groups. • Advance other goals of CIRMOUNT through ad hoc committees, networking opportunities, co-hosting meetings, and targeted fund-raising efforts.

A post-conference workshop entitled Climate Variability and Change: An Overview of our Current Understanding with Implications for Park & Natural Areas Management, is scheduled. The workshop presents an opportunity for resource managers to learn about implications of climate variability for resource management, conservation, and restoration.

Conference Sponsors

MTNCLIM is sponsored by the Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT), with funding and support from the following agencies and institutions:

Montana State University, Big Sky Institute NOAA, Office of Global Programs, Climate Diagnostics Center, and Paleoclimatology Branch USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Sierra Nevada Research Center and Pacific Northwest Research Station, Fire and Environmental Research Applications University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography USGS Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center USGS Water Resources, Geological and Biological Resources Divisions Mountain Research Initiative Desert Research Institute, Western Regional Climate Center University of Arizona, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research University of California, White Mountain Research Station California Bay-Delta Authority

Steering Committee

Constance I. Millar, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station (co-chair) Lisa J. Graumlich, Montana State University, Big Sky Institute (co-chair) Henry F. Diaz, NOAA, Climate Diagnostics Center (co-chair)

Daniel R. Cayan, University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Michael D. Dettinger, USGS Water Resources Division Daniel B. Fagre, USGS Biological Resources Division Greg Greenwood, Mountain Research Initiative Malcolm K. Hughes, University of Arizona, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research David L. Peterson, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station Frank L. Powell, University of California, White Mountain Research Station Kelly T. Redmond, Desert Research Institute, Western Regional Climate Center Nathan L. Stephenson, USGS Biological Resources Division, Three Rivers Thomas W. Swetnam, University of Arizona, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research Connie Woodhouse, NOAA, Paleoclimatology Branch

MTNCLIM 2005 http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/mtnclim/

A Science Conference on Mountain Climates & Effects on Ecosystems

Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...... ii PROGRAM ...... v SPEAKER ABSTRACTS...... 1

INVITED TALKS ...... 2 CONTRIBUTED TALKS ...... 6 POSTER ABSTRACTS...... 19 WORKING GROUP SESSIONS...... 41 CONFERENCE PARTICIPANT LIST ...... 51

March 1 - 4, 2005 Chico Hot Springs Pray, Montana

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Mapping New Terrain: Climate Change and America’s West Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT)

Climate change portends far-reaching transformations across America’s West, an expanse dominated by immense mountain ranges. From these peaks come the region’s life blood–water that courses through its streams and runs out its faucets, power that fuels its industries and lights its cities, and natural resources that feed its economy and provide many of its jobs. Vast ranchlands, forested suburban tracts, densely populated urban areas of the West–many afford spectacular views of the mountains beyond. And to these mountains, though seemingly distant, the communities of the West are intricately tied.

Why should we be concerned about how climate change is affecting the mountains? Despite their imposing grandeur and apparent fortitude, the mountains contain highly sensitive environments hosting delicately balanced physical and natural systems. A warming of only a few degrees has major implications for alpine regions–for high mountain glaciers, for snowpacks, and for snowmelt. Downhill, this affects water supply, energy availability, and recreational opportunities.

Climate change is predicted to significantly alter the alpine landscape. Distinct ecological communities occur along the incline, encountered as successive layers on a hike from the foothills to the peaks. Each of these alpine ecosystems has specific requirements for temperature and precipitation. As global warming continues, complex changes in alpine plant and animal communities are likely to occur, increasing vulnerability of species to local extinctions.

Scientific studies and observations to date reveal initial alarming trends related to climate change in combination with patterns of economic development. Experts gathered at the Mountain Climate Sciences Symposium (MCSS), held in Tahoe, CA, in May of 2004, noted the following as occurring in many areas throughout the West:

− Water Supply Higher temperatures are impacting water supplies by shrinking glaciers, diminishing snowpacks, and accelerating snowmelt. Meanwhile, continued development is increasing demand for water. Taken together, these trends increase the chances of regional water shortages during drought years.

− Massive Forest Dieback Recent severe drought increased susceptibility of trees to bark beetles; massive, quickly reproducing infestations resulted in widespread, rapid forest dieback.

− Development of Rural Lands Accelerating suburban development on city fringes and exurbandevelopment (between 6 and 25 homes per square kilometer and rapidly increasing road densities) of private rural lands are increasing scarcity of wildlands and associated resources; increasing wildfire is placing homes in these developments at risk. Climate changes are accentuating problems associated with air quality.

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Executive Summary

− Wildfire Enormous, destructive crown fires are consuming tinderbox forests, which resulted from drought, extensive tree mortality, and long-term fire suppression.

− Biodiversity and Wildlife Development of sparsely settled areas, massive forest dieback, extensive high-severity crown fires, and changes in high-altitude ecosystems are altering biodiversity and wildlife habitat.

However, substantially more information is needed to fully draw the picture. Despite the importance of the mountains as key providers of essential resources, scientists have conducted few systematic large-scale studies to date. Research has been telling, but fragmentary; weather and hydrology stations exist, but are few and far between. Scientists cannot yet respond meaningfully to essential questions managers are asking about climate change, such as how water flows will be affected, what species may be at risk, and whether increased wildfire looms on the horizon.

The MCSS set the stage for unprecedented cooperation among researchers, policy makers, and resource managers to identify the most important questions about how climate change will affect the West. Together, scientists and managers are specifying the first installations of monitoring equipment and suggesting major avenues of investigation. And, importantly, the group is focusing on how to integrate the studies across both geographic regions and academic fields.

As an outcome of the meeting, a consortium of experts whose work relates to climate change in mountainous regions was established. Priority goals set by the Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT) fall under action goal categories of the national Climate Change Science Program and include the following:

Observation Implement coordinated high-elevation climate and ecosystem monitoring throughout the western mountains of North America. Install a network of high- altitude meteorological and hydrological stations and conduct long-term ecosystem observations. Where possible use standardized instruments and protocols to optimize comparisons. Gather both baseline and ongoing data for comparisons over time.

Research Promote and facilitate climate research related to mountainous regions of the West. Specifically, improve knowledge of both the Earth’s past and present climate in the western region, better characterize the natural variability, and increase understanding of what causes the climate to vary. Increase knowledge of how western ecosystems respond to climate change, including their sensitivity and adaptability.

Communication Provide data and research results in effective formats for scientific, managerial, and general audiences. Share findings through web sites, publications, scientific meetings, focus groups, and education centers. Organize monitoring data and research results in easily accessible Internet-based databanks. Integrate western climate change information into current environmental education efforts.

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Executive Summary

Decision Support Provide sound climate-related science for effective land management in western North America. For long-term planning, develop accurate projections related to western climate change and its effects on natural systems and resources. Assist policy makers and land-use professionals in managing risks and opportunities related to climate variability and change.

CIRMOUNT plans a second meeting in March of 2005, in Pray, Montana, near Yellowstone National Park. One facet of this first-in-a-series of biennial MTNCLIM conferences will be to highlight relevant research and accelerate progress toward achieving the goals listed above. The meeting will focus on mountain climate sciences and the effects of climate variability on ecosystems, natural resources, and conservation in the mountains of western North America. MTNCLIM 2005 will also emphasize related resource management, policy, and societal implications. The Consortium invites interested scientists, managers, and policy makers to attend the meeting and join its endeavors.

MTNCLIM 2005 Conference Website: http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/mtnclim

For further information, contact: Dr. Henry Diaz, NOAA, 303-497-6649, email: [email protected] Dr. Constance Millar, USDA Forest Service, 510-559-6435, email: [email protected]

CIRMOUNT’s steering committee involves scientists from: NOAA USDA Forest Service, US Geological Survey Montana State University University of Arizona University of California Desert Research Institute Mountain Research Initiative

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Executive Summary

Program

March 1 - TUESDAY AFTERNOON ARRIVAL

6:00-8:00 pm DINNER

8:00 pm Evening Program:

8:00-8:30 pm CIRMOUNT Update (CIRMOUNT Organizers)

8:30-9:00 pm The MTNCLIM Year: Western Mountain Climate 2004-2005 in Perspective Kelly Redmond, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV

9:00-10:00 pm Keynote Presentation I: Yellowstone and the Two Cultures: Can Science and the Humanities Share a National Park? Paul Schullery, National Park Service, Yellowstone Center for Resources, Yellowstone Pk, WY

March 2 - WEDNESDAY MORNING

8:30 am Special Session I: Drought, Water Resources, and Ecosystems (Invited)

8:30-9:00 am Modeling of Climate Variability and Change in the Western United States Ruby Leung, Atmospheric Sciences Technical Group, PNW National Laboratories, Richland, WA

9:00-9:30 am Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference of Mountain Climates Steve Running, School of Forestry, University of Montana, Missoula, MT

9:30-10:00 am Paleo Perspectives on Extreme Climatic Variability in the Mountains of Western North America Stephen Gray, USGS, Desert Laboratory, Tucson, AZ

10:00-10:30 am BREAK

10:30-11:00 am Community and Evolutionary Consequences of Record Drought in the Southwest Tom Whitham, Dept Biological Sciences & Merriam Powell Center for Environmental Research, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ

11:00-11:30 am Climate, Mountain Ecosystems, and Disturbance across Scales: Challenges for the Next Century Don McKenzie, USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station, Seattle, WA

11:30-12:00 pm Science and the Future of Colorado River Policy and Compact Issues Eric Kuhn, Colorado River Water Conservation District, Glenwood Springs, CO

12:00-1:30 pm LUNCH BREAK

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Program

March 2 - WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

1:30 pm Special Session II: Climate Variability: Adaptation, Mitigation, and Restoration (Invited)

1:30-2:00 pm The Nature Conservancy's Perspective on Climate Change: The New Challenge for Conservation Planners and Practitioners Joe Kiesecker, Rocky Mountain Region, The Nature Conservancy, Lander, WY

2:00-2:30 pm Examining the Recent Climate through the Lens of Ecology: Inferences from Temporal Pattern Analysis Paul Hessburg, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Wenatchee, WA

2:30-3:00 pm Adaptation to Climate Change Using a Multi-Barrier Watershed Approach Hans Schreier, Institute for Resources and Environment, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC

3:00-3:30 pm BREAK

3:30 pm Contributed Session I (Oral)

3:30-3:50 pm Alaskan NPS Climate Monitoring Program Pamela Sousanes, National Park Service, Denali National Park and Preserve, Denali Park AK

3:50-4:10 pm Update on Plans to Establish a National Phenology Network Julio Betancourt, USGS, Desert Lab, Tucson, AZ; presented by Steve Gray, USGS, Desert Lab Tucson, AZ

4:10-4:30 pm Nineteenth Century Historical Climatic Data in Mountainous Regions of the Western United States Cary Mock, Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC

4:30-4:50 pm Environmental Changes in the Southern Canadian Rockies from Multiple-Tree Ring Proxies Emma Watson, Climate Research Branch, Meteorological Service of Canada, Environment Canada, Ontario, Canada

4:50-5:10 pm Another Possible Explanation for the Acceleration of Tree-Ring Growth at High Elevations in the Interior West Since the Late 19th Century Malcolm Hughes, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, U. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

6:00-8:00 pm DINNER (ON YOUR OWN)

8:00 pm Poster Session with Mixer

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Program

March 3 - THURSDAY MORNING

8:30 am Contributed Session II (Oral)

8:30-8:50 am Surface Temperature Patterns and Lapse Rates: Implications for Water Resources and Studies of Mountain Climate Change Jessica Lundquist, CIRES-Climate Diagnostics Center, Boulder, CO

8:50-9:10 am Climate-Driven Changes in Snowmelt Hydrology in the Mountainous West Phil Mote, JISAO/SMA Climate Impacts Group, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

9:10-9:30 am Non-Trivial Mountain Influence on Dry and Wet Conditions in Southern California Alex Hall, UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Los Angeles, CA

9:30-9:50 am Warming Trends and Groundwater Recharge in Western Mountains, with Implications for Groundwater and Surface-Water Resources Sam Earman, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV

9:50-10:10 am The “Teflon Basin” Myth Debunked: Most Snowmelt Runoff is “Old” Water and Not “New” Water Mark Williams, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

10:10-10:30 am BREAK

10:30 am Contributed Session III (Oral)

10:30-10:50 am Groundwater-Mediated Holocene Hydrologic Variability in the Intermontane Northern Rockies Mark Shapley, Limnological Research Center, Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN

10:50-11:10 am Simulated Response of Two Wyoming Glaciers to Projected Climate Change Mitch Plummer, Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID

11:10-11:30am Rock Glaciers and Periglacial Rock/Ice Features in the Central-Eastern Sierra Nevada; Mapping, Classification, and a Proposal for Origins Connie Millar, USDA Forest Service, PSW Research Station, Sierra Nevada Research Center, Albany, CA

11:30-11:50 am Comparing New and Old Scenarios of Future Climate Change Impacts on Fire, Carbon and Vegetation Diversity in Western Mountains Ron Nielson, USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station, Corvallis, OR

11:50-12:10 pm Ecological Context of Climate Impacts on Fire: Wildland Fire Area Burned in the Western U.S. 1916-2003 Jeremy Littell, Fire and Mountain Ecology Lab, University of Washington College of Forest Resources, Seattle, WA

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Program

12:10-1:30 pm LUNCH BREAK

1:30-3:00 pm FREE TIME - INFORMAL GROUP MEETINGS

March 3 - THURSDAY AFTERNOON

3:00 pm Contributed Session IV (Oral)

3:00-3:20 pm Climate and Patterns of Tree Growth and Death in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico: 1991 to Present Craig Allen, U.S. Geological Survey, Jemez Mountains Field Station, Los Alamos, NM

3:20-3:40 pm Risk Assessment for Establishment of an Introduced Pest in Face of a Changing Climate Jesse Logan, USDA Forest Service, Forest Sciences Laboratory, Logan, UT

3:40-4:00 pm Willow Response to Changing Climate on Yellowstone’s Northern Winter Range Don Despain, USGS Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Bozeman, MT

4:00-4:20 pm Ambient Ozone in California and Central European Mountains Andrzej Bytnerowicz, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Riverside, CA

4:20-4:40 pm Adaptively Managing Protected Areas for Climate Change Tony Prato, Center for Agricultural, Resource, and Environmental Systems, and Division of Applied Social Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

4:40-5:00 pm Climate Research and Products Relevant to Mountainous Regions: Input from Stakeholders Melanie Lenart, University of Arizona Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, Tucson, AZ

6:30-8:00 pm DINNER

8:00-9:00 pm Keynote Presentation II: Visual Observations of Mountain Microclimates David C. Whiteman, Department of meteorology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

March 4 - FRIDAY MORNING

8:30 am Working Group Sessions (Leader Facilitated Discussions)

8:30-8:45 am Introduction & Instructions for Working Groups

8:45-9:45 am Working Group Discussions (with group leaders - continued on next page)

Hydrologic Observatories – Sierra Nevada Hydrologic Observatory (SNHO) & Beyond Roger Bales, University of California, Merced, Atwater, CA, and Mike Dettinger, USGS, La Jolla, CA

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Program

North American GLORIA (Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments) Connie Millar, USFS-PSW Res. Stn., Albany, CA & Dan Fagre, USGS, BRD, W Glacier, MT

Paleoclimatology & Water Resources Mgmt Connie Woodhouse, NOAA, Boulder, CO & Franco Biondi, Univ Nevada, Reno, NV

CIRMOUNT, Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), and International Relations Greg Greenwood, Mountain Research Initiative, Berne, Switzerland

Installing Climate Observation Networks Kelly Redmond, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV & Mark Losleben, Mountain Research Station, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

9:45-10:00 am BREAK

10:00-10:30 am Working Group Summaries

10:30 am Synthesis/Summary Session (Invited)

10:30-10:50 am Peter Stine, USDA Forest Service, Sierra Nevada Research Center, Albany, CA

10:50-11:10 am James McMahon, Dept. of Biology, Utah State University, Logan, UT

11:10-11:30 am Bill Bowman, Dept of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

11:30-11:50 am Dennis Machida, California Tahoe Conservancy, South Lake Tahoe, CA

11:50-12:10 pm Glen MacDonald, Dept of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, CA

12:10-12:20 pm MTNCLIM Wrap-Up & What’s Next CIRMOUNT? (CIRMOUNT Organizers)

12:30-1:30 pm MTNCLIM 2005 CONFERENCE ADJOURNS

AFTERNOON Post-Conference Workshop: Climate Variability and Change: An Overview of our Current Understanding With Implications for Park and Natural Areas Management Stephen Gray, USGS, Desert Laboratory Tucson, AZ, Lisa Graumlich, Big Sky Institute, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, and Tom Oliff, NPS, Yellowstone National Park

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Program

Speaker Abstracts alphabetical list by first author last name

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Speaker Abstracts (Invited)

Invited Talks

PALEO PERSPECTIVES ON EXTREME CLIMATIC VARIABILITY IN THE MOUNTAINS OF WESTERN NORTH AMERICA GRAY, STEPHEN T. (1); BETANCOURT, JULIO L. (1); WOODHOUSE, CONNIE A. (2); MEKO, DAVID M. (3) AND GRAUMLICH, LISA J. (4) (1) USGS Desert Laboratory, Tucson, AZ 85745, (2) NOAA Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder, CO 80305, (3) Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, (4) Big Sky Institute, Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT 59717

Evidence from a growing network of paleoclimatic reconstructions emphasizes that strong, persistent droughts- some outside the range of instrumental era events- are a common feature of Western climate. On the other hand, extended wet periods that coincided with the economic and social development of the West were, in some cases, anomalous events. Here we explore how droughts and pluvials of the 20th century have shaped natural resource management and growth in the region. We then use a combination of paleo archives to place the last 100 yrs in a long-term context, and explore how persistent hydroclimatic anomalies affect the structure and function of natural systems. These results show that droughts and pluvials are likely to be a primary driver of future environmental change. Widespread droughts and pluvial regimes can also promote types of ecological and hydrologic change that may be difficult to predict using current forecast methodologies. Overall, better knowledge of the geographic and temporal aspects of extreme hydroclimatic variability must inform how we manage natural resources and plan for the effects of global change.

EXAMINING THE RECENT CLIMATE THROUGH THE LENS OF ECOLOGY: INFERENCES FROM TEMPORAL PATTERN ANALYSIS HESSBURG, PAUL F. (1); ELLEN E. KUHLMANN (1); AND THOMAS W. SWETNAM (2) (1) USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Wenatchee, WA, 98801 USA, (2) Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721 USA

Ecological theory asserts that the climate of a region exerts top-down controls on regional ecosystem patterns and processes, across space and time. Before we evaluated the recent climate of the northwestern United States (US), we established a Northwest climatic region by clustering time series of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for the period of 1675-1978, for the western US. This helped to minimize variance in climate attributes by climatic region. The background climatic regime and anomalies of the recent northwestern US climate were then identified through temporal pattern analysis involving application of correspondence analysis to the same PDSI time series. Our analysis distinguished 10 distinct periods and 4 unique types of regimes. Five of the 10 periods (79% of the ~300 yr record) were marked by mild and equitable moisture conditions (Pacific regime), the “background” climate of the Northwest. The remaining periods were anomalies. Two periods displayed a high-variance, mixed signal marked by switching between severe to extreme annual to interannual dry and wet episodes (High/Mixed regime, 9% of the record). Two more periods displayed a moderate-variance, mixed signal marked by switching between moderate to severe annual to interannual dry and wet episodes (Moderate/Mixed regime, 5%). Only one period was unidirectional and relatively low- variance, marked by persistent yet mild to moderate drought (Low/Dry regime, 7%). Our method distinguished decadal to interdecadal-scale regimes, defined regime periods, and detected both mixed and unidirectional anomalies from the background climate; and it provided a plausible basis for examining the role of past climate within terrestrial ecosystems of the Northwest. For example, we found concordance between the period of the Low/Dry anomaly and a period of tree establishment in the Olympic Mountains of Washington, close alignment between tree growth with the Moderate/Mixed and High/Mixed signals in Oregon, and a mixed fire response to mixed climatic signals in northeastern Oregon. Linking historical climatic regimes to particular ecosystem

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Speaker Abstracts (Invited)

patterns and processes also aids in the prediction of future ecosystem changes by providing evidence of the kinds of interactions that may be anticipated.

THE NATURE CONSERVANCY’S PERSPECTIVE ON CLIMATE CHANGE: THE NEW CHALLENGE FOR CONSERVATION PLANNERS AND PRACTIONERS. KIESECKER, JOE; WARD, JONI The Nature Conservancy, Lander WY 82520 Conservation of biodiversity in the new millennium has increasingly difficult challenges to confront. Already curtailed by habitat loss, pollution and over-exploitation, species and natural systems are now faced with the need to adapt to new regimes of temperature, precipitation and climatic extremes. One of the main impediments that groups like The Nature Conservancy faces when attempting to incorporate the threat of climate change into conservation planning is the often divisive nature of predictions regarding what can be expected to occur ‘on the ground’ as a result of climate change. Drawing on a survey of Nature Conservancy scientists and individuals involved with conservation planning, we will discuss the current consensus of staff from the Rocky Mountain Region of The Conservancy regarding how to incorporate climate change data into conservation planning and the degree to which predictions from climate change models have influenced conservation action on the ground. Finally, we will examine current Nature Conservancy planning endeavors that have begun to incorporate the projected impacts of climate change into ecoregional and landscape-level conservation planning.

SCIENCE AND THE FUTURE OF COLORADO RIVER POLICY AND COMPACT ISSUES KUHN, ERIC Colorado River Water Conservation District, Glenwood Springs, CO

The Colorado River provides critical water supplies to each of the seven Basin states and the Republic of Mexico. In all but the wettest years the river is fully consumed. A small change in basin wide precipitation could result in major water shortages. The interstate compacts, state and federal laws, and court decrees which comprise the "Law of the River" were primarily developed during a very wet hydrologic period. What are the consequences of future with less water in the Colorado River and who are the likely winners and losers?

MODELING OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND CHANGE IN THE WESTERN U.S. LEUNG, L. RUBY GAPP, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richmond, WA

Mountain environment and resources are sensitive to climate that exhibits large variability across a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. Predictions of seasonal to interannual climate variations and projections of long-term climate trends can provide significant values in understanding vulnerability and managing resources of the mountains. Climate models are commonly used to study climate processes and project long term climate trends. This presentation will discuss several climate modeling studies that investigate climate variability and change in the western U.S. Examples will be given on how regional climate models are applied in downscaling of climate scenarios and their advantages and limitations. These include studies that assess the impacts of climate change on water resources and air quality in the mountainous U.S. west. Recent progress in the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) to generate multiple high resolution climate change scenarios for North America to explore uncertainty in climate change projections will also be discussed.

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Speaker Abstracts (Invited)

CLIMATE, MOUNTAIN ECOSYSTEMS, AND DISTURBANCE ACROSS SCALES: CHALLENGES FOR THE NEXT CENTURY MCKENZIE, DON USDA Forest Service, Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab, US Forest Service, Seattle, WA With input from: Craig Allen, Sam Cushman, Paul Hessburg, Lara Kellogg, Jeremy Littell, Carol Miller, Bruce Milne, Dave Peterson, Nate Stephenson, and others

Global warming ensures that mountain ecosystems are driven by non-equilibrium dynamics. Non- stationary climate forcing and dominance of disturbance regimes, particularly fire, by extreme events are two factors that limit our ability to understand and predict ecosystem change. Land-use changes and other pressures on mountain resources make non-reversible changes more likely and landscapes more vulnerable, while making accurate predictions more urgent. I present three challenges to researchers studying climate, mountain ecosystems, disturbance, and their interactions. These issues do not appear to be tractable using current methodology, given limited resources, and may require new conceptual advances and thinking outside the box. 1) understanding the biophysical controls on species distribution, abundance, and migration, with emphasis on limiting factors. I focus on tree species of western mountains and energy and water as canonical limiting factors. 2) understanding fire regimes in the context of climatic variability. I focus on a multivariate approach with particular attention to fire severity. 3) Linking drivers and responses across scales: scaling laws and scale invariance vs. the need for transfer functions. I use this issue to inform challenges 1 and 2, in that their solutions most likely involve analyses at multiple scales. As climatic change continues and possibly accelerates, the demand for quick simple answers will intensify, whereas their likelihood will diminish. One response to this conundrum is to focus on issues and methods that will identify potential surprises and abrupt or non-reversible changes in mountain landscapes.

THE MTNCLIM YEAR: WESTERN CLIMATE 2004-05 IN PERSPECTIVE REDMOND, KELLY Western Regional Climate Center, Desert Research Institute, Reno Nevada

The year preceding the MTNCLIM 2005 meeting started with the warmest and driest March to affect the 11 western contiguous states in the past 110 years. March caused a dramatic and unwelcome change in snowpack that guaranteed the region would remain in another year of hydrologic drought. Attention shifted to Alaska during the summer as approximately six million acres burned. This was preceded by record breaking temperatures and an extended dry period. The monsoon season was neither extremely wet nor extremely dry, though enough activity occurred to satisfy the needs of the North American Monsoon Experiment. October 2004 was an all-time standout wet month in the southwest, and set the stage for a winter of exceptionally heavy precipitation in the same region, especially southern California. Precipitation continued to fall during regimes of a week or so alternating with fair weather. The Southwest ended up with one of its wettest seasons in history. Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest and the northern Rockies saw very little precipitation, as snowpack failed to materialize, many ski areas shut down, and one of the driest winter seasons in history unfolded. The consequence was to move the center of attention of the long-running (5-9 years) western drought from the south to the north. A mild El Nino is under way, and the pattern looks strikingly like a classic El Nino precipitation pattern. However, the atmospheric circulation that has produced this precipitation looks almost nothing like an El Nino circulation pattern. This has been a major puzzle. An exceptionally heavy snowpack covered parts of the Great Basin during the middle of winter. Southwest reservoirs, especially on the mainstem Colorado, have a long way to go for recovery, but stand to gain some ground this year. The northern states of the Rocky Mountains and the Cascades remain well into extended drought, and this has significant implications for the upcoming fire season.

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Speaker Abstracts (Invited)

DANGEROUS ANTHROPOGENIC INTERFERENCE OF MOUNTAIN CLIMATES RUNNING, STEVE Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT

The Framework Convention on Climate Change has suggested a policy goal of limiting conditions that would cause "dangerous anthropogenic interference" in the global climate system. Politicians are now asking climate scientists to define when that is, and some have suggested sea level rise of 1m, where 50% of global population lives. I am trying to construct a definition of "dangerous anthropogenic interference" for the mountains for the 4th IPCC report. My scenario goes...earlier snowmelt to earlier phenology and stream peaks to summer drought and low streamflows to ecosystem stress to widespread insect/disease outbreaks to wildfire. Pieces of this rather complicated scenario have been published by members of this audience. I will try to complete this scenario with solid evidence, with assistance from the audience, please bring your data. Only by clearly defining these dangerous thresholds will certain politicians become motivated to act on this issue.

ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE USING A MULTI-BARRIER WATERSHED APPROACH SCHREIER, HANS Institute for Resources and Environment, University of British Columbia

Uncertainty associated with increased climatic variability is placing new challenges on watershed managers. The problem is exacerbated because urban expansion, which creates large impervious areas, agricultural intensification, which compacts soils, and forest fires, which alter soil surface conditions, are responsible for creating higher and faster surface runoff. Because of these surface changes and the elaborate conveyance systems that have been built to managed urban stormwater and agricultural drainage, pollutants reach streams and groundwater more rapidly without much chance of retention and natural remediation. It is the cumulative effect of these activities and land uses that is difficult to predict and prevent. A multi-barrier approach is likely the best hedge we have to adapt to increased flooding, drought events, and water pollution. This requires a major shift from traditional practices to innovations that focus on minimizing impervious surfaces, remediating soil compaction, maintaining high soil infiltration rates, detaining water in headwater systems, maintaining continuous watershed wide buffer zones, and using best land use practices that minimize erosion and nutrient losses. Searching for new water supplies is becoming increasingly difficult and source control and conservation are the best alternatives. Water treatment is also becoming increasingly complex and no single methods is adequate for the type of risk protection demanded by the public. Watershed management plans should contain provisions for innovative ways of controlling land use, surface runoff and pollution. Tracking pathogens, nutrients and other contaminant from source to tap and infiltrating and detaining rainfall in the headwaters are positive ways to initiate a multi-barrier approach in a watershed. Examples of innovative stormwater management in urban and agricultural settings will be provided.

VISUAL OBSERVATIONS OF MOUNTAIN MICROCLIMATES WHITEMAN, C. DAVID Meteorology Department, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

Mountains are under-represented in climate records, with few long-term climate stations at the higher elevations. Meteorological observations in these extreme environments, which exhibit large temporal and spatial variabilities, are often suspect due to measurement difficulties or poor siting of measurement stations. Of particular concern to researchers in many disciplines is the lack of information on climate variations at the smallest scales, where visual observations of the ecosystems show important climate- related changes that are closely tied to the topography and are occurring over spatial scales from several meters to several kilometers. In this talk, selected factors affecting meteorological and climate variability on small scales in mountains will be summarized using photographs and illustrations of weather events.

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Speaker Abstracts (Invited)

Field-observable features of mountain weather, their physical basis, and their meaning for mountain microclimates will be emphasized, and examples will be given of the effects of mountain weather and climate on the natural environment, ecosystems and natural resources.

COMMUNITY AND EVOLUTIONARY CONSEQUENCES OF RECORD DROUGHT IN THE SOUTHWEST WHITHAM, THOMAS G. Department of Biological Sciences and the Merriam-Powell Center for Environmental Research, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011

With the record drought that the southwest has been experiencing since 1996, dominant plant species from low to high elevations have suffered local mortality of 100% and landscape-level mortality as high as 41%. Not all dominants suffer the same levels of mortality (e.g., pinyon pine = 41% and juniper = 3% mortality). Because these dominants are community drivers, as they go, so goes the rest of the community. On pinyon pine about 1000 species are affected including microbes, fungal mutualists, insects, birds and mammals. There are also important gene x environment interactions that result in unexpected outcomes that could affect management decisions and reforestation. For example, insect susceptible trees are 3x more likely to survive the drought than insect resistant genotypes. Because drought is affecting the genetic makeup of the surviving population, this drought event is not only a major ecological event, it is also likely to be an evolutionary event. These findings have important implications for understanding both the ecological and evolutionary consequences of climate change. To further understand the population, community and ecosystem consequences of drought, with NSF support, we have established a program called DIREnet (Drought Impacts on Regional Ecosystems Network), whose aim is to promote the coordination and synthesis of ecological research on drought effects and the potential role of global climate change. We are seeking broader membership and encourage you to visit our website at http://www.mpcer.nau.edu/direnet/.

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Speaker Abstracts (Invited)

Contributed Talks

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate & Disturbance Regimes; TALK CLIMATE AND PATTERNS OF TREE GROWTH AND DEATH IN THE JEMEZ MOUNTAINS, NEW MEXICO: 1991 TO PRESENT. ALLEN, CRAIG D. (1); BEELEY, KAY (2) (1) U.S. Geological Survey, Jemez Mountains Field Station, Los Alamos, NM, (2) Bandelier National Monument, Los Alamos, NM 87544

Since 1991 we have monitored the growth of thirty ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) trees in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Changes in circumference are measured with a spring-tensioned, metal dendrometer band mounted at 1.5 m above the ground. Measurements are taken weekly from spring to fall, bi-monthly during the winter. Ten trees were instrumented at each of three sites along the elevational range of ponderosa pine in Bandelier National Monument. The upper elevation site (2750 m) is ponderosa pine forest mixed with Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), white fir (Abies concolor), and southwestern white pine (Pinus strobiformis). The middle site (2310 m) is completely dominated by ponderosa pine, and the low site (1980 m) is ponderosa pine amidst piñon-juniper (Pinus edulis, Juniperus monosperma) woodland. Climatic variability drives growth patterns between sites across this montane elevational gradient, and between years. Low elevation trees begin growing in mid-April and the upper elevation trees begin two-three weeks later, with the mid elevation trees starting in between. Growth is greatest at the wetter upper elevation site and least at the drier low site. At both low and mid sites the trees are sensitive to multi-week dry periods during the growing season, shrinking at times but recovering when it rains again. The growth monitoring began during a wet period favorable for tree growth, transitioning to drought conditions in the late 1990s. The cumulative effect of recent dry years can be seen in the significantly reduced growth at all sites, showing up first at the lower and drier sites but including the upper elevation site since 2001. Severe drought from 2000-2003 triggered tree mortality – at the lowest site all banded trees died in 2002, as have several replacement trees since. At the middle site one tree died in 2003 and another is near death, while all upper site trees survive to date. Tree growth patterns also inform seasonality interpretations of prehistoric fire activity from abundant fire-scar samples collected in the Jemez Mountains, confirming the predominance of natural fire activity in the typically dry period before the onset of “monsoonal” summer rains ~in July. Growth patterns are also presented for eight piñon near the low elevation site that were monitored from 1995 until their drought-induced death in 2003, and for five Douglas-fir monitored since spring 2004 at the high elevation site.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; TALK UPDATE ON PLANS TO ESTABLISH A NATIONAL PHENOLOGY NETWORK BETANCOURT, JULIO L. (1); AND SCHWARTZ, MARK D. (2) (1) USGS, Desert Lab, Tucson, AZ 85745, (2) Dept. of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413

A specific recommendation to emerge from an 8/04 NEON workshop on ecological impacts of climate change (http://ibrcs.aibs.org/reports/pdf/neon-climate-report.pdf) is the need to establish a National Phenology Network (NPN). Phenological networks exist in Europe, Canada and globally, but the U. S. does not have a single, regional-scale phenological observation network, let alone a national one. A comprehensive, wall-to-wall NPN is not only necessary, but is also an obvious way to involve the general public as routine observers, and thus increase awareness of ecological responses to climate change. Planning for such a network is already under way. Recently, Mark Schwartz at the Univ. of Wisconsin launched a prototype for a web-based NPN (http://www.npn.uwm.edu), and a workshop is planned for summer 2005 to identify research questions, prioritize species and measurements, estimate costs, design

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

the grid, and draft interagency agreements to ensure long-term support. An obvious model, if not perhaps part of the footprint, is the National Cooperative Mesonet, which by 2008 will succeed the National Weather Service's 100-yr old COOP Program. In an ideal world, a subset of phenological observations would be made in cooperation with existing Mesonet stations, and in return NPN and associated organizations would help support new weather stations at phenological observation sites of special interest to the ecological and climate research communities. We envision up to 10,000 stations with both weather and phenological observations. The main objectives would be a thorough understanding of plant phenological cycles and their relationship to temperature and precipitation; comprehensive ground- truthing of green-up and other remotely sensed phenological measurements; and eventual detection and discrimination of long-term phenological trends in response to long-term climate variability and global warming. Among many potential applications, NPN could help evaluate the impact of longer growing seasons on pollinators, herbivores, crop and forest pests, fire ecology, carbon balance and the hydrologic cycle.

MTCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; TALK AMBIENT OZONE IN CALIFORNIA AND CENTRAL EUROPEAN MOUNTAINS BYTNEROWICZ, ANDRZEJ (1); ARBAUGH, MICHAEL (1); AND FRĄCZEK, WITOLD (2) (1) USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Riverside, CA 92507 (2) Environmental Systems Research Institute, Redlands, CA 92373

Together with elevated concentrations of CO2 and temperatures, concentrations of ambient ozone (O3) have been increasing for more than 100 years. At present, phytotoxic O3 levels are common in many mountain areas of North America and Europe affecting health of forest and other ecosystems. Monitoring of O3 concentrations in remote mountain locations has become possible with the development of passive samplers. Passive sampler O3 monitoring networks have been developed in several mountain ranges in California and Central Europe. Data from these networks aided with geostatistics have allowed for production of O3 distribution maps in complex mountain terrain. Such maps will be presented for the entire Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, and for a smaller portion of the Sierra range (Lake Tahoe Basin). Transport of O3 across the Sierra Nevada will be shown for the San Joaquin River transect. Ozone distribution will also be presented for the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California and the Tatra & Retezat Mountains in the Carpathian range, Central Europe. Emissions from the combustion engines are the main source of O3 precursors, however, forest fires may also contribute to the elevated O3 levels and changing distribution patterns. Effects of elevated O3 concentrations on forests and other ecosystems can be modified by various abiotic and biotic factors, among them increasing temperatures, CO2 levels and nitrogen deposition.

MTNCLM 2005 Theme: Climate Variability: Adaptation, Mitigation and Restoration; TALK WILLOW RESPONSE TO CHANGING CLIMATE ON YELLOWSTONE’S NORTHERN WINTER RANGE DESPAIN, DON G USGS Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Bozeman, MT 59717

Willows in the mountain ecosystems of the central and northern Rocky Mountains are well adapted to the cool moist sites that constitute their habitats. These sites also produce high amounts of plant biomass that is a significant factor to most of the herbivores using the same areas. This creates two opposing forces acting on willow adaptation. Height growth is needed to compete with neighbors for light but that growth must be defended against herbivores. Willow growth depends on plant hormones (auxins) and availability of carbohydrates but the production and transport of auxins to growth sites are sensitive to temperature. Auxins are also influenced by day length. The long days of spring and early summer allow for maximum auxin production but shorter days of late summer and fall cause a decrease in auxin availability as the plants begin the cold acclimation process for winter survival. Production of defensive

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

chemicals also depends on carbohydrate availability but is second to growth in competition for carbohydrates. Climatic conditions must allow for both needs to be met if willows are to grow tall in the presence of browsers. Willows throughout the northern winter range switched from producing annual growth of 20-30 cm to 60-120 cm about 1997. On the northern winter range in Yellowstone National Park, the number of days with minimum temperatures > 0ºC for the months of May-October has increased by an average of 23.5 days (26%) for the period 1997-2004 compared to 1985-1996. For May- July the increase was 11.8 days (23%) and for August-October 13.6 days (37%). This change in climate could explain the increased summer growth throughout the winter range and the appearance of tall willows in some locations.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; TALK WARMING TRENDS AND GROUNDWATER RECHARGE IN WESTERN MOUNTAINS, WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR GROUNDWATER AND SURFACE-WATER RESOURCES EARMAN, SAM (1); DETTINGER, MICHAEL (2) (1) Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV 89512-1095; (2) US Geological Survey, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92093-0224

Groundwater is a vital resource in the western USA. In 2000, 26% of all western water uses (excluding power generation) and 28% of irrigation were supplied from groundwater. Western ecosystems also depend on these resources, especially in riparian and phreatophyte stands. Groundwater is also an important contributor to surface-water resources: groundwater inflows make significant contributions to western streamflow, sustaining flows during long dry seasons and contributing significant fractions even during intense rainfall and snowmelt episodes.

Because mountains are generally wetter and cooler than adjacent basins, groundwater in the West is derived mainly from mountain precipitation. Because large and intense infiltrations of water are required to break through the region’s thick unsaturated zones, and because snowpacks store and then release precipitation from several storms at once, snowmelt provides more recharge than does rain. Isotopic studies in western settings have suggested that 50 to 90% of recharge is from snowmelt. Recent temperature analyses based on dissolved gases in groundwater from the Chiricahua Mountains (AZ) show that recharge in the central portion of the range is derived only from above seasonal snowlines.

As the western climate warmed in recent decades, precipitation came more frequently as rain rather than snow, snowpacks thinned, and snowfed streams flowed earlier in the year. The trends would continue under projected 21st-century climates. Snowline elevations may be expected to rise and thus snow- covered areas would decline in western mountains. If so, mountain-block recharge also may be expected to decline, as recharge areas shrink and as snow available for snowmelt infiltration dwindles. Declines in recharge triggered by warming may seriously impact groundwater supplies as well as surface-water resources to which groundwater inflows contribute. Given groundwater’s crucial role in western water, potential impacts of warming on recharge deserve more attention than they have received to date.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; TALK NON-TRIVIAL MOUNTAIN INFLUENCE ON DRY AND WET CONDITIONS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA HALL, ALEX; CONIL, SEBASTIEN; HUGHES, MIMI; MASI, GREG UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Los Angeles, CA

We analyze a super-high 6 km resolution numerical model of the atmosphere covering the southern third of California and forced at its boundaries by the observed large-scale weather conditions from 1995 to the present. The simulation exhibits significant spatial structure in climatological fields, including precipitation

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

and temperature. These structures agree very well with the independently-derived, observationally-based PRISM data set. We find that simulated modes of circulation variability correspond directly to extreme dry and wet conditions. The dry mode is associated with offshore flow, and corresponds nearly perfectly with an observed index of the region’s famous Santa Ana winds. By elucidating the mechanism behind this phenomenon, we demonstrate that the Santa Anas would not exist at all without the unique configuration of mountains in the region. The importance of local processes in this mode is also evident in the fact that it is uncorrelated with large-scale modes of climate variability, such as the El Niño phenomenon or the Pacific—North American teleconnection pattern. Local mountain influences also play an unexpected role in the much rarer wet mode, associated with onshore flow. In this case, the mountains alter circulation during rain events, so that precipitation is not simply enhanced by orography as moist air flows over the region’s mountain complexes. Instead the mountains consistently generate strong low level blocked flows on their coastal flank parallel to the shore, forcing moist onshore flow to begin its ascent over the ocean, as far as 50-100 km from the shore, rather than directly over the mountain slopes. Thus an enhancement of precipitation is visible over the coastal ocean and the low-lying coastal zone as well as over the mountains. We therefore conclude that mountains play a essential and non-trivial role in generating both extreme dry and wet conditions throughout Southern California.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology; TALK ANOTHER POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR THE ACCELERATION OF TREE-RING GROWTH AT HIGH ELEVATIONS IN THE INTERIOR WEST SINCE THE LATE 19TH CENTURY HUGHES, MALCOLM K. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721

The high elevation conifers of the semi-arid western USA have been used in many reconstructions of past climate, but those at the highest elevations present special problems. For example, there a strong upward trend in ring width of high elevation conifers since the late19th century, unique on a millennial timescale, on a sub-continental scale. This conclusion is based on analyses of a network of 24 tree-ring chronologies from the region stretching from the Sierra Nevada of California to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. All cover at least the period from AD 1000 to the late 20th century with good replication, have a minimum segment length of 500 years, and were only minimally detrended so as to conserve century and multi-century-scale variations. Their site elevations range from approximately 2500 to 3500 meters a.s.l.. The upward trend of the last 150 years is clearly evident only in the chronologies from above 3100 meters. It has been difficult to establish clear, consistent, correlations between this trend and the variability around it and local climate variables during the instrumental period. This is doubtless in part due to the paucity of long meteorological records in the high mountains. On the other hand, chronologies from lower elevations show clear and strongly significant correlations with precipitation-related variables. Several explanations have been proposed for the upward trend during the past 150 years of the series from above 3100 meters elevation, including CO2 fertilization mediated through increased water use efficiency. A new explanation will be proposed, based on greatly accelerated spring-summer warming at these elevations in this region over at least the last 50 years, seen in the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data.

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Urban/Social Interactions with Climate; TALK CLIMATE RESEARCH AND PRODUCTS RELEVANT TO MOUNTAINOUS REGIONS: INPUT FROM STAKEHOLDERS LENART, MELANIE (1); GARFIN, GREGG (1); AND MOREHOUSE, BARBARA (1); VÁSQUEZ-LEÓN, MARCELA (2) (1)University of Arizona Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, (2) University of Arizona, Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology

The University of Arizona’s Climate Assessment of the Southwest (CLIMAS) has a 7-year history of collecting information from stakeholders about their climate information and forecasting needs. Surveys and interactive workshops contribute to its mission of fostering participatory, iterative research involving scientists, decision makers, resource users, educators and others who need information and forecasts to respond appropriately to climatic events and climate variability and change. Here we summarize some findings with applications for mountain research from various CLIMAS research initiatives, drawing from the expressed needs of land managers, firefighters, tourism promoters, ranchers, employees of government agencies and non-governmental organizations, forest product entrepreneurs, and policy makers. For instance, during a recent National Seasonal Assessment workshop CLIMAS co-organized to assess fire potential in the eastern United States, state fire managers requested more explicit data on the intensity and frequency of precipitation events, including in areas of high topographic relief. During informal and formal interviews in the White Mountains area of Arizona, the focus of an ongoing integrated climate assessment project by CLIMAS researchers, a variety of potential climate-product users provided information on some of their needs. For example, land managers and those dependent on ski slope tourism described specific informational needs about how climate change might affect southwestern Ponderosa forests and snow cover distribution and timing. An innovative forest stewardship monitoring project in the White Mountains area also will be discussed. CLIMAS is housed at the UA Institute for the Study of Planet Earth and is supported by NOAA.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate & Disturbance Regimes; TALK ECOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF CLIMATE IMPACTS ON FIRE: WILDLAND FIRE AREA BURNED IN THE WESTERN U.S. 1916-2003 LITTELL, JEREMY S. (1, 2); MCKENZIE, DONALD (3); PETERSON, DAVID L. (1,2,3) (1) Fire and Mountain Ecology Lab, University of Washington College of Forest Resources, Seattle, WA, (2) JISAO CSES Climate Impacts Group, Seattle, WA, (3) Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team, USDA Forest Service PNW Research Station, Seattle, WA

We used two wildland fire area burned datasets and historical climate data to evaluate the degree to which climate variability between 1916 and 2003 exerted an influence on the annual area burned in eco- provinces of 11 western states in the US. One of the fire datasets is 88 yr long and cumulated by state. The second is 21 yr but has greater spatial precision at 1°x 1° lat/long. We used the relationships during the common period to reconstruct area burned by eco-province for the full record. Preliminary work suggests relationships between the two fire area burned datasets are reasonable for reconstruction purposes in most eco-provinces (average R2 = 0.55, range = 0.16 – 0.81) and that the fire/climate relationships are often temperature- and drought- driven. Sub-regional seasonal and annual predictors for temperature and precipitation combined explain 25-52% (mean 30%) of the variability in 1916-2003 fire area burned. Increasing fire area is positively associated with lagged precipitation for many of the semi- desert steppe and grassland eco-provinces, whereas the relationship is negative for more heavily forested eco-provinces. Annual temperature, however, is the single best predictor for 9 of the 15 preliminary eco-province models. Our results suggest that the ecological context of twentieth century climate/fire relationships has some similar features with the fire history record prior to the mid-19th century.

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate and Disturbance Regimes; TALK RISK ASSESSMENT FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INTRODUCED PEST IN FACE OF A CHANGING CLIMATE LOGAN, J.A. (1); RÉGINÈRE, J. (2); GRAY, D.R. (3); MUNSON, S.A. (4) (1) USDA Forest Service, Forest Sciences Laboratory, Logan, Utah 84321, (2) Canadian Forest Service, Laurentian Forestry Centre, Quebec, Canada G1V 4C7. (3) Canadian Forest Service, Atlantic Forestry Centre, NB, Canada E3B 5P7. (4) USDA Forest Service, Forest Health Protection, Ogden, UT 84403

Detection of an exotic, introduced pest invariably raises the question of risk assessment. Is the detected pest a serious threat or not? Answering this question is non-trivial: on one hand, we clearly do not want yet another deleterious impact on our already beleaguered forests of the mountain west; on the other hand, it is unwise to waste seriously limited resources responding to something that is not a serious threat. This dilemma is confounded by climate warming, a factor that may impact the establishment probability of an interdiction. In this presentation we describe a landscape modeling system to evaluate risk of gypsy moth establishment in native forest of Utah. Gypsy moth is a serious defoliator that was introduced into Massachusetts in the mid 1880s. Since that time, it has expanded its range throughout the deciduous forest of the northeast and central U.S. Given the influx of immigrants and tourists from infested areas into Utah, multiple gypsy moth introductions are detected every year. Utah also abounds in favored hosts for gypsy moth; namely aspen, Gamble's oak and various maples. The risk mapping system we have devised evaluates the probability of establishment for current and projected climate, and is being currently used to evaluate gypsy moth trap recoveries.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks & Water/Ice; TALK SURFACE TEMPERATURE PATTERNS AND LAPSE RATES: IMPLICATIONS FOR WATER RESOURCES AND STUDIES OF MOUNTAIN CLIMATE CHANGE LUNDQUIST, JESSICA D. (1); DOLE, RANDALL M. (2); DETTINGER, MICHAEL D. (3); AND CAYAN, DANIEL R. (4) (1) CIRES-Climate Diagnostics Center, Boulder, CO 80309, (2) NOAA-Climate Diagnostics Center, Boulder, CO 80305, (3) USGS-Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92039, (4) Scripps Institution of Oceanography-USGS, La Jolla, CA 92039

Mountains are the water towers of the western United States, and some of the greatest concerns about climate change in this region involve snowmelt timing and water supply. A realistic description of how temperatures vary with elevation is crucial for models of basin-scale snowmelt and spring streamflow. However, measurements at high elevations are scarce, and studies of long-term temperature trends have reached strikingly different conclusions about whether the high mountains are warming faster or slower than the lowlands (Beniston et al. 1997; Pepin 2000). More high-frequency observations of the spatial and temporal variations of mountain temperatures are needed before these long-term trends can be fully explained. For example, observed surface temperatures vary diurnally, synoptically, and seasonally and only sometimes increase linearly with elevation. Local inversions and cold air drainage may make a long- term measurement site unrepresentative of temperatures across most of the surrounding topography.

Fortunately, small, low-cost temperature loggers can now be deployed at high densities in complex mountain terrain. We use a prototypical array of over 40 such sensors in Yosemite National Park, California, combined with snow and streamflow measurements, to demonstrate 1) how temperature patterns and lapse rates vary with synoptic weather conditions, 2) how snowmelt patterns reflect recurring temperature differences, and 3) how spatial patterns of snowcover affect temperature. These results can be applied to improving snowmelt models and to interpreting how well long-term measurements represent the surrounding terrain.

Beniston, M., Diaz, H. F. and Bradley, R. S. 1997. Climatic change at high elevation sites: an overview. Clim. Change, 36, 233.

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

Pepin, N. 2000. Twentieth-century change in the climate record for the Front Range, Colorado, USA. Artic, Antarctic, and Alpine Res., 32, 135-146.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water/Ice; TALK ROCK GLACIERS AND PERIGLACIAL ROCK/ICE FEATURES IN THE CENTRAL-EASTERN SIERRA NEVADA; MAPPING, CLASSIFICATION, AND A PROPOSAL FOR ORIGINS MILLAR, CONNIE USDA Forest Service, PSW Research Station, Sierra Nevada Research Center, Albany, CA

Rock glaciers and related rock/ice features are common but little-studied structures in many western mountains. Most research attention has focused on features likely to have glacial properties similar to clean glaciers, in particular, ice-cored rock glaciers that might yield a laminar ice record. A rich diversity of glacial and periglacial types exists in addition. These are mostly overlooked; however, as they have been lumped into two categories -- rock glaciers and protalus ramparts -- that don’t adequately represent the field diversity. I mapped 302 features in the central eastern Sierra Nevada, including active (snow/ice present) and dead (no ice present), Holocene and Pleistocene features, recording location, elevation, form, and orientation for each. I propose a taxonomic hypothesis to represent relationships among the types and potential path of origins of mapped rock/ice features in the eastern Sierra Nevada. The classification divides the features into two major types: Rock Glaciers (glacial-like function) and Rock Periglaciers (periglacial), each with subtypes, for a total of 16 categories. For each category, I nominate a type location. All type locations, and many mapped features, are photographed. Representatives of the active Rock Glaciers had average low elevations of 11,114’ and average high elevations of 11,569’; Rock Periglaciers averages ranged from 10,590’-10,897’, while subtypes Boulder Streams ranged from 10,608-10,990 and Solufluction Fields ranged from 11,350’-11,894’. The overall orientation of active features ranged from NNW to NNE, although occasional east and even southern orientations occurred where canyons or cirques were narrow and cold. The category Rock Glaciers was most tightly constrained of all types in orientation to northward; periglacial features were far more diverse in orientation. Among those, Rock Periglaciers were more often northward while Boulder Streams were commonly southward. Features mapped as dead (likely Pleistocene origin) ranged lower in elevation, from an average low elevation of 10,138’ to average high elevation of 10,953’, and often had eastward orientations, filling major eastside Sierran canyons similar to those documented as Pleistocene clean glaciers. Rock glaciers and related rock/ice features are not only interesting to glacial geology study, but important because they have been little incorporated in hydrologic modeling. Because they are rock- covered, these features appear just to be rock slopes, and thus have been “invisible” to water modeling, where focus may be on snow- and icepack. Not only are rock/ice features reservoirs of water, however, but their rock mantling buffers them from rising temperatures, and creates a greater lag in response to warming climate than clean glaciers or snowpack. I offer the tentative proposals here in hope they may help hydrologists evaluate potential significance of these features to water reservoirs and run-off.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology; TALK NINETEENTH CENTURY HISTORICAL CLIMATIC DATA IN MOUNTAINOUS REGIONS OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES MOCK, CARY J. (1); MICHAEL HARTMAN (2); CONNIE WOODHOUSE (2); GREGORY J. CARBONE (1); MICHAEL D. ANDERSON (1); DOUGLAS O. MAYES (1); AND LAURA STROUP (1) (1) Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, (2) Paleoclimatology Branch, NOAA National Climatic Data Center, Boulder, CO 80305

Historical climatic reconstructions provide a perspective of climatic variability ranging from daily to decadal timescales well before the temporal coverage of the twentieth century (modern) instrumental records. Such reconstructions provide important information on climatic variability and ecological disturbance in mountainous regions related to drought, floods, snowstorms, freezing events, and

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

windstorms. Much unexploited historical climatic data from the mid nineteenth century exists in western North America in the forms of written annals, diaries, newspapers, and early instrumental records. We describe the different types of nineteenth century historical climatic data that are available for the western mountain regions, currently being listed in a Historical Climate Catalogue. We describe several examples of reconstructions, focusing on locations in the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific mountain ranges. The northern Utah reconstruction, in particular, is the most comprehensive daily reconstruction conducted to date, and it extends back to the early 1850s. Its daily data were carefully assessed concerning quality and homogeneity. Nineteenth century summer temperatures were about 1.5 degrees C lower than those in the twentieth century, corresponding with the latter timeframe of the Little Ice Age. Highly anomalous wetness is also evident in the northern Utah record during the late 1860s and early 1870s, which exceeds the magnitude of wetness evident in the early 1980s. We also discuss the potential for applying these climate reconstructions to assess historical impacts on society.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; TALK CLIMATE-DRIVEN CHANGES IN SNOWMELT HYDROLOGY IN THE MOUNTAINOUS WEST MOTE, PHILIP; HAMLET, ALAN; LETTENMAIER DENNIS JISAO/SMA Climate Impacts Group, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Observations augmented by a hydrological model simulations are used to analyze these hydrologic responses to changing climate from 1916-2003. The use of a physically-based hydrologic model allows us to more fully identify sensitive climatic regimes and to distinguish the separate influences of temperature and precipitation in driving hydrological trends over different time periods. The results show that the observed downward trends in spring snowpack and the streamflow timing shifts that result are predominantly temperature driven (changes in regional precipitation at different times not withstanding). Thus the future sensitivity of particular areas to continued warming is also identified. Moderate elevation mountain watersheds near the coast with relatively warm mid-winter temperatures, for example, are shown to be among the most sensitive areas to the continued warming that is expected to occur over the next several decades.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate and Disturbance; TALK COMPARING NEW AND OLD SCENARIOS OF FUTURE CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON FIRE, CARBON AND VEGETATION DIVERSITY IN WESTERN MOUNTAINS NEILSON, RONALD P. (1); BACHELET, DOMINIQUE (2); LENIHAN, JAMES M. (1); AND DRAPEK, RAY (1) (1) USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station, Corvallis, OR 97331, (2) Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331

Western mountains are a tremendous reservoir of natural resources, from diversity of life to clean water and more recently as a means of sequestering carbon in expanding woody vegetation. The MAPSS team has published future climate impacts simulations on western ecosystems using seven future climate scenarios, contributing to several past assessments for the U.S government and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is currently drafting its next assessment using a whole new suite of future climate scenarios. We will present results of changing biogeography, fire dynamics and carbon sequestration in western mountains using the MAPSS biogeography model and the MC1 dynamic general vegetation model (DGVM) under six new scenarios, comparing and contrasting them to the older scenarios. We are able to make direct comparisons between older and newer versions of the Canadian and Hadley center models, but include a new set of scenarios from an Australian model. The newer scenarios are from three coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation models (GCM), each of which is operated under two different future trace gas emissions scenarios (relatively high and relatively low CO2 emissions). The new scenarios contrast with the older ones in two very important aspects: 1) There is a

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tendency for the Southwest to go drier under some scenarios in contrast to the wetter past scenarios, resulting in expansion of SW deserts; and 2) The Northwest gets much drier under some scenarios, in contrast to increased precipitation in the past scenarios, causing some decline in NW forests. Consistent with past simulations, future temperatures increase overall, allowing a potentially massive migration of frost-intolerant vegetation into the Great Basin, much of which would be established in mountainous terrain. Additional impacts, including fire, climate and carbon sequestration interactions, will also be discussed.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate Variability: Adaptation, Mitigation, and Restoration; TALK ADAPTIVELY MANAGING PROTECTED AREAS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE PRATO, TONY Center for Agricultural, Resource, and Environmental Systems, and Division of Applied Social Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211

A feasible and effective way for protected area managers to respond to climate change is to develop and implement adaptation strategies that reduce the social and ecological vulnerability of protected areas to climate change. This task is challenging because of uncertainty regarding the nature and extent of the physical impacts of climate change, ecological responses to those impacts, and the effectiveness of alternative mitigation and adaptation strategies in reducing social and ecological vulnerability to climate change. The Adaptively Managing Protected Areas for Climate Change (AMPAC) modeling system is proposed as an integrated framework for evaluating and selecting adaptation strategies to reduce the vulnerability of an existing protected area to climate change. AMPAC consists of five models that are applied to a protected area. The Climate Change Model specifies plausible climate scenarios. The Ecosystem Response Model simulates the most likely biophysical and social responses to the climate scenarios with and without the adaptation strategies based on expert knowledge (Delphi method) and experimental results from the Adaptive Management Model. The latter employs adaptive management experiments to test hypotheses about ecosystem responses to adaptation strategies. The Ecosystem Vulnerability Model assesses the extent to which alternative adaptation strategies ameliorate vulnerability to climate change. The Optimal Strategy Model identifies the best adaptation strategy for each climate scenario. Application of AMPAC to a protected area requires considerable technical/scientific data and information. Environmental monitoring and assessment programs and scientific management approaches developed by the National Park Service and other federal land management agencies responsible for managing protected areas should make it easier to meet these requirements in the future. Whether it is worthwhile for managers to implement AMPAC in protected areas can be assessed by initiating a pilot program to estimate the expected benefits and expected costs of applying AMPAC in a sample of protected areas.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; TALK SIMULATED RESPONSE OF TWO WYOMING GLACIERS TO PROJECTED CLIMATE CHANGE PLUMMER, MITCHELL A. (1); AND CECIL, L. DEWAYNE (2) (1) Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-2107, (2) U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Falls, ID 83402

Projected warming rates for the 21st century in western Wyoming range from approximately 0.2ºC to 0.6ºC per decade. Such changes, unless offset by changes in precipitation, may cause large-scale retreat of the extant glaciers in the northern Rocky Mountains. To determine the likely response, we used a 2-D numerical model of energy/snow balance and ice flow to simulate the impact of projected climate changes on two glaciers for which some long-term monitoring data are available – the Teton Glacier in Grand Teton National Park and the Fremont Glacier (UFG) in the Wind River range. Both glaciers are relatively small and one of the difficulties in predicting the response of such glaciers is that the energy balance, which largely controls the glacier budget, has high spatial variability because the shortwave irradiance is

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

strongly controlled by topography. The applied model accounts for those effects, includes a generally physically-based treatment of the other components of the surface energy balance and provides a good description of the effect of ice flow on glacier shape. Simulations involving a variety of altered climates suggest that under the projected warming rates, most of the Teton Glacier will have melted away within 30 to 75 years. Similar simulations of the Fremont Glacier indicate that while it is less sensitive to warming, it will also undergo severe recession over the next 50 years. The numerical model is also well- suited for testing what combinations of climatic changes could have produced the glaciers that built various moraine complexes during the latest Pleistocene and Holocene. We will demonstrate that approach to reconstructing past climatic conditions with several simulations of last glacial maximum glaciers and compare results to other regional paleoclimatic data.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology and Paleoclimatology (alt: Water, Ice and Water Resources); TALK GROUNDWATER-MEDIATED HOLOCENE HYDROLOGIC VARIABILITY IN THE INTERMONTANE NORTHERN ROCKIES SHAPLEY, MARK D. (1); ITO, EMI (1); DONOVAN, JOSEPH J. (2) (1) Limnological Research Center, Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN 55414, (2) Department of Geology and Geography, West Virginia University, Morgantown WV 26506 Fluid balance and aqueous geochemistry of groundwater-dominated lakes respond to climate through changes in groundwater fluxes, including recharge. Such lakes thus reflect groundwater dynamics that are also of primary importance in stream baseflow and wetland maintenance. Where preserved, geochemical records from groundwater-driven lake systems may therefore record the effects of climate on a major element of the intermontane water cycle.

Here we describe the results of detailed study of sediment from a groundwater-dominated lake situated in the Ovando Valley of western Montana. Jones Lake is a small (1 km X .2 km, 1E6 m3) lake occupying an ice-block depression within glacial and glaciofluvial sediments of the Blackfoot River basin. Inflow is by direct precipitation and by locally recharged groundwater flow; outflow occurs by groundwater seepage to a nearby stream and by evaporation. Mineral endogenesis precipitates calcium carbonate minerals as enhanced-pCO2 groundwaters adjust to the lake environment.

Endogenic carbonate minerals provide a high-resolution record of changing lake fluid and solute balance through mineralogy, isotopic composition and mineral abundance. Repetitive sequences of organic and inorganic carbon partitioning reflect variation in formation and preservation of endogenic minerals (calcite or aragonite) and organic material. Quasi-cyclic 13C and 18O variation records coupled changes in lake fluid balance and carbon cycling. Spectral analyses indicate probable multidecadal and century- scale periodicities, superimposed over milennial-scale geochemical evolution. Geochemical expressions of multidecadal hydrologic cycles were enhanced relative to the present during (generally more arid) early and mid-Holocene times.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; TALK ALASKAN NPS CLIMATE MONITORING PROGRAM SOUSANES, PAMELA J. National Park Service, Denali National Park and Preserve, Denali Park AK 99755

This presentation focuses on the development of the climate monitoring program for the National Park Service (NPS) Central Alaska Network (CAKN) Inventory and Monitoring Program in Alaska. A main objective of the CAKN is to monitor and record weather conditions at representative locations in order to identify long- and short-term trends, provide reliable climate data to researchers, and participate in larger

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

scale climate monitoring and modeling efforts. The network, including Denali National Park, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, covers more than 21 million acres. Elevations range from sea level to 20,320 feet (6,194 m). Latitudes span from 55 degrees north to more than 65 degrees north. Climate in this vast area is extremely variable, ranging from strongly maritime to strongly continental, with large differences in temperature and precipitation. Existing observations in these areas are sparse. In 2003, over 40 sites were visited at the three parks in order to obtain specific information on the suitability of each site for climate monitoring. The main criteria in locating sites was 1) to get the best possible spatial coverage, 2) to sample different ecoregions, and 3) to get a good elevational gradient between sites. Additionally, the logistics of operating sites in remote regions was addressed. A panel of climate experts from the National Weather Service, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Western Regional Climate Center were solicited to review a detailed, technical site evaluation. Following this review, the NPS formed partnerships with each of these agencies. Partnerships will be the key to achieving the program objectives; each organization brings a unique set of complementary strengths and interests. Partnering also offers a means for data dissemination and archiving as well as technical support and assistance. In 2004, six sites were installed in the three parks with more installations scheduled for 2005 and 2006.

MTNCLIM 2005 THEME: Paleoclimatology and Paleoecology; TALK ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES IN THE SOUTHERN CANADIAN ROCKIES FROM MULTIPLE-TREE RING PROXIES WATSON, EMMA (1); LUCKMAN, BRIAN (2); PEDERSON, GREG (3); AND WILSON, ROB (4) (1) Climate Research Branch, Meteorological Service of Canada, Environment Canada, Ontario, Canada, (2) Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London Ontario, Canada, (3) U.S. Geological Survey – Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center - Glacier Field Station, Glacier National Park, West Glacier, MT, and Big Sky Institute – Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, (4) School of Geosciences, Grant Institute, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

The varied topography and landscapes of the Canadian west afford a unique opportunity to sample and develop tree-ring chronologies sensitive to different climate conditions from within close proximity. They also provide multiple sources of proxy climate data at varying timescales and resolution. This has allowed the development of a detailed history of climate and environmental changes for the region and in this paper we discuss selected results from this research. Initial work throughout the Rockies led to the development of a glacial history spanning the last millennium based on tree-ring dating, lichenometry and 14C dating. Though by its nature incomplete, biased and censored the glacial record provides a framework against which more continuous proxy records may be validated. Dendroclimatic studies have now allowed the reconstruction of changes in precipitation and temperature in the central Canadian Rockies. We also present more recent work which has sought to examine variability in streamflow. The broad network of moisture and temperature sensitive chronologies has allowed us to begin studying more complex variables that integrate seasonal changes in precipitation and temperature. Winter, summer and net mass balance reconstructions have been developed for Peyto Glacier in Banff National Park, Alberta. These records are 322 yrs in length and offer a continuous insight into glacier variability over the LIA that was not available previously. The net mass balance reconstructions correspond well with the dated moraine record for the central Canadian Rockies and indicate that prolonged periods of both wet winters and cool summers are required for glacier advance. Periods of positive net balance generally correspond with or proceed terminal moraine development in the region in the early 1700s and mid-19th century. Cumulative net mass balance for Peyto Glacier is consistently negative after 1883. These mass balance reconstructions can be compared with similar records developed for Glacier National Park further south and thereby begin to address broader questions on the timing and scale of glacier advances of the past 300 years throughout this portion of the Rocky Mountains.

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice and Water Resources; TALK THE “TEFLON BASIN” MYTH DEBUNKED: MOST SNOWMELT RUNOFF IS “OLD” WATER AND NOT “NEW” WATER WILLIAMS, MARK (1); LIU, FENGJING (2); AND WIREMAN, MIKE (3) (1) University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, (2) University of California, Merced, (3) Environmental Protection Agency

New research shows high-altitude aquifers honeycomb parts of the Colorado Rockies, trapping snowmelt and debunking the myth that high mountain valleys act as “Teflon basins” to rush water downstream. In much of western North America, snow and snow melt provides the primary means for storage of winter precipitation, effectively transferring water from the relatively wet winter season to the typically dry summers. A common assumption is that high-elevation catchments in the western United States behave like "Teflon basins" and that water released from seasonal storage in snow packs flows directly into streams with little or no interaction with geologic or biologic materials.

We determined source waters and flowpaths in the Green Lakes valley of the Front Range using isotopic, geochemical, and hydrometric data in 2- and 3- component hydrograph separations along with end- member mixing analysis (EMMA). EMMA results showed that much of the water released from the seasonal snowpack infiltrated into subsurface reservoirs and that old groundwater contributed almost 50% of flow on the rising limb of the hydrograph and 80% on the recession limb. Thus most of the water sampled from North Boulder Creek during the runoff months was “old groundwater” that had been stored in subterranean mountain catchments.

Similar studies near Leadville, Colo., show that high-mountain groundwater is dominated by snowmelt that is locked underground for years or decades. Measurements of stable and radiogenic isotopes of snow, streams, springs, and groundwater near Leadville, CO show that groundwater was dominated by infiltrating snowmelt with a residence time of years to decades. This research shows that water from snow pack replenishes high-altitude groundwater reservoirs, pooling underground rather than rushing downstream toward the plains.

We are seeing that snowmelt is re-charging the hydrologic systems in the mountains, pushing old groundwater from subsurface reservoirs into the rivers and streams. The common perception that water stored in mountain snow packs runs immediately into streams and rivers is probably wrong, and the Teflon basin myth is incorrect.

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Speaker Abstracts (Contributed)

Poster Abstracts alphabetical list by first author last name

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Poster Abstracts

MTNCLIM 2005 THEME: Climate Variability: Adaptation, Mitigation, and Restoration; POSTER RESPONSE OF ALPINE VEGETATION AND GLACIAL EXTENT TO REGIONAL CLIMATE PATTERNS: IN THE HENGDUAN MOUNTAINS OF YUNNAN, CHINA BAKER, BARRY (1,2); RINGLER, TODD (3); AND MOSELEY, ROBERT (4) (1) TNC Climate Change Initiative, Boulder, CO 80302, (2) Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, (3) Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, (4) TNC Yunnan Great Rivers Project, Kunming, Yunnan, PRC

We present results of repeat photographs taken over a ninety-year period (1913-2003) documenting changes in alpine vegetation and glaciers in the Hengduan Mountains of northwestern Yunnan, China. In addition, our analyses of historical climate station data show that mean annual temperature in the last two decades of the 20th century has been increased at a rate of 0.6oC/10 yr and may be a primary driver of changes documented in these photographs. We explore the connections between changes in alpine vegetation and glacier recession in northwestern Yunnan and regional climate change by analyzing 40 years of ECMWF reanalysis data. The reanalysis data is a blending of ground-based observations, satellite retrievals, and predictive weather models. While the reanalysis data is global in extent, we limit our analysis to the region of southwestern China. By looking at decadal trends in surface temperature, upper-air temperature, and precipitation, we will determine whether large-scale climate models, such as the ECMWF reanalysis, can be used to help explain the widespread glacier recession and alpine vegetation changes we have observed in northwestern Yunnan.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; POSTER PLAN FOR A SIERRA NEVADA HYDROLOGIC OBSERVATORY: SCIENCE AIMS, MEASUREMENT PRIORITIES, RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES AND EXPECTED IMPACTS BALES, R (1); DOZIER, J (2); FAMIGLETTI, J (3); FOGG, G (4); HOPMANS, J (4); KIRCHNER, J (5); MEIXNER, T (6); MOLOTCH, N (7); REDMOND, K (8); RICE, R (1); WARWICK, J (8) (1) University of California, Merced, CA, (2) University of California, Santa Barbara, (3) University of California, Irvine, (4) University of California, Davis, (5) University of California, Berkeley,(6) University of California, Riverside, (7) University of Colorado, Boulder, (8) Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV

In response to NSF’s plans to establish a network of hydrologic observatories, a planning group is proposing a Sierra Nevada Hydrologic Observatory (SNHO). As argued in multiple consensus planning documents, the semi-arid mountain West is perhaps the highest priority for new hydrologic understanding. Based on input from over 100 individuals, it is proposed to initiate a mountain-range- scale study of the snow-dominated hydrology of the region. Nested within this largest scale will be 1,000- 5,000 km2 sub-basins originating in the Sierra Nevada. The SNHO objective is to provide the necessary infrastructure for improved understanding of surface-water and ground-water systems, their interactions and their linkages with ecosystems, biogeochemistry, agriculture, urban areas and water resources in semi-arid regions. The SNHO will include east-west transects of hydrological observations across the Sierra Nevada and into the basin and range system, and latitudinal transects that span much of the variability found in the semi-arid West. At least one transect will include agricultural and urban landscapes of the Great Central Valley. Investments in measurement systems will address scales from the mountain range down to the basin, headwater catchment and study plot. The intent is to provide representative measurements that will yield general knowledge as opposed to site-specific problem solving of a unique system. The broader, general science question posed by the planning group is: How do mountain hydrologic processes vary across landscapes, spanning a range of latitudes, elevations and thus climate, soils, geology and vegetation zones? Embodied are additional broad questions for the hydrologic science community as a whole: (i) How do hydrologic systems that are subjected to multiple perturbations respond? (ii) How do pulses and changes propagate through the hydrologic system? (iii) What are the time lags and delays of stresses in different systems? (iv) How can the predictive ability for these responses be improved? The water resources question is then “how can new information inform decision- making aimed at achieving water resources sustainability?” The planning group is soliciting participation

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Poster Abstracts

from the wider community with a stake in mountain hydrology and related fields, in order to develop a focused yet broadly useful infrastructure that will accelerate science scientific progress for years and decades to come.

MTN CLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; POSTER DOCUMENTING TWENTIETH CENTURY GLACIER CHANGE WITH REPEAT PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE SIERRA NEVADA, CALIFORNIA BASAGIC, HASSAN J.; FOUNTAIN, ANDREW G. Department of Geography, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, 97211

Alpine glaciers are important indicators of climate trends within a region and play a significant role in the hydrology of alpine ecosystems. The Sierra Nevada of California contains approximately 497 alpine glaciers and perennial ice features. These glaciers provide an opportunity to determine regional responses to warming global temperatures over the past century. Historical photos of glaciers taken by early explorers, land surveyors, and park rangers in the late 19th century and early 20th century are valuable records of past conditions. Repeat photography of glaciers is a useful way to determine how these Sierra Nevada glaciers and perennial ice features have changed through time. During the summer of 2003 and 2004, over 52 repeat images were collected from ten glaciers located throughout the Sierra Nevada. Comparisons of the repeat photography reveal that all ten of the glaciers have experienced a reduction in ice volume and surface extent over the past century. For example, the surface area of Lyell Glacier’s west lobe, in Yosemite National Park has been reduced by 30%, and the smaller east lobe has been reduced by 70%. These results suggest that topographic controls strongly influence individual glacier response to regional climate change.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoclimatology & Paleoecology; POSTER GREAT BASIN TREE-RING RECORDS FROM LOWER-FOREST-BORDER SITES BIONDI, FRANCO (1); STRACHAN, D.J. SCOTTY (1); KOZUBOWSKI, TOMASZ J. (2); AND PANORSKA, ANNA K. (2) (1) DendroLab, Department of Geography, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, (2) Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557

In the Great Basin of North America, long records of fire frequency, drought, and species distribution are important not only for fire management, but also for restoration efforts aimed at reducing the recent expansion of piñon-juniper woodland into sagebrush and other types of vegetation. Ecotonal environments characterized as lower forest border sites are ideally suited for tree-ring reconstructions of hydroclimatic variability. Piñon trees from about 10 different sites in the Great Basin were sampled to develop a network of moisture-sensitive chronologies spanning the past few centuries. Principal component analysis was used to identify climatic signals, and to develop spatially explicit records of past wet and dry episodes. Applications of the tree-ring network to water resources research are investigated using stochastic models of episode duration and magnitude that can produce probabilistic estimates for the likelihood of severe and sustained drought.

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Poster Abstracts

MTNCLIM 2005 THEME: PALEOECOLOGY & PALEOCLIMATOLOGY; POSTER A DIATOM RECORD OF LATE-HOLOCENE CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN THE NORTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAIN RANGE BRACHT, BRANDI B.; FRITZ, SHERI C.; STEVENS, LORA R. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Department of Geosciences, Lincoln, NE 68588

Long-term limnological and ecological changes in the Rocky Mountain region can be caused by changing climate. Here we use changes in the diatom species composition of a sediment core from Crevice Lake, Yellowstone National Park to infer changes in limnological conditions driven by climate change. Sediment samples from long cores, spanning the past 2000 years, were analyzed for diatom assemblage changes. Throughout this period, planktonic diatoms dominate, but changes in species dominance indicate varying nutrient levels over time. These changes in the lake’s nutrient concentrations, particularly phosphorus, are believed to have climatic drivers. The duration of water column mixing, which is related to temperature and wind strength, determines the extent of nutrient recycling from deep waters. From 50-800 yr B.P., Stephanodiscus minutulus dominates, a species that blooms during isothermal mixing. This suggests long cool springs with extensive regeneration of phosphorus from the hypolimnion. Prior to 800 yrs B.P., S. minutulus is absent, and C. bodanica and Cyclotella michiganiana are the dominant species. These species are characteristic of lower nutrient concentrations during times of stable stratification and are interpreted to reflect warm summers with long periods of thermal stratification. These changes in species abundances suggest long-term trends in seasonal length and climate variation. The most dramatic change in species assemblage occurs just prior to the onset of the Little Ice Age, as shown by the sudden shift in species dominance.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology; POSTER VEGETATION AND FIRE HISTORY FROM THE BIOLOGICALLY DIVERSE SISKIYOU MOUNTAINS, SOUTHWESTERN OREGON BRILES, CHRISTY E. (1); WHITLOCK, CATHY (2); AND BARTLEIN, PATRICK (1) (1) Department of Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97402, (2) Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman MT 59717

The Siskiyou Mountains are among North America’s most floristically diverse regions. The diversity of the Siskiyou Mountains is thought to be a result of the local environmental heterogeneity (i.e., topography, climate, geology). While this may be true, it is not well understood how past climate fluctuations have influenced vegetation and fire patterns. An analysis of pollen, plant macrofossils, and high-resolution macroscopic charcoal data from Bolan Lake in southwestern Oregon was used to reconstruct the postglacial vegetation and fire history of the region. The results suggest that elevational ranges of dominant tree species apparently shifted since the end of the last ice age in response to climate changes. For example, present-day high-elevation species had their ranges shifted as much as 800 m down slope in the late-glacial period when conditions were cooler than present. Calocedrus decurrens and Quercus grew at least 500 m above their present range in the early Holocene during a warmer and drier interval. Sub-millennial scale fluctuations in Tsuga mertensiana, Picea and Abies between 13,000 and 10,900 cal yr BP suggest a return to cool conditions following a late-glacial/early Holocene warming and may be associated with climatic variations during the Younger Dryas interval. The early Holocene was characterized by short-term fluctuations in Pinus and Cupressaceae associated with changes in fire frequency. In the late Holocene, cool wet conditions allowed Abies and Picea to become more abundant and resulted in lower fire frequency than before. In addition, a comparison of vegetation histories across the Pacific Northwest suggests that plant communities shifted latitudinally as well and that the Siskiyou Mountains have been a biogeographic transition zone between the Pacific Northwest and Klamath floras over the last 14,500 cal yr BP.

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Poster Abstracts

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate Variability: Adaptation, Mitigation, and Restoration; POSTER INTEGRATED CLIMATE ASSESSMENT IN THE MOUNTAINS OF THE U.S. SOUTHWEST COMRIE, ANDREW C. (1); LENART, MELANIE (2); AND GARFIN, GREGG M. (2) (1) University of Arizona, Dept. of Geography, Tucson, AZ 85721, (2) University of Arizona, Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, Tucson, AZ 85721

The Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) is one of several NOAA-funded Regional Integrated Science and Assessment (RISA) projects established across the United States. CLIMAS conducts climate assessment projects on a wide range of natural and social science topics for a variety of areas in the Southwest (e.g., wildfire, streamflow, urban water supply, health, ranching). The CLIMAS project has recently initiated research on an integrated regional climate assessment in the mountains of the Southwest that combines cross-cutting and multi-sectoral assessments in one geographic domain. The study area is focused on the forested high country of east-central Arizona; it covers the upper Little Colorado River basin and neighboring areas, including the Mogollon Rim, the Arizona White Mountains and adjacent parts of New Mexico. Major activities include forestry, ranching, and tourism, and the area includes a number of towns experiencing rapid amenity-based growth. Climate-related issues and impacts in the region include water supply, adaptive forest management, wildfire and the wildland-urban interface. Furthermore, decision-making in the region is complicated by multiple objectives and jurisdictions, such as federal and state agencies, tribal lands, and urban areas. We present an overview and initial results of the integrated regional assessment for this mountain environment, highlighting methods and approaches, selected examples of findings, and lessons learned for those wishing to do integrated assessments in mountain environments elsewhere.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; POSTER ATMOSPHERIC DEPOSITION EFFECTS ON WATER QUALITY IN HIGH ELEVATION LAKES OF THE TETON RANGE, WYOMING, U.S.A. CORBIN, JENNIFER; WOODS, SCOTT Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences, College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812

Atmospheric deposition is the primary cause of acidification in lakes and streams in the United States, Western Europe and other developed regions. Mountainous watersheds are especially vulnerable because of their sparse vegetation, short growing season, poor soil development, and the presence of extensive areas of exposed bedrock. Studies are needed to elucidate long-term trends in high elevation lake water quality and to determine the factors contributing to sensitivity to acidification. In 2002, twelve lakes in the Teton Range of northern Wyoming were sampled to determine their sensitivity to acidification. Step-wise multiple linear regression was used to identify the basin characteristics controlling ANC and other water quality parameters.

Seven of the twelve lakes had ANC concentrations < 100µeq L-1, indicating high sensitivity to acidification. Comparisons with previous studies indicated minimal changes in ANC since 1996, but the ANC in one lake had declined by 50 % since 1985. The regression model explained 86.5 % of the variance in ANC, and showed that lakes in basins with granitic or metamorphic bedrock are most sensitive to acidification, particularly when the basin contains a high proportion of young (Holocene) debris. Lakes that are underlain by limestone are less sensitive to acidification, regardless of the presence of young debris. Basins containing glaciers or with significant quantities of talus may experience - seasonal increases in NO3 concentrations associated with meltwater flux and nitrification in talus soils, respectively, resulting in temporarily higher sensitivity to acidification.

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Poster Abstracts

MTNCLIM 2005 THEME: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; POSTER TRENDS IN THE TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE OF SNOW VS RAIN IN THE WESTERN US, 1949- 2001 DETTINGER, MICHAEL (1); KNOWLES, NOAH (2); AND CAYAN, DANIEL (1) (1) USGS, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92093-0224, (2) USGS, Menlo Park, CA 92045

Precipitation can be either a boon to western water resources, flood, and land management or a flood- generating disaster, depending on whether it falls as rain or snow. Logistic regressions of daily occurrences of snow from 1949-2001 at 172 cooperative weather stations with concurrent temperatures and with year provide new measures of how snow occurrence varies with temperature and altitude across the region, and how the relations between snowfall and temperature have trended during the past 50 years.

Both temperatures and the temperature dependence of snowfall have trended in ways that increased the fraction of rainy (vs snowy) days in the Pacific Northwest and Sierra Nevada (PNW/SN) since the 1950s, and both temperatures and temperature dependences have changed in ways that have muddied rain vs snow trends in the southern Rockies (SR) of Colorado and New Mexico. Not surprisingly, across the western US, snow falls most often on days with minimum temperatures below freezing, but when minimum-temperature thresholds--“even-odds temperatures,” Teo, at which half of the wet days yield snow and half yield only rain--are determined for each station, the Teo range from about -8ºC to 0ºC. Snowfall frequencies in the PNW/SN change abruptly from all snowy days at temperatures just colder than Teo to all rainy days at slightly warmer temperatures. However, stations in the SR have broader ranges of temperatures under which some days yield snow and others rain. The well-documented warming in the region since the 1950s has yielded, at 86% of the stations, trends for more wet days (+6% overall) to have had minimum temperatures warmer than Teo recently. The temperature dependence of snowfall also has trended significantly at 62% of the stations, with snowfall in PNW/SN requiring colder minimum temperatures (at every probability level) now than in the 1950s and a converse trend in SR.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; POSTER ASSESSMENT OF THE ELEVATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CLIMATIC VARIABILITY IN THE UPPER COLORADO RIVER BASIN IN THE LAST 50 YEARS DIAZ, H.F.; AND EISCHEID, J.K. NOAA, Climate Diagnostics Center, Boulder, CO 80305 Project funded by Western Water Assessment (WWA)

A first step in quantifying the past and present climate variability in the Upper Colorado River basin is the assessment of what types of meteorological/hydrological data are available their length of records and the quality of these records.

Station records were compiled from several sources for the parameters precipitation and maximum/minimum temperatures. The two primary sources for data are NCDC’s cooperative observing network and SNOTEL. Data from NCDC undergoes extensive quality control in addition to QC performed here at the Climate Diagnostic Center (CDC). The SNOTEL data is acquired from the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS); quality control is accomplished here at CDC. Unfortunately, close examination of the SNOTEL temperature records revealed that few maximum/minimum temperature records are not long enough to be useful for the current analysis. We have also investigated the use of PRISM (the highest quality spatial climate data set currently available) data available from the Spatial Climate Analysis Service (SCAS) at the University of Oregon. In order to check the fidelity of the PRISM data, we collocated the station data and performed comparisons of climatological values as well as relationships through time. The results are very encouraging when we examined both the traditional

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Poster Abstracts

station records and the SNOTEL records. For the latter we found no correlation coefficient less than 0.74 and 75% of all correlations were greater than 0.90 for monthly total precipitation.

The elevational pattern of 55-year (1950-1004) precipitation trends are shown to vary seasonally. Below 7K feet DJF precipitation has increased over the last 50 years; above 7K feet DJF precipitation has decreased with the rate of changing becoming larger the higher the elevation. In contrast, summer precipitation has been increasing at all elevations (save those areas below 4K feet) particularly those areas above 9K feet. Temperature trends for the 55-year period are generally positive throughout the elevational range with minimum temperatures increasing at a faster rate than maximum temperatures. We also present results for the last 25 years (1980-2004) in addition to analysis of sub-regions within the Upper Colorado River basin.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; POSTER EFFECTS OF CLIMATIC VARIABILITY AND CHANGE ON FOREST ECOSYSTEMS – EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM THE WESTERN MOUNTAIN INITIATIVE NETWORK PETERSON, DAVE (1); FAGRE, DAN (2); MCKENZIE, DON (1); ALLEN, CRAIG (3); BARON, JILL (4); STEPHENSON, NATE (5) (1) USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station, Seattle, WA, (2) USGS Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, West Glacier, MT, (3) USGS Fort Collins Science Center, Los Alamos, NM, (4) USGS Fort Collins Science Center, Fort Collins, CO, (5) USGS California Science Center, Three Rivers, CA

The effects of variability and directional trends in climate during the past century are measurable in forest ecosystems at several locations in the Western Mountain Initiative network. In the American Southwest, prolonged drought has caused dieback and reduced productivity in large areas, with the potential for severe fires due to fuel accumulations. In the Sierra Nevada, drought has also affected forests, with reduced tree vigor and increased mortality. Mixed conifer forests in this region are also stressed by elevated levels of oxidant air pollution. In the Pacific Northwest, subalpine forests have experienced rapid in-fill of subalpine meadows throughout the region. In the Northern Rocky Mountains, subalpine forests at altitudinal treeline have also filled in and transitioned from krummholz to a more upright growth form at some locations. In the central Rocky Mountains, no significant changes are apparent, although high- elevation forests are subject to elevated levels of nitrogen deposition. There appears to be a significant trend of increased tree growth throughout the West, focused primarily on high-elevation forest and secondarily on Pacific coastal forest – perhaps a signal of carbon dioxide fertilization. Potential signals of the effects of climatic change must be differentiated from effects of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which is an important multi-decadal influence on biophysical variability in Western mountain ecosystems.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate & Disturbance; POSTER PROBABILITY OF EXTREME DAILY PRECIPITATION EVENTS AND THE CLIMATE OF CALIFORNIA GERSHUNOV, ALEXANDER (1); PANORSKA, ANNA (2); AND CAYAN, DAN (1,3) (1) Scripps Institution of Oceanography, (2) University of Nevada, Reno, (3) U.S. Geological Survey

The state of California is a topographically, climatically, and hydrologically complex region. It contains both the lowest and the highest points in the contiguous United States. Like its topography, the climate of California is defined by extremes. In many parts of the state, it does not rain frequently, but when it does, it pours. This highly variable weather translates to pronounced precipitation variability on interannual and decadal timescales. California is also a well observed and heavily modeled region with important hydrological concerns stimulated by growing population pressure and early signs of anthropogenic climate change. Daily precipitation observations at hundreds of stations across the state are used to illustrate the importance of high frequency extremes in determining annual precipitation amounts in light of topographic complexity. Here, it is especially important to correctly model the probabilities of high

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frequency precipitation extremes. However, we show that traditional probability density functions (PDFs) used to model daily precipitation, all of them with exponentially decaying tails, do not provide for enough probability for the occurrence of heavy to extreme events. The degree of this distortion depends on peculiarities of regional climates strongly associated with topography. Using an original approach, we show that precipitation probability tails at the vast majority of California stations follow a power law, i.e. they are better described by heavy-tailed rather than exponentially-tailed family of PDFs. This result has important implications for modeling California climate and hydrology. We will illustrate this point by investigating the relationship between the probability structure of daily precipitation extremes on the one hand and large-scale climate forcing (e.g. ENSO and PDO) on the other. The role of topography in providing spatial organization to this relationship will be specifically considered.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate & Disturbance Regimes; POSTER DEVELOPMENT OF A WEB SITE FOR ANALYZING TEMPERATURES IN MOUNTAIN REGIONS OVER THE LAST 100 YEARS HICKE, JEFFREY A. Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80526

The effect of climate change on humans and the natural environment is a major scientific and societal concern. Although climate change consists of different aspects, the behavior of temperature is most certain as a result of high-quality long-term measurements as well as confidence in projected scenarios over the next century. Changes in temperature have numerous impacts to humans and ecosystems, including health effects, food security, shifts in community composition, changes to ecosystem structure and function, and altered species migrations and ranges. Although mean annual temperature is useful as an index of temperature change, organisms respond to the seasonal timing of temperature change in different ways. Evaluating climate change in mountainous regions is particularly difficult as a result of the paucity of long-term stations situated within these areas. An approach to exploring temperature changes, described in this work, is to aggregate station records over ecoregions that represent similar ecosystems at intermediate spatial scales. By also considering elevation ranges within ecoregions, temperature variability over the last 100 years in mountain regions can be studied. Here I describe a web site designed to analyze temperatures from several data sources, including US Historical Climate Network and Snowpack Telemetry stations as well as 0.5° gridded data from the Vegetation Analysis and Mapping Project (VEMAP). The web interface allows a user to specify either a station/grid cell nearest an input location or an ecoregion (with an elevation range); the temporal resolution (annual, monthly, or seasonal); and the time period of interest (from 1870-2005). Plots are then generated showing the temperature time series as well as diagnostic information about the selection such as the number of stations and their elevations. Examples of analysis illustrate similarities and differences across mountainous regions of the western US. The web site can be accessed at www.nrel.colostate.edu/~jhicke/climate_data.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; POSTER CLIMATE FROM SMALL MOUNTAIN GLACIERS: A NEW MODEL OF GLACIER-CLIMATE INTERACTION AT THE MOUNTAIN RANGE SCALE HARPER, JOEL T. (1); HUMPHREY, NEIL F. (2) (1) Department of Geology, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, (2) Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071

Mountain glaciers offer insight to high elevation climate through their continuous recording of mass balance via changes in area and volume. Little success, however, has been made in the development of quantitative transfer functions between glacier geometry and climate parameters. This is largely due to difficulties in simulating the processes of glacier motion which redistribute ice mass from high elevation to lower elevation. Glacier flow models tend to be computationally demanding and therefore limited to cross

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sections or small reaches of glaciers. We present a new numerical model that simulates the accumulation of snow and ice mass across a mountain landscape, and redistribution of the mass by glacier flow. This cellular automata model can be run at the scale of an entire mountain range. We have used the model successfully to investigate high elevation precipitation patterns in the Annapurna region of Nepal [Harper and Humphrey, 2003, GRL]. Here, the mass flux of ice in glaciers indicates that enhanced orographic precipitation reaches a maximum well below the summits of the highest peaks; essentially no snow accumulates on the topography above an elevation of 6200 m. Current work is focused on using the ice flux of small mountain glaciers to investigate past and present climate of three regions of western North America: 1) Glacier National Park, Montana, 2) Chugach Mountains, Alaska, and 3) Mount Baker, North Cascades, Washington State. Model simulations, constrained by field measurements and remote sensing data, reveal past and present climate conditions of these mountain regions. In addition, scenarios for future climate are being used to force the model to elucidate the likely impacts on small mountain glaciers.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; POSTER THE PROPOSED CROWN OF THE CONTINENT HYDROLOGIC OBSERVATORY HARPER, JOEL T. (1); WOESSNER, WILLIAM W. (1); RUNNING, STEVEN W. (2) (1) Department of Geology, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812; (2) College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula MT 59812

We are proposing a Crown of the Continent node within the NSF-sponsored Hydrologic Observatory Network. This will be a large-scale field facility located in north-western Montana that will generate multi- disciplinary characterization of the landscape necessary to advance the environmental sciences (i.e., hydrology, biogeochemistry, ecology, geomorphology, limnology). The Crown of the Continent Hydrologic Observatory (CCHO) is 280 km on a north-south axis and 180 km on an east-west axis. The CCHO will encompass a diverse hydrologic landscape including high mountain areas, large pristine watersheds, inter-mountain valleys undergoing rapid human development, a 95 km2 regulated reservoir and 510 km2 lake. The region has topographic relief of over 2,339 m, and spans high alpine to arid climatic zones and a range of biomes. Rivers flow from a triple divide to the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Hudson Bay – hence the name “Crown of the Continent”. The area spans the continental divide and has large gradients in all factors that control hydrologic processes (e.g., climate, topography, vegetation, geology, and land use factors). Consequently, CCHO is very well suited for basic research regarding the fundamental understanding of large scale hydrologic processes, especially those of mountain regions. Since the region spans the climatic transition from maritime-influenced to inter- mountain to continental zones it shows significant interannual variability with strong signatures from ENSO and PDO. In addition, the basin’s pristine areas and rich glacial-climate history offer unique opportunities for isolating the impacts of long term climate change on hydrologic processes. As part of the CCHO core data program, a large network of high elevation sensors will be installed across the study area. Data from these sensors will enable unique investigations of mountain climate processes such as precipitation and orographic processes, snow hydrology, and glacier mass balance.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology and Paleoclimatology; POSTER A FIRE HISTORY ARCHIVE: THE INTERNATIONAL MULTLIPROXY PALEOFIRE DATABASE HARTMAN, MICHAEL, AND WOODHOUSE, CONNIE A. NOAA Paleoclimatology Branch, National Climatic Data Center and the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, Boulder, Colorado, 80305

The International Multiproxy Paleofire Database (IMPD) is an archive of fire history data derived from natural proxies. The IMPD has been established to provide a permanent repository for high-quality paleofire records from around the world. The archive includes fire history records based on both tree-ring and charcoal-sediment data, describing fire regimes at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Tree fire

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Poster Abstracts

scars and stand establishment dates provide temporally and spatially precise, short-term (100s to 1000s of years) reconstructions of fire events. Charcoal in lake sediments provides long-term (1000s to 10,000s of years) reconstructions of fire events with coarser temporal and spatial resolution. Alluvial fan-based charcoal fire records provide additional fire history information. Fire is an important process in terrestrial ecosystems, modulating the susceptibility of vegetation to climate change, disease, and other disturbances. The growing body of high-quality fire-history data being developed provides an opportunity to investigate the role of fire in ecosystems and the feedbacks that link fire, climate, vegetation, and management decisions. The goal of the IMPD is to archive and make available fire history data from tree-ring and sediment data for both scientific and management needs. The current data holdings are available from the IMPD web site at: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/impd/. Data are searchable by site name, location, date, and investigator, as well as through an online mapping tool. Paleofire data are also being solicited through online data submission forms via the IMPD web site. The IMPD is sponsored by NOAA and the USDA, and is housed at the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate & Disturbance Regimes OR Water, Ice, and Water OR Resources Climate Variability: Adaptation, Mitigation, and Restoration; POSTER GLOBAL CHANGE AND MOUNTAIN WATERSHEDS: AN INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING EXERCISE. HINCKLEY, THOMAS M.(1); FRIDLEY, JAMES (1); BRUBAKER, LINDA B. (1); HUSBANDS, MARK (1) AND TRAVERS, VIRGINIA (1) (1) College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 USA

Environmental science and natural resource education must be placed within the context of globalization, global climate change and multiple bio-physical, cultural, social, economic and political constraints. In response to this challenge and to paradigm shifts in how students learn, we have made major structural and conceptual changes in the undergraduate curriculum that have led to a set of junior core courses that (1) turn the curriculum-upside down, (2) feature the world class outdoor laboratory of the Puget Sound region and (3) emphasize inquiry-based learning. Three of these core courses deal with the continuum from pocket parks in downtown Seattle to Pinus albicaulis stands in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area. These courses are grounded in interdisciplinary, group projects. A final, major exercise in one of the courses is featured. This exercise first introduces students to an imaginary watershed located on the eastside of the Cascades. An elaborate set of background material on this watershed’s geological, vegetative, climatic, Native American, European settlement and current history is provided. The watershed’s physical and biological features, including a relief map, are created in such a way that it represents no known watershed, yet has the integrated, but unique attributes of any watershed spanning from the Canadian Border to the Columbia River. The watershed has private and public landowners. Students then identify all watershed stakeholders (i.e., from Earth Justice to a “local” Chamber of Commerce), chose one stakeholder to represent, and complete a detailed profile summarized as a factsheet. “Real-world-issues” then materialize in the form of press releases, a press conference and newspaper articles. Student group focus now changes to confronting and dealing with these issues (e.g., climate change related bark beetle infestation, mine development, invasive insects, Native Americans exercising treaty rights, etc.).

MTNCLIM 2005 THEME: PALEOECOLOGY AND PALEOCLIMATOLOGY; POSTER HIERARCHICAL CLASSIFICATION AND MAPPING OF RIVERINE SYSTEMS JENSEN, MARK E. USDA Forest Service, Regional Office, Missoula, MT 59807

Hierarchy theory provides a needed framework for aquatic system classification and mapping because it facilitates scaled descriptions of ecosystem components and identification of the linkages that exist between different scales of ecological organization. Hierarchical approaches to ecosystem

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Poster Abstracts

characterization also simplify the description and prediction of complex ecological pattern/process relations across multiple scales of system organization. For example, the types of channel units found in a given environment are often constrained by the stream types in which they are nested, which in turn, are primarily determined by the valley bottom and geoclimatic watershed types in which they are nested. In a similar manner, the physical/environmental processes that create these aquatic patterns (e.g., regional floods, sedimentation) are also hierarchically constrained by geoclimatic settings such as landforms, climate zones, and lithology. Recognition of these relations greatly simplifies the prediction of finer-scale patterns, such as channel units and stream types, in the classification, mapping and monitoring of aquatic systems. In this presentation, I will describe a hierarchical classification of riverine systems following the USDA Forest Service framework for aquatic system description. Additionally, I will provide an example of this approach for selected areas in Montana and northern Idaho.

MTNCLIM 2005 THEME: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; POSTER TRENDS IN SNOWFALL VERSUS RAINFALL FOR THE WESTERN UNITED STATES KNOWLES, NOAH (1); DETTINGER, MICHAEL (2); AND CAYAN, DANIEL (2) (1) USGS, Menlo Park, CA 92045, (2) USGS, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92093- 0224

The western U.S. depends heavily on snowpack to help store its wintertime freshwater endowment into the drier spring and summer months. A well-documented shift towards earlier runoff can be attributed to 1) more precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, and 2) earlier/faster snowmelt. The present study addresses the former, showing a regional trend during the period 1949-2001 toward smaller ratios of winter-total snowfall water equivalent (SFE) to winter-total precipitation (P). The most pronounced reductions in this ratio have occurred in the Sierra-Nevada (SN) and the Pacific Northwest (PNW), with more mixed changes (but still predominantly reductions) in the Rockies. The trends are attributable to a shift toward less SFE rather than to a decrease in overall precipitation, except in the Southern Rockies (SR) where both snowfall and precipitation have increased, with more muddled trends in their ratio. Trends in the annual timing of the snowfall season have been weak, though trends in its duration are significant and exhibit a clear east-west pattern with shorter snowfall seasons in SN and PNW and longer seasons elsewhere, particularly in SR. At the monthly scale, the downward trends in SFE/P are most pronounced in January on the west coast and in March regionwide, corresponding well to warming trends in monthly average wet-day temperatures during the same period. The January SFE/P trends are of particular significance in the SN and PNW, where January is a prime snow-producing month.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; POSTER SENATOR BECK BASIN MOUNTAIN SYSTEM OBERVATORY - SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS, COLORADO LANDRY, CHRIS; AND BACHMAN, DON Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies, Silverton, CO 81433

The Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies has completed initial development of a 'snow (and mountain) system observatory' at the Senator Beck Basin Study Area (SBBSA) in the western San Juan Mountains of Colorado, under Special Use Permit from Uncompahgre National Forest. The SBBSA is located at 37°54' N and 107°43' W, spans 290 ha, faces generally south and east, and forms a headwater catchment for the Uncompahgre River. Landcover includes talus and tundra reaching 13,510' (4,118m) and sub-alpine forest as low as 11,000' (3,353m). A lobate rock glacier is present. Infrastructure has been developed to support investigations of snow as a driving agent in mountain system behaviors, and to monitor hydrologic and biologic responses. Two micro-met sites, at 12,200' (3,719m) and 11,050' (3,368m), are equipped with energy balance, wind, air and snow temperature, humidity, and snow depth sensors. The lower site also includes an automated precipitation gauge and barometer. Soil monitoring

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Poster Abstracts

sensors will be installed at both sites in summer 2005. A third micro-met site monitors wind speed and direction and air temperature and humidity on a nearby summit. A broad-crested weir equipped with a staff gauge, and automated transducer, pH and EC/temperature sensors, has been installed at the basin pour point. All sites are linked by radio-telemetry. A plant community baseline study was conducted in 2004 and monuments were established for repeat studies. Planning for a GLORIA multi-summit site in the SBBSA is underway, in collaboration with CIRMOUNT partners and the Mountain Studies Institute. Current research in SBBSA is investigating the radiative and hydrologic effects of desert dust depositions in the alpine snowpack (NSF Grant No. ATM-0431955). The CSAS seeks to host and conduct integrative snow and mountain system research and to collect long-term datasets at the SBBSA.

MTNCLIM2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; POSTER LONG-TERM CLIMATE MONITORING NETWORK at the MOUNTAIN RESEARCH STATION, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO LOSLEBEN, MARK (1,2); CHOWANSKI, KURT (1,2); ACKERMAN, TODD (2) (1) University of Colorado, INSTAAR, Mountain Research Station, Nederland, CO 80466, (2) University of Colorado, INSTAAR, LTER

The value of long-term monitoring of mountain climate cannot be overstated. CU’s Mountain Research Station operates a climate monitoring network of eleven stations in the Front Range of Colorado, ranging in elevation from 3814m at the Continental Divide, and eastward to 2199m. Monitoring at four stations began over half a century ago. Time series, trends, and climate extremes are presented, and a ‘dry’ zone phenomenon is discussed and supported with data. Temporally, there is a significant positive precipitation trend in the alpine, but not in the upper montaine forest, and a positive temperature trend in the upper montaine forest, but not in the alpine.

A ‘dry’ zone may be unique to lee slopes where lee-side cyclogenisis occurs during the passage of low pressure (storm) systems. This ‘dry’ zone will be located between higher elevations where westerly- driven orographic precipitation dominates, and lower elevations, which receive more easterly upslope precipitation. Since winter circulation conditions are the primary cause of the ’dry’ zone, the effect on snowpack would be more pronounced than on summer rains.Such a ‘dry’ elevational precipitation band is theoretically probable on all lee slopes of mountain ranges with long north-south geographical extents in the westerly wind dominated mid-latitudes.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate & Disturbance; POSTER CONTEMPORARY WEATHER PATTERNS IN SOUTHWESTERN HIGH ELEVATION FORESTS: POTENTIAL EFFECTS ON FOREST INSECT POPULATION DYNAMICS LYNCH, ANN M. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Flagstaff AZ 86001-6381

There are indications that forest insect populations have been influenced by recent climate trends. A multitude of species is incurring outbreaks in high elevation and high latitude forests. These outbreaks have been more extensive and severe than previously observed, further north or at higher elevations than previously seen, or of species that were previously unknown or innocuous. Low tree vigor caused by excessive forest density and several years of drought is the likely primary cause of contemporary bark beetle outbreaks in pine forests, but is not sufficient to explain either the plethora of insect outbreaks in the higher elevation sites or the extent and severity of the beetle outbreaks. Analysis of non-urban high- elevation data from NCDC indicates that mean annual temperature above 2100 m has increased about 1°C since 1940. This seemingly small increase in temperature has dramatically altered the seasonality of temperature limits associated with insect populations. Winter is shorter and minimum temperatures are warmer. Spring is earlier, warmer and less frosty. The typically dry and windy spring and early summer

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Poster Abstracts

period that precedes the summer rains is now longer and warmer. Winter and spring precipitation have also decreased.

The longer frost-free period and warmer spring temperatures may produce additional generations of damaging insects, especially in Ips species, tip moths and early-season aphids, or alter the timing of insect generations relative to the onset of summer moisture and have undoubtedly contributed to drought- related bark beetle outbreaks. Winter minimum temperatures are probably inadequate to limit some high elevation bark beetle populations and Geometrid defoliators. Outbreaks of autumn- and winter-feeding aphids are probably related to prolonged autumns and failure to reach limiting winter temperatures. Insect population dynamics that have changed with warmer temperature regimes are not likely to be reestablished once the drought ends. Insect population dynamics are sensitive to small changes in climate, and, with wildfire, may cause rapid changes to forest vegetation character and population dynamics.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, & Water Resources; POSTER TROPICAL PERUVIAN GLACIERS IN A CHANGING CLIMATE: FORCING, RATES OF CHANGE AND IMPACT TO WATER SUPPLY MARK, BRYAN, MARK G. (1); MCKENZIE, JEFFREY M. (2) (1) The Ohio State University, Department of Geography, Columbus, OH 43210, (2) Syracuse University, Department of Earth Sciences, Syracuse, NY 13210

Tropical glaciers are intriguing and presently rapidly disappearing components of the cryosphere that literally crown a vast ecosystem of global significance. They are highly sensitive to climate changes over different temporal and spatial scales and are important hydrological resources in tropical highlands. Moreover, an accurate understanding of the dynamics and climate response of tropical glaciers in the past is a crucial source of paleoclimatic information for the validation and comparison of global climate models. I have studied both present-day glacier recession and field evidence of past episodes of deglaciation in Perú to test hypotheses related to this important climatically forced process in the developing Andean region. Modern glacier recession raises the issues of the nature of climatic forcing and the impact on surface water runoff. While rates of contemporary glacier recession appear to be accelerating, careful analysis of the timing and volumetric extent of deglaciation from Late Glacial and Holocene moraine positions provides a historical comparison with important implications for understanding glacial-to-interglacial transitions. My research incorporates three specific parts: (1) an analysis of the spatial variability and climatic forcing of late 20th century glacier recession in the Queshque massif of the southern Cordillera Blanca, Peru; (2) an evaluation of the hydrological significance of glacial meltwater with respect to streamflow in the Cordillera Blanca region; and (3) an evaluation of the rate and extent of deglaciation during the late-Pleistocene and Holocene compared to modern glacier recession in the Cordillera Vilcanota/Quelccaya. I will review my results in the context of outlining a vision for using glacial-environmental assessment as a focal point to investigate both physical and human dimensions of climate change.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; POSTER INFLUENCE OF HYDROCLIMATE ON CHARACTERISTICS OF SEASONAL AND DIEL HYDROGRAPH EVOLUTION IN SNOWMELT-DOMINATED RIVER SYSTEMS MATTER, MARGARET A. (1); AND GARCIA, LUIS A. (2) (1) Ph.D. Candidate, Colorado State University, Department of Civil Engineering, Fort Collins, CO, (2) Associate Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Integrated Decision Support (IDS) Group., Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523

Preliminary results of a study pertaining to snowmelt-dominated rivers in the Colorado River Basin (CRB) will be presented which demonstrate that, between fall and early spring, hydrograph form and streamflow

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variability evolve characteristically in response to precipitation and temperature associated with hydroclimatic conditions. Physical features of hydrograph evolution were characterized (using USGS streamflow data), and results indicate that beginning in fall, differences in seasonal hydrograph form and magnitude of streamflow variability correlate strongly with relative magnitude and timing of the upcoming snowmelt runoff. From about late January through March, streamflow increases at higher rates in dry years than in wet years, coinciding with shifts in the timing of winter/early spring seasonal flow volumes to earlier in the season in dry years and later in wet years. Hydroclimatic conditions are also reflected in patterns of flow variability beginning in the fall. Positive, or increasing, changes in streamflow are more frequent and/or higher in magnitude in wetter years than drier years. The results suggest, and recent advances in understanding effects of primary climate modes on precipitation in the CRB support, that essential hydroclimatic conditions that drive snowpack development and initiate snowmelt set-up by fall and persist into early spring.

The results of this research are expected to be earlier indications of relative magnitude (i.e., average, dry, wet) and timing (e.g., early, late) of forthcoming snowmelt runoff that are equally or more reliable than skilled forecasts. The results of this research may be combined with skilled water supply forecasts to improve forecast reliability and extend lead time for planning more efficient and effective water use strategies. Research results will also provide new insights into the influence of dominant atmospheric forcings on precipitation and streamflow in the CRB as well as the combined effects of basin changes (e.g., anthropogenic activities) on precipitation/streamflow relationships.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; POSTER TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL VARIABILITY OF RAIN-ON-SNOW EVENTS IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES MCCABE, GREGORY J. (1); CLARK, MARTYN P. (2); AND HAY, LAUREN E. (1) (1) U.S. Geological Survey, Denver Federal Center, Denver, Colorado, 80225, (2)Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0488

The temporal and spatial variability of the monthly frequency of rain-on-snow (ROS) events for 119 sites in the western United States (US) are characterized for the period 1987-1999. The ROS events were identified using daily snow-telemetry (SNOTEL) data and were defined as days when precipitation occurred at a site and snowpack decreased. Results indicate that for most sites analyzed the largest number of ROS events occurred during the months of March through June when snowpacks are prevalent and temperatures become warm enough for rain to occur rather than snow. During these months with the greatest frequency of ROS events there is little correlation with elevation. However, during the winter months, the frequency of events is strongly related with elevation, such that the largest number of events occurs for low elevation sites. In these instances winter temperatures at only low elevation sites are warm enough for rain to occur. Correlations between the frequency of ROS events and spring/early-summer temperature and precipitation indicate that the frequency of ROS events is greatest for periods that are cool and wet. In addition, the periods with high ROS event frequencies are related to periods with increased zonal atmospheric flow over the western US which increases the intrusion of moist air from the North Pacific Ocean into the western US. Because the time series analyzed are short (13 years in length) trend analyses were not performed. However, the time series of ROS events suggest that there has been an increase in the frequency of ROS events in the western US. This increase in ROS frequency appears to be related to increased frequency of rain events rather than to increased temperatures.

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MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Water, Ice, and Water Resources; POSTER EXTENDING GREATER YELLOWSTONE AREA SNOTEL RECORDS USING SYNOPTIC CLIMATOLOGY MCGINNIS, DAVID L. (1); MCCABE, GREGORY J. (2) (1) Montana State University-Billings, Billings, Montana, 59101, (2) U.S. Geological Survey, Denver Federal Center, Denver, Colorado, 80225

Snow-telemetry (SNOTEL) observations are useful to study the spatial and temporal variability of daily snow accumulations in the western United States (US). These data, however, have only been recorded for about the past two decades. Estimates of these data for earlier periods would be useful for hydrologic and related environmental studies. Previous research has shown significant and meaningful relations between atmospheric pressure patterns and surface hydrologic variables in the western US. As a first step in the development of models to estimate SNOTEL-site precipitation for periods before observations began, Self-Organizing Map neural networks (SOMs) were used to characterize 700-hectoPascal atmospheric pressure patterns over the western US for the years1948-2000. Relations were identified between the resultant atmospheric pressure patterns and the spatial and temporal variability of snow events in the Greater Yellowstone Area. This information is used to develop reconstructions of daily and monthly snowfall at each SNOTEL location. Observed monthly and seasonal snow water equivalent totals are used to determine the reliability of the reconstructions.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology; POSTER LONG-TERM FIRE HISTORY IN GREAT BASIN SAGEBRUSH RECONSTRUCTED FROM MACROSCOPIC CHARCOAL IN SPRING SEDIMENTS, NEWARK VALLEY, NEVADA MENSING, SCOTT A. (1); LIVINGSTON, STEPHANIE (2); AND BARKER, PATRICK (3) (1) Department of Geography, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV; (2) Reno, NV; (3) Bureau of Land Management, Reno, NV

We use macroscopic charcoal analysis to reconstruct fire history in sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata var wyomingensis and A. tridentata var. tridentata), in Newark Valley, Nevada. We analyzed charcoal at continuous 1 cm intervals, and pollen at ~263 yr intervals in a core spanning the last 5500 yr. A charcoal peak in the historic period was associated with a >1400 ha fire dated to 1986 that burned in the watershed. We reconstructed the pre-historic fire history by inferring fires from similar charcoal peaks that were significantly greater than the background charcoal accumulation. Our results suggest the fire regime is climate and fuel driven. During periods of wetter climate, sagebrush increased and fires were more abundant, and during extended dry periods when sagebrush decreased, fires were less frequent. Our method does not allow calculation of a fire return interval, however our results support models that estimate a mean fire return interval of up to a century in Artemisia tridentata var wyomingensis. The charcoal record indicates that within the historic period, fires have increased. This contrasts with pinyon/juniper studies that indicate an expansion of woodland associated with fewer fires in the historic period. We suggest that in the central Great Basin, a regime of frequent fires in sagebrush that limits woodland expansion is true for the sagebrush/woodland ecotone, but in sagebrush dominated valleys with lower fuel loads, fires have always been less frequent. Protecting sagebrush-dominated valleys from frequent fire would appear to be consistent with the pre-historic fire regime.

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Poster Abstracts

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Mountain Monitoring Networks; POSTER RESEARCH AND SYNTHESIS IN THE SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS, SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO NYDICK, KOREN (1); WILLIAMS, MARK (2); COOPER, DAVID (3); CHIMNER, ROD (4); RABY, KIM (2) (1) Mountain Studies Institute, Silverton, CO, (2) Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, (3) Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, (4) Natural Resource and Ecology Laboratory, Fort Collins, CO.

The San Juan Mountains are a geologically diverse, mid-latitude range that combines high-elevations with a bimodal-precipitation regime (snowmelt and summer monsoon) and a high radiation snow climate. The range is home to rare habitats (such as alpine fens) and species (arctic mosses, relicts of the last ice age) and contains major biogeographic boundaries. The headwaters of the Rio Grande, San Juan, Dolores, Gunnison, and Animas Rivers flow from the San Juans and provide water for lowland communities in several states. Despite this importance and uniqueness, the San Juans are relatively unstudied compared to other mountain ranges in the United States. The Mountain Studies Institute (MSI) is a research and education institution and high-altitude field station established 2002 in Silverton, Colorado. MSI promotes, facilitates, and directly participates in research efforts in the San Juan Mountains. Its core research program focuses on three themes: 1) water and ecosystem function, 2) biodiversity and conservation, and 3) synthesis and sustainability. A main goal of this program is to understand how human activity alters natural ecosystems and to provide information to land managers, government officials, educators, and the public. Current projects include “Water quality data for local decision support system” and “San Juan fen inventory and assessment”. Plans for the future include expanded study of fen health, carbon cycling, and hydrology; source water and flow path investigations; GLORIA (Global Observation Initiative in Alpine Environments) site implementation in collaboration with the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies, and State of the San Juans Ecosystem Assessment and Forecasting for Sustainability.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology; POSTER TREE-RING BASED ESTIMATES OF GLACIER MASS BALANCE IN THE NORTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAINS FOR THE PAST 300 YEARS PEDERSON, GREGORY T. (1,2); WATSON, EMMA (3); LUCKMAN, BRIAN H. (4); FAGRE, DANIEL B. (1); GRAY, STEPHEN T. (5); GRAUMLICH, LISA J. (2) (1) U.S. Geological Survey – Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center - Glacier Field Station, Glacier National Park, West Glacier, MT, (2) Big Sky Institute – Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, (3) Climate Research Branch, Meteorological Service of Canada, Environment Canada, Downsview, Ontario, Canada, (4) Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London Ontario, Canada, (5) U.S. Geological Survey - Desert Laboratory, Tucson, AZ

Global recession of alpine glaciers since the Little Ice Age indicates widespread, rapid climatic change; however, little is known of the detailed history of glacier fluctuations in the period prior to the LIA maximum. We present a comparison of two attempts to provide more complete records by developing proxy mass balance series for Peyto Glacier in Alberta (Watson and Luckman 20041) and the glaciers in Glacier National Park (GNP), Montana (Pederson et al. 20042) using tree-ring data. Instrumental and proxy climate records indicate strong influence of long-term trends (centennial length) and interdecadal variability on seasonal and net mass balance estimates. Twentieth-century records show similar summer maximum temperatures and winter snowpack (the primary controls of glacier mass balance) in these two regions, and therefore major differences between these reconstructions reflect different reconstruction strategies. Over the 20th century winter mass balance is controlled primarily by ocean-atmosphere teleconnections related to conditions in the north Pacific (i.e. PDO). However, the selection of different proxies for winter balance teleconnections results in dissimilar reconstructions prior to ca. 1800 probably due to the partial capture of PDO related variability or changes in the teleconnection patterns. Long-term trends in ablation related to increasing maximum temperature are captured by the Peyto reconstruction, but absent in the GNP record. Results indicate that the disparity between summer proxies is due to 34

Poster Abstracts

mixed precipitation and temperature signal contained in the GNP tree-ring series that may not consistently track summer melt. Examination of the instrumental record suggests that increasing minimum temperatures may be as or more important than changes in maximum temperatures over the latter half of the 20th century. Though careful interpretation and record selection is required, tree-ring based proxy records of climate allow the reconstruction of continuous records of glacier changes. In the absence of long-term instrumental records, they permit an exploration of the relative contribution of changes in temperature and precipitation to net mass balance.

1 Watson, E. and Luckman, B.H. 2004. Tree-ring-based mass-balance estimates for the past 300 years at Peyto Glacier, Alberta, Canada. Quaternary Research, 62: 9-18. 2 Pederson, G.T., Fagre, D.B., Gray, S.T. and Graumlich, L.J. 2004. Decadal-scale drivers for glacial dynamics in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. Geophysical Research Letters, 31: L12203, doi:10.1029/2004GL019770.

MTNCLIM 2005 Mountain Monitoring; Water, Ice, Water Resources; POSTER MONITORING CONDUCTIVITY IN HIGH ELEVATION STREAMS DRAINING THE CENTRAL SIERRA NEVADA PETERSON, DAVID H.(1); SOLOMON, MADELINE (2); SMITH, RICHARD (1); HAGER, STEPHEN (1); MURPHY, FRED (1); STEWART, IRIS (1); HUBER KING (1) (1) USGS, Water Resources Division, Menlo Park, CA, (2) University of California, Berkeley, CA

Here we present a preliminary analysis of high resolution discharge and conductivity measurements from several central Sierra Nevada streams. In general, stream conductivity (a measure of total dissolved solids, salinity) shows a strong inverse relation with discharge. In the central Sierra Nevada, climate is the major control on river and stream salinity dilution via runoff (discharge per unit-area of the watershed above the river gage), while geology is the major control on river salt supply via the soil-to-bedrock ratio of the watershed. As snowmelt discharge increases, river conductivity decreases because the salinity of snowmelt is low compared to base flow salinity. In landscapes with low soil-to-bedrock ratios, salinity is relatively low during low and high flow. In landscapes with high soil-to-bedrock ratios, but with the same runoff, salinity is relatively high during high and low flow, and increases further with decreases in runoff (dilution). The interaction of climatic and geologic controls causes both broad similarities and specific differences in the seasonal and diurnal stream salinity records. The competing effects of salinity supply and dilution rates are evident in a comparison of high-flow and low-flow salinity variations in different watersheds and in the hysteresis evident in plots of salinity vs. river discharge. Monitoring and analysis of the salinity verses discharge behavior of high elevation rivers can contribute to the understanding of the individual contributions of snowmelt, precipitation, and groundwater to mountainous river and stream discharge and its susceptibility to climatic change.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Disturbance; POSTER 20th CENTURY FIRE-CLIMATE LINKAGES IN THE NORTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAINS POWER, MITCHELL J. (1); BARTLEIN, PATRICK (1); AND WHITLOCK, CATHY (2) (1) Department of Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, (2) Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717

To aid in the interpretation of fire activity on annual-to-decadal time scales in the Northern Rocky Mountains, area-burned data are compared to instrumental records of climate, NCEP Reanalysis, and lake sediment charcoal influx (particles cm-2 yr-1). The role of interannual variations in climate on regional area-burned variations is illustrated by using the NCEP reanalysis data set (1948-2004) and seasonal temperature and precipitation anomalies calculated using the CRU 0.5-degree gridded monthly climate data set (‘CRU TS 2.0’ data set (Mitchell et al. 2003), 1901-2000). Composite-anomaly maps were created to compare years with large fire extents in northwestern Montana to those with low extents.

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Years with large areas burned in the Northern Rocky Mountains, include 2000, 1988, 1931, and 1910, while those with small areas burned include 1997, 1993, 1990, 1982). Comparisons of 500 mb GPH and 500 mb Omega (vertical velocity) anomalies for large area-burned years suggest that during recent high area-burned years (2003, 2000) in Montana, higher-than-normal 500mb geopotential heights in summer prevail over the eastern Pacific and northwestern North America and produce faster westerlies, a better expressed ridge over the eastern north Pacific and western North America, and suppressed precipitation. Over the 20th century, ears with large area-burned are characterized by variable temperature anomalies, but with a general tendency for positive anomalies to occur at times during the period from April to September. In contrast, precipitation values are generally highly negative particularly for the June-August interval. Years with small areas burned are characterized by negative temperature anomalies during the interval from April through August, and positive precipitation values particularly in the June-August interval. Charcoal reconstructions before AD 1900 show some correspondence with reconstructed PDSI (Cook et al., 2004) for the Northern Rocky Mountains.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology and Paleoclimatology; POSTER A QUANTITATIVE CHIRONOMID-BASED RECONSTRUCTION OF LATE PLEISTOCENE-EARLY HOLOCENE TEMPERATURES IN THE SIERRA NEVADA, CA PORINCHU, DAVID F. (1); MACDONALD, GLEN M. (2); MOSER, KATRINA A. (3); BLOOM, AMY B. (4) (1) Department of Geography, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, (2) Departments of Geography and OBEE, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, (3) Department of Geography, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, (4) Department of Geography-Geology, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790

One of the lines of evidence increasingly utilized in multi-proxy paleolimnological studies is the Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera). Also known as non-biting midge flies, chironomids are ubiquitous and frequently the most abundant insects found in freshwater ecosystems. Recently, researchers have determined that chironomids have differing tolerances and optima in relation to surface lake water temperature. The recognition of this relationship, together with the development of robust and ecologically meaningful statistical methods has lead to a dramatic increase in the number of paleolimnological studies using chironomids as a proxy for past climatic conditions.

Chironomid and stratigraphic analyses of a lake sediment core recovered from a high-elevation lake in the central Sierra Nevada, California, U.S.A., was undertaken to assess chironomid community development during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and to quantitatively reconstruct the thermal regime that existed during this interval. The reconstructed surface water temperatures suggest a minimum warming of approximately 4.7oC occurred during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. The chironomid-based temperature reconstruction suggests that the immediate post-glacial period (14,800 – 13,700 cal yr BP) was characterized by extremely cold surface water temperature, likely < 5oC. Between 13,700 and 12,000 cal yr BP surface water temperatures rose approximately 2oC, reaching a post-glacial high of 15.5oC at 12,000 cal yr BP. The early Holocene was characterized by warmer conditions with surface water temperatures fluctuating between 15.5oC and 16.5oC. This study substantiate the use of chironomids in deriving quantitative estimates of past thermal regimes, which should prove quite valuable in improving our understanding of late Quaternary climates in the Sierra Nevada and the surrounding region.

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Poster Abstracts

MTNCLIM 2005 THEME: Monitoring; POSTER PUGESEK, BRUCE H. Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Bozeman, MT 59717-3492

The Priority Ecosystem Science Program (PES) is a continuation of a USGS research program formally known as Place-Based Studies. New vision and goals accompany the name change. Among them is a vision to establish national leadership in multidisciplinary, integrated research, a role for which the USGS is uniquely adapted as a consequence of the wide range of scientific and support disciplines employed within our agency. The ultimate goal is to provide scientifically valid research data which managers and clients may use to conserve vital ecosystems. The program embraces a holistic research approach that seeks understanding at a broader system level as opposed to the isolated components of a system. Here I describe our research in the Greater Yellowstone Area, specifically research designed to address the impacts of Jackson Lake Dam on the riparian zone along the Snake River. The Snake River riparian zone hosts important habitat for Grand Teton National Park’s wildlife and it is in a state of continual change, largely as a consequence of the interaction water and substrates. Today’s existing habitat is largely a product of long term processes that have been radically altered with the construction of the dam. Our research seeks to understand the future of riparian zone in the contemporary setting. We will integrate biological, hydrology, GIS, and geomorphology research in order to develop a model of the future land cover of the riparian habitat. The research will also incorporate an adaptive management approach that will assist managers in their efforts to attain of Park goals.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Climate & Disturbance Regimes; POSTER BROADSCALE PATTERNS AND SPATIAL HETEROGENEITY OF WESTERN UNITED STATES CLIMATE SHINKER, JACQUELINE J. (1); AND BARTLEIN, PATRICK J. (2) (1) Department of Geography, Geology, and Anthropology, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47802, (2) Department of Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403

Monthly climate normals (1971-2000 monthly averages) for 2781 stations in the western United States obtained from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) CLIM81 product, are used to illustrate the spatial variations in the seasonal cycle of climate. Maps of temperature and precipitation, their average intermonthly changes, and the local timing of annual maxima or minima, show three scales of variation: (1) broadscale patterns related to the seasonal cycle of insolation and the configuration of hemispheric- scale atmospheric circulation features; (2) mesoscale patterns related to location on the continent and to the influence of specific circulation features like those involved in the North American monsoon; and (3) smaller-scale spatial variations related to the mediation of the influence of large-scale circulation by local physiography. While most stations throughout the western U.S. have temperature maxima in July, a delay occurs at stations along the coast and interior Washington, northern Idaho, and Montana. A see- saw pattern of precipitation maximum is evident between coastal areas and the interior and southwest associated with the seasonal timing of precipitation and the North American Monsoon. Regions of high spatial heterogeneity in the timing of precipitation include the northern Rocky Mountains, Utah, Arizona and north western Montana. The superimposition of these three scales of spatial variability leads to steep gradients, and in some regions, considerable spatial heterogeneity, in the seasonal cycles of precipitation and surface water- and energy-balance variables.

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Poster Abstracts

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology; POSTER A 13,000-YR HIGH-RESOLUTION RECORD OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOLOCENE CLIMATE CHANGE STONE, JEFFERY R.; AND FRITZ, SHERI C. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Department of Geosciences, Lincoln, NE 68588

Continental-scale patterns of drought frequency in western North America recently have been associated with multi-decadal changes in large-scale ocean-atmosphere indices, including Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). However, studies of the effects of decadal-scale variability in ocean-atmospheric processes in terrestrial settings throughout the Holocene often are limited by relatively low sample resolution or poor chronological control. Here we present a 13,000-yr high-resolution record of drought variability inferred from fossil diatom assemblages recovered from a lake in northwestern Montana. We find pervasive drought during the 20th century to be associated strongly with multi-decadal phase changes in the PDO. Our sub-decadal sampling resolution imparts high levels of confidence to the use of statistical applications that examine temporal changes in effective moisture at the multi-decadal scale. Spectral analyses of diatom-inferred drought frequencies allow us to conclude that the influence of multi- decadal phase changes in the PDO have played a dominant role in regional hydroclimate throughout the Holocene. However, our record also shows that this relationship has undergone fundamental state changes throughout the lake’s history, including long periods throughout the Holocene where the cyclic recurrence of drought appears to break down.

MTNCLIM 2005 Themes: Mountain Monitoring Networks, Water, Ice, and Water Resources; POSTER THE GREAT SALT LAKE BASIN HYDROLOGIC OBSERVATORY – A COMMUNITY RESEARCH PLATFORM FOR MOUNTAIN CLIMATE SCIENCES TARBOTON, DAVID G. (1); JOHNSON, WILLIAM P (2); MARKS, DANNY (3); LUCE, CHARLIE (4); LINK, TIM (5); AND OTHERS ON THE GSLBHO PLANNING GROUP (1) Utah State University, Logan, UT, 84321, (2) University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, (3) USDA-ARS Northwest Watershed Research Center, Boise, ID, (4) USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Boise, ID 94701, (5) University of Idaho, Moscow, ID.

Through the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences, Inc. (CUAHSI) NSF plans to establish a network of hydrologic observatories. The mountain west is a high priority area for detailed observations because of the sensitivity, uncertainty and vulnerability of mountain systems and rapid human population growth with critical dependence of human and natural ecosystems on mountain water resources. The Great Salt Lake basin serves as a microcosm for much of the western U.S. in that the hydrologic system is driven by snowmelt in the mountains that supplies water to the relatively arid valleys. The region is dominated by nonlinear interactions between snow deposition and loss in the mountains, streamflow and groundwater recharge at high and mid-elevations, and evaporation from the desert floor. A planning group is working on a multi-million dollar long term plan and proposal for the Great Salt Lake Basin Hydrologic Observatory which would include a focus on mountain and snow hydrology. Hydrologic Observatories would be shared national facilities and our planning group welcomes participation and suggestions from the wider community with a stake in mountain and snow hydrology and related fields. This presentation will describe the physical aspects of the Great Salt Lake Basin, the scientific questions and research opportunities that the GSLBHO would provide, and the measurement infrastructure contemplated for this hydrologic observatory. A multi-scale nested sampling design is being proposed to allow for the integration and quantification of spatial and temporal heterogeneity in mountain environments while exploiting synergy through co-location of measurements for different disciplinary fields of hydrologic science. The presentation will focus on mountain and snow aspects of this observatory with the intention of prompting feedback as to how the observatory can be best designed to meet the needs of mountain and snow researchers.

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Poster Abstracts

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology; POSTER PALEOWILDFIRE CHARACTERISTICS AND BEHAVIOR: DIAGENETIC CHANGES OCCURRING IN VASCULAR BONE DURING CREMATION BY WILDFIRE REVEAL ANCIENT FIRE BEHAVIOR WEGWEISER, MARILYN D. Draper Museum of Natural History, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 720 Sheridan Avenue, Cody, Wyoming

Paleowildfire behavior can be ascertained by examining changes that occur in vascular bone during cremation. Vascular bone of ancient animals that were alive or recently dead during cremation exhibits color and mineralogical changes consistent with those changes that occur in modern vascular bone. Burned bone becomes inert, remaining unchanged during fossilization processes and thus, provides a record of ancient wildfire behavior in which physical changes to the bone occurred. Morphological changes in bone indicate the potential range of fire behavior from a ground or brush fire, to a crowning fire. In some instances, extreme fire behavior can be implied from the morphometric changes to bone. Paleolatitude of Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin in the Late Cretaceous (70-66.5 my) was close to present day latitude, therefore, it is reasonable to suspect this region was equally vulnerable to ancient Pacific Ocean current influences on climate that may have resulted in seasonal wildfire. Fossil evidence of paleowildfires from northwestern Wyoming resulted in the comparison of modern cremated vascular bone with dinosaur bone found associated with fossilized charcoal and burned wood bearing fire scars. Late Cretaceous dinosaur bone from the Meeteetse Formation of Wyoming exhibits morphological changes that are similar to those found in modern vascular bone that has undergone changes during cremation. Implications from the changes, including crescentic fractures, reorganization of osteocytes, and the glassification of CaPO4, suggest a ground fire of either long duration with temperatures in a sustained range of 650°C to 800° C, or a crowning fire with extreme fire behavior and temperatures in excess of 1200° C. Identification of sedimentary layers containing paleowildfires provides a powerful tool for better understanding cyclicity of wildfire in association with other climatic signals of regional patterns, provides subtle clues to the ecology of ancient trophic environments, and provides a chronostratigraphic tool for regional correlation.

MTNCLIM 2005 THEME: CLIMATE AND DISTURBANCE REGIMES; POSTER TRENDS IN CLIMATE SINCE 1970 AND THE RESPONSE IN HIGH ELEVATION FOREST WILDFIRE REGIMES IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES WESTERLING, ANTHONY L. (1); CAYAN, DANIEL R. (1,2); HIDALGO, HUGO (1) (1) Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92093-0224, (2) USGS, La Jolla, CA 92093

Since the mid-1980s, there has been a dramatic increase in the area burned in wildfires in mountain forests of the western United States, with mean annual area burned nearly three and a half times higher compared to the preceding one and a half decades. We have compiled a database of large fires in western North America and analyzed relationships between concurrent and antecedent climate and the annual frequency of very large fires. Analyzing fire activity by elevation and coarse vegetation characteristics, we find increased fire activity is most pronounced in forests at higher elevations and latitudes, and is strongly correlated with interannual variability in average spring and summer temperatures. Higher temperatures are associated with an earlier snowmelt, a longer dry season, and greater fire activity in montane forests of the western United States. We examine the links between temperature, vegetation and fire using streamflow records from snowmelt-dominated unimpaired streams, soil moistures from the VIC hydrologic model, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index values from AVHRR satellites.

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Poster Abstracts

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology; POSTER DIATOM RECORDS OF HOLOCENE ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATIC CHANGE IN SOUTHEASTERN BRITISH COLUMBIA WESTOVER, KARLYN S. (1); GAVIN, DANIEL G. (2); FRITZ, SHERILYN C. (1); HU, FENG SHENG (2); ROSCHEN, LAUREN A. (2) (1) Department of Geosciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 68588-0340, (2) Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana, 61801-3750

Sediments of three lakes, spanning a latitudinal gradient and situated within the Interior Wetbelt of southeast British Columbia, have been analyzed for independent records of Holocene climate and vegetation history in order to evaluate the role of climate as a control on range expansion of Tsuga heterophylla and Thuja plicata. Holocene climate reconstructions are based on multiple proxies, including diatom and biogenic silica stratigraphies presented here.

Stratigraphic variability in the diatom records reflects lake response to changes in water balance, catchment development, and atmospheric inputs of silica. Details of lake response vary as a consequence of local differences in catchment geology. In the north, the sediments of Gerry Lake are characterized by abundant carbonates, and a low-diversity, planktonic diatom assemblage over the past 8000 years. Dissolution of diatom frustules in Gerry Lake prior to 8000 cal yr BP and between 4000 and 3000 cal yr BP may indicate a more negative water balance. Biogenic silica concentrations are highest in the past 2500 years, suggesting the recent period has been the wettest. Eleanor Lake is characterized by high diatom diversity. Reduced biogenic silica concentrations after 5500 cal yr BP are inferred to reflect decreased productivity and nutrient availability. In the south, Mirror Lake was characterized by a benthic flora until 7000 cal yr BP. Increased planktonic species abundance after 7000 cal yr BP is interpreted as a deepening of the lake, with high lake levels for the past 6000 years. The data from Gerry and Mirror Lakes are consistent with reconstructions of Holocene climate in south-central BC, which suggest a shift to moister conditions ca. 7000 to 6000 cal yr BP. The inferred climate shift substantially predates the expansion of T. heterophylla and T. plicata at these sites, suggesting non-climatic factors played a significant role in range expansion of these trees.

MTNCLIM 2005 Theme: Paleoecology & Paleoclimatology; POSTER MASS MORTALITY AND POST-PALEOWILDFIRE EROSION: EVIDENCE FROM A LATE TRIASSIC DEATH ASSEMBLAGE IN NORTH-CENTRAL NEW MEXICO ZEIGLER, KATE E. (1); TANNER, LAWRENCE H. (2); AND LUCAS, SPENCER G. (3) (1) Dept. of Earth & Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, (2)Dept. of Geography and Geoscience, Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, PA, (3) New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque, NM

The Snyder quarry is an unusual Upper Triassic vertebrate fossil locality located in north-central New Mexico. The site has yielded the remains of a wide-variety of organisms, ranging from terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates to aquatic invertebrates, as well as substantial amounts of charcoalized wood. Taphonomic, facies and petrographic analyses indicate that this bonebed was deposited in the aftermath of a moderate to high temperature ground fire. The primary bone-bearing layer is a matrix-supported conglomerate that is interpreted as the deposit of a hyperconcentrated flood that swept animal remains and downed trees into a topographic low after a paleowildfire had occurred in the area. Scanning electron and reflectance microscopy of the charcoalized wood indicate that the wood was subjected to temperatures between 300 and 450°C. The Snyder quarry is among the first documented Triassic wildfires and the first death assemblage definitively tied to a wildfire event. As such, it demonstrates that wildfire events do leave geologic evidence that can be used to evaluate not only animal mortality, but also rates of erosion and subsequent deposition in a post-fire landscape.

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Working Group Sessions

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Working Groups

MTNCLIM 2005 Working Groups

Task-oriented Working Groups will have an opportunity to convene during the MTNCLIM 2005 Conference. These five new Working Groups are intended to be action-oriented, product-driven participation groups, rather than one-time issue- identification or general discussion sessions. Working Group leaders have volunteered in advance and committed to ongoing leadership roles with the Groups. They will solicit input and collaborations from participants with the intent of achieving concrete and ongoing progress toward CIRMOUNT goals. Working Groups are intended to have continuity beyond MTNCLIM 2005; individual Working Group meetings may be held in the “odd years” between the biennial MTNCLIM conferences, and other opportunities will be sought to advance goals.

The five Working Groups identified at present, and their leaders, are listed here, and individual announcements follow (Climate Monitoring Announcement not yet available). We invite MTNCLIM participants to browse these announcements, and join a group at MTNCLIM 2005.

• Mountain-Based Hydrologic Observatories and Observations for the 21st Century Roger Bales, University of California, Merced, CA, & Mike Dettinger, USGS, La Jolla, CA

• North American GLORIA (Global Observation Research Initiative In Alpine Environments) Connie Millar, USFS-PSW Research Station., Albany, CA, & Dan Fagre, USGS, Biological Resources Division W Glacier, MT

• Paleoclimatology & Water Resources Management: Time for an integrated Paleo-Resource? Connie Woodhouse, NOAA, Boulder, CO, & Franco Biondi, University of Nevada, Reno, NV

• CIRMOUNT, MRI and Mountain Climate Research Worldwide Greg Greenwood, Mountain Research Initiative, Berne, Switzerland

• Installing Climate Observation Networks Kelly Redmond, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV, & Mark Losleben, University of Colorado INSTAAR, Nederland, CO

New Working Groups are welcome. For coordination and assistance in forming a new group, please contact Connie Millar, [email protected].

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Working Groups

MOUNTAIN-BASED HYDROLOGIC OBSERVATORIES AND OBSERVATIONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY Point of Departure for MTNCLIM 2005 Working Group Discussion

Roger Bales ([email protected]) and Mike Dettinger ([email protected])

Like so many aspects of western-mountain climate science, the hydrology and hydroclimatology of western mountains have not been monitored as intensively or extensively as will be necessary to meet the challenges that climate variations, climate change, and a host of other environmental stresses will bring in the 21st Century. With current funding limitations, every opportunity to capture funding to improve high-altitude hydrologic observations and networks must be seized; even within the funding opportunities that become available, a large measure of innovation and craftiness will be required to stretch resources to provide as much observation as possible.

Later this year, the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc., an NSF supported consortium, will select two initial hydrologic observatories (HOs) for long-term funding for monitoring infrastructure and studies of surface-water, ground-water, and hydroclimatic variables and processes to provide focuses for hydrologic advancements in this century. Nationwide, a couple dozen local design teams (LDTs) have been preparing proposals to compete for this funding. Several of the teams are focusing on western settings and most of those teams necessarily will have to provide coherent and innovative plans for monitoring and interpretation in western mountain settings.

During MTNCLIM, you are invited to join a working group led, for now, by leaders of several of the LDTs for proposed HOs in western mountains, to discuss, contribute to, and perhaps even affiliate with the approaches that they will be proposing to CUAHSI later this year. Team leaders from the Sierra Nevada HO, the Pacific Northwest HO, the Flathead Basin HO, and other teams will attend and will be looking for opportunities to increase the flow of ideas and opportunities for innovative hydrologic observations in mountain settings both within the CUAHSI framework and more generally. We hope that this working group will provide concrete opportunities for the HO teams to increase the odds that CUAHSI will fund long-term observations in at least one of our mountain settings, that MTNCLIM participants will be able to take advantage of these team- based efforts for participation or leveraging, and that this current proposal opportunity will provide a kickoff point for continuing efforts by the CIRMOUNT/MTNCLIM community to develop stratgeies to meet hydrologic monitoring needs in the western-mountain region.

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Working Groups

NORTH AMERICAN GLORIA PROJECT (GLOBAL OBSERVATION RESEARCH INITIATIVE IN ALPINE ENVIRONMENTS) GLORIA International: http://www.gloria.ac.at/res/gloria_home/ Point of Departure for MTNCLIM 2005 Working Group Discussion

Connie Millar ([email protected]) and Dan Fagre ([email protected])

High mountain ecosystems are sensitive to climate variability and prone to be early indicators of effects that will ripple through distant ecosystems. The Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA) is an international research project, headquartered in Vienna, whose goal is to assess long-term impacts of climate change on vegetation in alpine environments worldwide. Standardized protocols direct selection of each node in the network, called a target region, which consists of a set of four geographically proximal mountain summits at elevations extending from treeline up to the nival zone. GLORIA’s multi-summit approach capitalizes on the comparability afforded by highly standardized monitoring protocols and the fact that alpine environments are similar and widely distributed worldwide. GLORIA specifies a rigorous mapping and sampling design for data collection, site documentation, and data archiving, with re-measurement intervals of five years.

Whereas over 30 target regions have been installed in six continents through the international program, prior to 2004 none was completed in North America. In cooperation with the Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains (CIRMOUNT), three GLORIA target regions were completed by September 2004, one in the Sierra Nevada, California, one in the White Mountains, California, and one in Glacier National Park, Montana. As the goals of GLORIA and CIRMOUNT overlap, CIRMOUNT is making a primary effort to motivate installation of new target regions and development of a dense network of GLORIA sites in western North America.

CIRMOUNT will move toward this goal by identifying high-priority areas in western North America to fill the network; contacting and assisting potential leaders of new target regions; assisting in site selection; botanical expertise, equipment sharing; protocol clarification; budget estimation; archiving; data analysis; and coordinating integrated analysis among regions. A set of webpages on the forthcoming CIRMOUNT website will provide useful information for those anticipating and completing GLORIA installations. Fundraising may be leveraged with CIRMOUNT’s collaboration. As more sites are installed and early baseline data compiled, CIRMOUNT would sponsor focal workshops for comparing and integrating results and conclusions about effects of elevation and climate on alpine flora. CIRMOUNT will also encourage extended research opportunities at each region under the GLORIA “Master Station” approach.

With the MTNCLIM working group, we hope to spread the word about the North American GLORIA project, provide information on how to get started, identify new collaborators, and promote new installations in summer 2005. We anticipate participation at MTNCLIM 2005 by several scientists who have proposed new target regions this year.

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Working Groups

PALEOCLIMATOLOGY AND WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT: TIME FOR AN INTEGRATED PALEO RESOURCE? Point of Departure for MTNCLIM 2005 Working Group Discussion

Connie Woodhouse ([email protected]) and Franco Biondi ([email protected])

The rivers of the western U.S. provide water resources vitally important to economic and social interests throughout the region. Water managers must balance the competing demands and changing needs of expanding populations, and agricultural and natural ecosystems within the constraints of a variable and limited water supply, interstate and international compacts, and the uncertain impacts of global variability and change. Many operational water management procedures and decision processes have traditionally consider only instrumental period hydroclimatic variability with design specifications based on the 20th century range of hydroclimatic extremes. This approach presumes that the range of flow in the 20th century adequately represents the full range of variability. However, dendrochronological reconstructions of annual runoff Upper Colorado River basin, for example, have demonstrated that the instrumental record for this region does not represent the full range of natural variability.

Water managers in some parts of the western U.S. have started to seriously consider the information provided by extended records of flow from tree-ring reconstructions. Reconstructions are being used to place the recent drought into a long-term context and, in some cases, as model input to test the robustness of water supply systems under a broader range of drought conditions than afforded by gage records. The reconstructed streamflow records have proven to be a useful addition to the toolkit water resource managers are using for planning and decision making.

Tree-ring based reconstructions of streamflow exist for several major watersheds in the western U.S. (e.g., Colorado, Sacramento, Columbia). However, there are likely many watersheds of importance to water resource managers for which reconstructions of streamflow currently do not exist. In addition, it should be recognized that tree-ring reconstructions of streamflow for the distant past cannot take into account factors that change streamflow measured at a certain point even when upstream precipitation remains the same, such as stream channel profile (affected by incision, alluvial deposition, beaver activity, etc.), vegetation cover (affected by plant species dynamics, wildfire, landslides, etc.), land use (due to human activities, such as cattle or sheep grazing, clearcutting, crop production, urban development, etc.), diversions and their return flow (caused by either natural or human agents). As a community, we should start educating our audience to understand that the advantage of having long tree-ring records can be enhanced by using a combination of empirical and mechanistic (or model-based) approaches.

The goal of this workshop is to explore the interest and support for a integrated collaborative effort to generate an up-to-date, spatially focused network of reconstructions to assist water resource managers in long-term planning and scientists examining questions of hydrologic response to climate change. The intent is not to usurp planned or current efforts, but to plan how existing and future reconstructions, modeling results, and products could be integrated into

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a comprehensive resource for water resource managers. Anyone who has an interest in this subject, either from a scientific or water management perspective, is invited attend this working group discussion. We will begin with a roundtable so that participants may introduce themselves and their interests, then discuss the initiative described above.

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CIRMOUNT, MRI AND MOUNTAIN CLIMATE RESEARCH WORLDWIDE Point of Departure for MTNCLIM 2005 Working Group Discussion

Greg Greenwood ([email protected])

The rhetoric of the MRI and CIRMOUNT is largely coincident, but what are the real points of contact and collaboration between the global MRI and the US CIRMOUNT?

The goal of this workgroup is to specify one or more concrete actions over the next year that will be of benefit to all parties and to outline next steps.

MRI has developed a strategy for its activities for the next three years, from which emerge specific opportunities for interaction. But it is unclear which, if any, of these activities is central to the achievement of CIRMOUNT goals, which are focused on the American West. While individual CIRMOUNT participants might find some of these activities personally interesting, there may be no good reason for CIRMOUNT as an institution to participate in any of them.

What is this strategy? The vision of MRI is a world in which more resources flow into rigorous global change research programs that inform policy and management. How to get more resources to flow toward these ends? The first leg of the strategy is participation in the processes that produce funds through development of proposals and lobbying of funding agencies. (Some would say that CIRMOUNT is at precisely this same step right now.) But, however necessary, chasing money is not in itself sufficient and besides there a lot of other people getting a lot of other money for a lot of different programs. Organizing an integrated framework through conferences and workshops that harnesses these myriad programs is the second leg. But of course, what hubris makes us think that we are central to this organizing process? By informing researchers about their large community, the third leg of the strategy, we build a community that can itself do a better job organizing its intellectual activity.

How do these "legs" ramify into discrete activities that might be of interest to CIRMOUNT? What follows are a few ideas related to legs one and two. Maybe someone else can figure possible projects under the information and community building heading beyond that which MRI and CIRMOUNT are already doing.

Funding

MRI is attempting to organize a presentation on global change in mountain regions to IGFA (the International Group of Funding Agencies for global change research). This presentation would likely say that : • mountains are barely second to the Arctic in terms of expected climate change, • such change will affect vastly more people than in the Arctic, • Switzerland has supported global change research in mountain region as a matter of foreign, development and scientific policy, and • wouldn't it be great if other countries similarly increased their funding for global change research in mountain areas.

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This argument seems to be one that CIRMOUNT is slowly framing within the context of the US federal budget process. A presentation to IGFA would provide a means of speaking directly, though not solely, to US NSF and other federal funding agencies about this topic.

Frameworks

The GLOCHAMORE program (MRI, UNESCO-MAB and the EU) is sponsoring an Open Science Conference on Global Change in Mountain Regions in Perth, UK on Oct 1-5, 2005. At its most basic level, the Conference provides an opportunity for exchange and communications. At another level it is the concluding step in the development of a research strategy applicable to mountain biosphere reserves. The development of a strategy may be among the next steps for CIRMOUNT, and therefore it may be helpful for CIRMOUNT to be more involved with this conference.

A quick view of the expressions of interest show that around 10 CIRMOUNT-oise have inquired. No one from CIRMOUNT has expressed a desire to chair a session. Is CIRMOUNT interested in sponsoring a session?

There is currently a lot of activity in Russia and Central Asia surrounding global change in those regions. Central Asia is arguably very similar to the western US: might there not be some merit in comparing notes with colleagues from Central Asia, Russia, Mongolia and China, perhaps at a session in Perth or in a stand-alone conference? Could we envision doing something similar for the American Cordillera, something that Henry Diaz is already working on?

Finally, I personally am very interested in two potential symposia topics:

− The current state of remote sensing in mountain environment: what can we get out of the sensors that are already out there, and

− How does one use large transects or multiple sites (e.g., the transect from the Olympics to the Rockies) to extract something more than the recognition that things differ from one place to another.

The first topic is motivated largely by my ignorance of how RS has progressed since about 1985, hence it may not be great interest to anyone else. But, then again, maybe it is. The second seems very important if we were ever to create widely dispersed mountain observatories.

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IMPLEMENTATION OF MOUNTAIN CLIMATE NETWORKS Point of Departure for MTNCLIM 2005 Working Group Discussion

Kelly Redmond ([email protected]) and Mark Losleben ([email protected])

This group will make the assumption that the need for mountain climate observations has already been established. Most of the discussion will center on the following topics, although it is not limited to them.

• Climate needs versus weather needs – striving for consistency through time • Network organization • Candidate sites • Siting and exposure issues • Degree of standardization • Individual site design Site selection – is it pertinent to the goal? Is it “permanent” ? Sensor issues – quality, robustness, design maximum by element Power issues Icing survival Site security, administrative and physical • Communications One-way or two-way Reliability Additional procedures to prevent data loss • Maintenance This is the key issue! Who will do this? Degree of commitment, and motivation for participation Periodic, on-demand, or other approach Equipment swap-outs and upgrades • Maintaining programmatic continuity and corporate knowledge • Data flow Centralized ingest Centralized access Quality control of data Archival • Products The data themselves Summaries • Funding Prototype approaches as proof of concept Linking and leveraging are essential Bridging to practical and operational communities Bridging to counterpart research efforts and initiatives

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A strategy to attain the monitoring goals involves these elements:

1. All major mountain ranges should be sampled. 2. Along-axis and cross-axis sampling for major mountain chains. 3. Approximately 5-10 sites per state (1 per 28000 - 56000 km2) 4. Highest sites as high as possible within each state, but at both high relative and absolute elevations. 5. Free air exposures at higher sites. 6. Utilize existing measurements and networks, and extend existing records, when possible. 7. AC power to prevent ice/rime when practical. 8. Temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation as main elements, others as feasible. 9. Hourly readings, and real-time communication whenever possible 10. Absence of local artificial influences, site stable for next 5-10 decades. 11. Current and historical measurements accessible via World Wide Web when possible. 12. Hydro measurements (precipitation, snow water content, and depth) not practical at highest points, so have lower sites in more protected settings to permit these. 13. Maintain stable site characteristics (e.g., vegetation height) needed for measurement homogeneity. 14. High quality, rugged, durable instrumentation with proven track records greatly desirable. 15. Site documentation history available and accessible.

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Conference Participant List

Name Affiliation Email Address CIRMOUNT Coordinating Group Millar, Connie (co-chair) PSW Research Station, USDA Forest [email protected] Service Graumlich,Lisa (co-chair) Big Sky Institute - Montana State University [email protected] Diaz, Henry (co-chair) NOAA - Climate Diagnostics Center [email protected] Cayan,Daniel Scripps Institution of Oceanography / VCSD [email protected] Dettinger, Michael U.S. Geological Survey, Scripps Institute of [email protected] Oceanography Fagre,Daniel U.S. Geological Survey - NRMSC [email protected] Greenwood,Greg Mountain Research Institute [email protected] Hughes, Malcolm Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, [email protected] University of Arizona Peterson, Dave USDA Forest Service [email protected] Powell, Frank White Mountain Research Station, University [email protected] of California Redmond, Kelly DRI / Western Regional Climate Center [email protected] Stephenson, Nathan U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological [email protected] Research Center Swetnam, Thomas Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, [email protected] University of Arizona Woodhouse, Connie NOAA - NCDC [email protected]

Conference Participants Allen, Craig U.S. Geological Survey, Jemez Mts. Field [email protected] Station Bachelet, Dominique Oregon State University [email protected] Bachman, Don Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies [email protected] Baker, Barry The Nature Conservancy [email protected] Bales, Roger University of California, Merced [email protected] Basagic, Hassan Portland State University [email protected] Bennetts, Robert Greater Yellowstone Network, NPS [email protected] Bernhardt, David National Weather Service [email protected] Biondi, Franco University of Nevada [email protected]

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Participant List

Name Affiliation Email Address Bowman, Bill University of Colorado [email protected] Bracht, Brandi University of Nebraska [email protected] Briles, Christy University of Oregon [email protected] Bytnerowicz, Andrezj PSW Research Station, USDA Forest Service [email protected] Cecil, DeWayne U.S. Geological Survey [email protected] Clow, David U.S. Geological Survey [email protected] Comrie, Andrew University of Arizona [email protected] Corbin, Jennifer University of Montana [email protected] Crabtree, Bob Yellowstone Ecological Research Center [email protected] Dahms,Dennis University of Northern Iowa [email protected] Despain,Don U.S. Geological Survey - NRMSC [email protected] Earman,Sam Desert Research Institute [email protected] Gershunov, Alexander Scripps Institution of Oceanography [email protected] Gray, Stephen U.S. Geological Survey - Desert Laboratory [email protected] Gresswell, Bob U.S. Geological Survey - NRMSC [email protected] Hall, Alex UCLA, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences [email protected] Harper, Joel University of Montana [email protected] Hessburg, Paul PNW Research Station, USDA Forest Service [email protected] Hicke, Jeff Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, [email protected] Colorado State University Hinckley, Tom College of Forest Resources, University of [email protected] Washington Jean, Cathie Greater Yellowstone Network, NPS [email protected] Jensen, Mark USDA Forest Service [email protected] Kiesecker, Joseph The Nature Conservancy [email protected] Knowles, Noah U.S. Geological Survey [email protected] Kuhn, Richard Eric Colorado River Water Conservation District [email protected] Kunzig, Robert Freelance Writer [email protected] Landry, Chris Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies [email protected] Lenart, Melanie University of Arizona - ISPE [email protected] Leung, Ruby Pacific Northwest National Laboratory [email protected] Littell, Jeremy Climate Impacts Group, University of [email protected] Washington Logan, Jesse USDA Forest Service [email protected] Losleben,Mark Mountain Research Station, University of [email protected] Colorado

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Participant List

Name Affiliation Email Address Lundquist, Jessica CIRES/Climate Diagnostics Center [email protected] Lynch, Ann Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA [email protected] Forest Service MacDonald, Glen Geography - UCLA [email protected] Machida, Dennis Tahoe Conservancy [email protected] MacMahon, Jim Utah State University [email protected] MacMillion, Scott Bozeman Daily Chronicle [email protected] Mark, Bryon Ohio State University [email protected] Matter, Margaret Colorado State University, Dept. Civil [email protected] Engineering McCabe, Greg U.S. Geological Survey [email protected] McGinnis, David Montana State University [email protected] McKenzie, Donald PNW Research Station, USDA Forest Service [email protected] Mensing, Scott University of Nevada [email protected] Mitchell, Stephen Oregon State University [email protected] Mock, Carey Dept. of Geography, University of South [email protected] Carolina Mote, Philip Climate Impacts Group, University of [email protected] Washington Neilson, Ron PNW Research Station, USDA Forest Service [email protected] Nijhuis, Michelle High Country News [email protected] Nolin, Anne Oregon State University [email protected] Nydick, Koren Mountain Studies Institute [email protected] Pederson, Greg U.S. Geological Survey - NRMSC, Big Sky [email protected] Institute - Montana State University Peterson, David U.S. Geological Survey [email protected] Plummer, Mitchell Idaho National Engineering and [email protected] Environmental Laboratory Porinchu, David Ohio State University, Dept. of Geography [email protected] Power, Mitchell University of Oregon [email protected] Prato, Tony University of Missouri-Columbia [email protected] Pugesek, Bruce U.S. Geological Survey -BRD, NRMSC [email protected] Running, Steve University of Montana [email protected] Schrag, Anne Montana State University [email protected] Schreier, Hans Institute for Resources, Environment and [email protected] Sustainability

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Participant List

Name Affiliation Email Address Schullery, Paul Writer and Editor - National Park Service [email protected] Shapley, Mark Limnological Research Center, University of [email protected] Minnesota Sheldon, Jennifer Yellowstone Ecological Research Center [email protected] Shinker, Jacqueline Indiana State University [email protected] Shively, Carol Yellowstone National Park [email protected] Smiley, John U.C. White Mountain Research Station [email protected] Smith, Molly University of California, Berkeley [email protected] Solomon, Madeline UC Berkeley [email protected] Sousanes, Pamela Denali National Park & Preserve [email protected] Stark, Mike Billings Gazette [email protected] Stine, Peter Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest [email protected] Service Stone, Jeffery University of Nebraska, Dept. of Geosciences [email protected] Swerhun, Kristina Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Reserve [email protected] Tartboton, David Utah State University [email protected] Waddell, Elizabeth National Park Service [email protected] Watson, Emma Climate Research Branch - Meteorological [email protected] Service of Canada Wegweiser, Marilyn Draper Museum of Natural History, Buffalo [email protected] Bill Historical Center Westerling, Anthony Scripps Institution of Oceanography [email protected] Westfall, Robert Sierra Nevada Research Center, USDA [email protected] Forest Service Westover, Karlyn University of Nebraska, Dept. of Geosciences [email protected] Whiteman, David Department of meteorology, University of [email protected] Utah Whitham, Thomas Marriam-Powell Center for Environmental [email protected] Research, Northern Arizona University Whitlock, Cathy Montana State University [email protected] Williams, Mark INSTAAR, University of Colorado [email protected] Zeigler, Kate University of New Mexico [email protected]

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Boulder Glacier Glacier National Park, Montana

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Photo by G. Grant 1988

Photo by G. Pederson

Photo by J. DeSanto