Global Change Toolkit Blog

Rock Glacier at East Fork Rock Creek Canyon, Mono County, California

Education

Ph.D. (in progress) University of Arizona Department of Geosciences & Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. Advisor: Malcolm Hughes. Dissertation: Herbchronology of the Alpine Eastern Sierra Nevada, California

B.S. (2003) Humboldt State University Department of Forestry and Watershed Management
Advisors: Hobart Perry and George Robison. Thesis: Dendrochronology: A Key to the Climate of the Past.

C.V.

Research- Eastern Sierra Nevada
Tree-ring research has long been a major component of global and regional climate and ecological reconstruction. Relatively new techniques, herbchronology and shrubchronology, are adapted from this science and advances are now being made in determining what climatological and ecological variables can be further understood by analyzing the annual growth increments of these relatively long-lived woody species. To study recent climate and ecological change in the alpine Eastern Sierra Nevada I utilize the ring width patterns archived in woody shrubs growing above treeline.

Rock Glaciers

Rock glaciers are common periglacial features in high mountain environments where the climate is relatively dry and there exist abundant sources of shattered rock. They occur worldwide and in my case, quite extensively in the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Active rock glaciers have a massive ice core or matrix which provides cohesion and adhesion as the rock glacier flows "plasticly" under it's own mass, forming its characteristic oversteepened snout and sides, overflattened top, reverse sorting of its till and complex or simple lobing.

Because of the insulating mantle of rock, rock glacier melt significantly lags clean glacier retreat worldwide and are thus an increasingly important water source in arid areas. They are unique habitats with relatively high species diversity as higher elevation species can inhabit lower elevations on the rock glacier because of the depressed temperature and perennial water source at the rock glacier snout. They may also be biodiversity refugia for alpine species under future warming conditions as they will provide a cooler habitat for species projected to be unable to occupy their present ranges.

Herbchronology/Shrubchronology

Woody shrub stems and taproots have been used in an increasing number of climatological and ecological applications: reconstructing glacial fluctuations in China, summer temperature and microsite effects in the Norwegian Alps, winter precipitation, AO & NAO phase changes, and nutrient uptake in the Canadian Arctic. Standard dendrochronological practices are applied to ring width series measured from cross sections of these persistent long-lived woody taproots. Microtomed thin-sections are stained to highlight lignified ("woody") cells and are mounted on slides to be measured using digital image-analysis programs. Because of the nature of these samples, entire cross sections can be easily analyzed by using both basal area increment and ring width series.

These plants occupy the alpine area above treeline and other extra-arboreal zones such as rock glaciers. Their different growth form indicates that different environmental and climatological factors may affect their annual growth increment. These shrub chronologies are readily comparable to adjacent tree-ring chronologies.

+Occupy zone above treeline
+Extra-arboreal habitat (rock glaciers, above treeline)
+Different growth-form = different factors effecting growth increment
+Direct comparison to adjacent tree-ring chronologies

-Applications in the Eastern Sierra
In the eastern Sierra Nevada, rock glaciers lie predominantly above treeline and the plants colonizing their surfaces are forbs, prostrate woody shrubs and, rarely, limber or whitebark pine. My pilot studies of the woody shrub Leptodactylon pungens, the dominant shrub colonizing rock glaciers in the Easter Sierra Nevada has annual and crossdateable rings in its persistent woody taproot. It is relatively long-lived (50 - 100y) and is a large component of the upper "shrubline".

Leptodactylon at field sites in Mono County have shown to be responding to extreme snow events: exceptionally high snowpack (April SWE) yields narrow marker rings and wide ring growth occurs in low snow years.

Climate Links

Climate Data
PRISM "Parameter-elevation regressions on independent slopes model". Climatic measurements from point data are modeled to form a continuous gridded data set in 4km and 800m units.
KNMI Climate Explorer Royal Netherlands Met Institute- a fantastic source for climate data
NCDC Climate data online The National Climatic Data Center's source for climate datasets
NCEP Reanalysis data National Center for Environmental Protection's new atmospheric analyses using current and historical climate data
PDSI time series Database of a gridded network of Palmer Drought Severity Indices for Northern America
Climate Reconstructions World Data Center's global to local climate reconstruction databank
ITRDB Not climate data per se but an important data bank of global tree-ring chronologies

Mountain Ecosystem Links

SNRC USFS Sierra Nevada Research Center- climate and landscape change information
WMRS White Mountain Research Stations. An umbrella for research in the eastern Sierra Nevada and the White Mountains of California, home to Pinus longaeva, Bristlecone Pine
MTCLIM "mountain climate sciences and effects of climate variability on ecosystems, natural resources, and conservation in western North American mountains" Conferences are held every other year.
CIRMOUNT Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains, this group oversees MTNCLIM, works on understanding climate-driven changes in western mountain ecosystems
GLORIA Project GLobal Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments. Created to establish long term alpine monitoring networks. Headquartered in Vienna Austria, GLORIA has active and planned sites in the Rockies, Cascades and Sierra Nevada. Species and climate variables are recorded at these sites.
MIREN Mountain Invasion Research Network. Not an alpine Homeland Security, but a group working to understand plant invasiveness along altitudinal gradients focusing on mountain environments.
MRI Mountain research Initiative - an international interdisciplinary group working on understanding changes in mountain ecosystems worldwide

Botanical Links
CalFlora A database of information on wild California plants.
USDA PLANTS Database Standardized information about plants of the US- names, plant symbols, checklists, distributional data, species abstracts, characteristics, images, crop information, automated tools, onward Web links, and references...
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website Formal taxonomy of Angiosperms
Angiosperm Phylogeny Group Images
Silvics Of North America (Conifers and Hardwoods) Very useful USFS site with almost anything you could want to know about trees in the US
Andean Botanical Information System In case you're bored with the plants of the northern part of the American Cordillera...

Glacier Links
Glaciers of California God's country
NSIDC Glacier Images The National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology's collection of glacier images and photographs
Glaciers of the American West Great collection of maps photos and data on glaciers of the conterminous US
USGS Repeat Photography Project Cool repeat photography of retreating glaciers in Glacier National Park, Montana
Glaciers Online A TON of information on the where's why's and what's of glaciers

Personal
Fiddle!

Research
As a Ph.D. student in geosciences, I am interested in understanding how global warming will impact water in the West. What changes can we anticipate in the severity, frequency or extent of drought in Western North America? How do those changes compare with the natural background range of climate variability? What can global climate models tell us about the range of future possibilities? And, how well do the models represent the range of variability inferred from paleoclimate proxy records? My research investigates these questions by analyzing proxy and climate model data. Specifically, I am compiling a dataset of paleodrought records to compare with paleoclimate modeling experiments.

I am also interested in assessing the important spatial and temporal scales for studying global climate change. Climate models provide invaluable information about large-scale circulation patterns, while proxies implicitly experience climate at much smaller scales. To integrate these two domains, I am designing a series of paleoclimate model downscaling experiments. At the same time, I am developing a 4,000-year geochemical record of hydrologic variability from a cave in Cochise County, Arizona. Synthesizing these two projects will relate information from model data to proxy records in a new (and I hope neat!) way.

Background
I grew up in Oregon, then did my undergrad at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. Needless to say, I experienced "abrupt climate change" when I moved down here. As a Master's student working with Dr. Julia E. Cole I analyzed a network of coral oxygen isotope records - proxies for sea surface temperature - to identify a distinctly decade-scale pattern of variability in the tropics associated with the ENSO system. The manuscript from this research has recently (finally!) been submitted to GRL.

Education
Ph.D. Candidate, Geosciences (2006-present)
Dissertation: Holocene Drought Variability in Western North America: Integrating Proxy Data with Climate Model Simulations
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
M.S., Geosciences (2004-2006)
Thesis: A New Synthesis of Coral Oxygen Records to Evaluate Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Tropical Decadal Variability
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
B.S. in Mathematics, Minor in Spanish (1998-2002)
University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA

Links
INGRID - Lamont-Doherty's massive data server and cruncher.
PMIP - Paleoclimate Model Intercomparison Project (lets you make neat images of 6ka and LGM climate simulations).
M.N. Evans Website - Mike's webpage is a great resource for important climate & paleoclimate papers as well as other cool links.
CCSM3 - NCAR's Climate Model Homepage.
WRF - Weather Research & Forcasting Model Homepage.

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Education
Ph.D. Student, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (Minor: Global Change), University of Arizona, 2011
B.S. Astronomy (Minors: Physics, German) Haverford College, Haverford, PA 2004
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Background
My current career path is the union of my two biggest passions: science and the environment. As an undergraduate, I majored in Astrophysics and did research with Dr. Stephen Boughn on the presence of Dark Energy in the universe using the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect. I also was a founding member of Haverford College's Committee for Environmental Responsibility. As a part of this group, I helped to write an environmental policy for Haverford College, set up a fund for green projects on campus and successfully lobbied for the LEED Certification of Haverford's Garner Integrated Athletic Center. It wasn't until I was working for the University of Wyoming as a Research Astronomer with Dr. Danny Dale that I realized that I could use my scientific career to address the environmental problems that I cared so much about. It must've been all those long nights at WIRO, a remote observatory in the Rocky Mountains, that changed my mind!

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Research Interests
Despite moving to southern Arizona, I still have a strong affinity for the Rockies, and especially those alpine areas that are extraordinarily susceptible to climate change. My research focuses on the impact of climate change on subalpine plant communities. In the subalpine ecosystem near the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab, on the western slope of the Central Rockies, climate change means less snowpack, warmer temperatures and warmer springs. How will these environmental changes impact the plant communities? Climate change can alter plant communities directly through impacts on the ability of each species to survive in the new environment. Alternatively, climate change can alter plant communities by changing the ways in which species interact, such as how they compete for water, or how they find pollinators. I am interested in determining the relative role of direct and indirect effects of climate change on subalpine ecosystem response to climate change.

I look three major aspects of subalpine plant communities:
- how does taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional composition change across environmental gradients?
- how do ecosystem functions, such as carbon dioxide assimilation change with changes in the environment and with changes in community structure?
- how does the elevational range of Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ss. vaseyana) change with a warming, drying climate?
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Useful Links

Affiliations
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona
Enquist Lab, my home at U of A
Rocky Mountain Biological Lab, Gothic, Colorado.
and be sure to keep tabs on the weather in Gothic

Science!
LDEO Climate Data Library, more climate data than you can shake a stick at
Energy Information Administration data on international carbon emissions
Land Cover Data from the EPA
Phylomatic for all your phylogeny constructing needs
Taxonomy Browser check your spelling now!
Angiosperm Phylogeny Group the latest in plant phylogenies
SEINet, a database of all things taxonomic in the southwest
Rainlog.org, rainfall data for Arizona

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Education:
Ph.D. Student, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Geography and Regional Development and Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, 2007-
M.F. Yale University, New Haven, CT
Forestry and Environmental Studies, May 2006
B.A. Carleton College, Northfield, MN
Geology, June 1998

Research Statement:
Climate change poses one of the most pressing challenges to natural resource managers today. While we understand more and more about the physical nature of the climate system, the implications of rising global temperatures for ecosystems are not well constrained. Our knowledge is particularly thin when it comes to assessing risks and making forecasts at scales that matter to decision-makers: What portions of landscapes and ecosystems are most sensitive to climate change? How might we develop effective monitoring systems to help managers cope with change? How relevant are current conservation and restoration strategies in the context of global warming?

I am a Ph.D. student at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and in the Department of Geography and Regional Development, and my main research interests are motivated by these broad questions. In my dissertation work, I hope to provide context for managing impacts of climate change on forests in the western U.S by investigating local-to-regional scale ecological responses to recent and past climate variability and change. More specifically, I plan to use tree rings to develop demographic histories for populations of Colorado pinyon pine (Pinus edulis) across a north-to-south gradient through the species’ distribution. These demographic histories will be used to answer a number of outstanding questions related to how forest structure & growth are controlled by climate at a variety of temporal and spatial scales:
• What controls the degree of synchrony in woodland age structures and related ecosystem properties?
• What is the role of climate variability in promoting successful recruitment events in pinyon communities?
• What is the relationship between age structure and specific drivers of western climatic variability (Pacific Decadal Oscillation, El Niño Southern Oscillation, etc.)?
• What is the influence of community age (e.g. time since invasion and establishment of a population) on ecosystem properties such as plant demography?

Pinyon-juniper woodlands are an ideal model system for understanding the impacts of climate change on western ecosystems: They represent the 3rd largest habitat type in the United States, and appear to be quite sensitive to climate variability and change. (Case-in-point is the recent and massive dieoff of P. edulis across the Colorado Plateau. Millions of trees died as the result of extreme drought and insect outbreaks, resetting demographic clocks and shifting local abundances across much of the species’ range.) These factors, combined with a relatively rich existing literature on pinyon and juniper migrational dynamics over the Holocene, make the “the PJ” a great setting for my research.

Affiliations:
Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of Arizona
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona
Institute for the Study of Planet Earth – Global Change Minor program
CATTS - University of Arizona NSF K-12 Graduate Teaching Fellowship
Yale University School Forests
Osservatorio Geoglogico di Coldigioco

My Field Sites (so far):
Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) station, New Mexico
Nine Mile Canyon, Northeastern Utah

Climate & Hydrology Datasets and Info (with a focus on the western U.S.)
U.S. Historical Climate Network - Quality-controlled daily and monthly climate data for a subset of long-term observation stations.
U.S. National Climate Data Center (NCDC) - A clearinghouse for climate data in the U.S. and internationally.
Western Regional Climate Center -Monthly and daily climate data for western U.S. states, with a user-friendly web-interface for data visulaization.
WestMap- User-friendly climate analysis and mapping toolbox for the western U.S.
NCEP Reanalysis Data- Gridded reanalysis of the atmospheric and oceanic variables at a number of spatial and temporal resolutions.
PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) Data - High-resolution gridded past and current climate data for the US.
Lamont-Dahorty Climate Data Library - One-stop shopping for over 300 datasets from a variety of earth science disciplines and climate-related topics
The IPCC Data Distribution Centre - Global Climate Dataset
NCAR GIS Climate Change Scenarios - GIS data portal that provides access to free global datasets of climate change scenarios generated for the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by the Community Climate System Model (CCSM).
NRCS SNOTEL Data - A mid-elevation snowpack monitoring network for snow-water equivalent (SWE), precipitation, temperature, snow depth, and soil moisture/temperature data for the western U.S., 1980-present.
USGS – Hydro-climate Data Network (HCDN)
USGS - Water Resources Maps and GIS Information

NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences & Assessments (RISA’s) - The Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program supports research that addresses complex climate sensitive issues of concern to decision-makers and policy planners at a regional level.

Proxy data
ITRDB – International Tree Ring Database
IMPD - Multiproxy fire history database
Pack Rat Midden Database
North American Drought Atlas- A History of Meteorological Drought Reconstructed from 835 Tree-Ring Chronologies for the past 2005 years.

Ecological Data & Resources
USA National Phenology Network
Global Change Master Directory (NASA) - A clearinghouse for earth sciences/environmental data and resources.
Global Land Cover Facility (University of Maryland) – Search for free, georeferenced satellite imagery using a user-friendly interface.
Earth Observing System (EOS) Data Gateway (NASA/USGS) -A web-portal for identifying and downloading earth science data products.
US National GAP Analysis Program - Range maps for plants and animals by state, as well as additional conservation information and data
US National Atlas - A clearinghouse for GIS data with an online mapping tool
PJ-WIN Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands Information Network
USDA Forest Service Inventory and Mapping Program data
DIRENET - Drought-Impacts on Regional Ecosystems Network
Impact of Climate Change and Land Use in the Southwestern U.S.
Fire Information for Resource Management System (University of Maryland, NASA)

News, photos and more
NASA Earth Observatory, Image of the Day
High Country News – A Paper for People who Care about the West
Grist Magazine – Gloom and Doom with a Sense of Humor
Climate Progress Blog
Real Climate Blog

The GC Toolkit Class (and some friends) had a 'behind the scenes' tour of the Biosphere on April 28, 2008. John Adams was our guide (far left on the photo, red shirt). Our thanks to Travis Huxman, Director of Research for facilitating the tour and to Nate Pierce who transported us from campus via the Biosphere van.

Lightning over Tucson, AZ during July, 2007

Education:

Ph.D. Student, Atmospheric Sciences (Minor: Global Change), University of Arizona
M.S., Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, 2007
B.S., Atmospheric Sciences (Minor: Mathematics), University of Arizona, 2003

Expertise:

• Synoptic Climatology
• Weather Forecasting and Analysis
• The North American Monsoon
• Regional Atmospheric Models
• Tropical Meteorology

Research Interests:

My research is primarily focused on the North American Monsoon (NAM) system and how we in the weather forecast community can improve our understanding of it. One of the ways that I have addressed this issue is by observing and analyzing transient synoptic scale features that traverse northern Mexico and the southwestern United States during the NAM season. The works of Drs. Douglas, Englehart, Castro and Mr. Pytlak suggested that these transient features were of great importance for moisture transport into the region, and my work later found that these features could be one of the main driving mechanisms during the season for major precipitation events. Prior studies have documented a teleconnection between the sea surface temperatures of the equatorial and northern Pacific Ocean and with the NAM system. My work concluded that this was indeed the case and was influential in bringing transient synoptic scale weather features into the region, such as those that caused the major Sabino Canyon flooding event and mudslides that followed.

Sabino Canyon Debris Flow from July 31, 2006; Courtesy of Chris Magirl.

Current research projects include: 1) Predictive Climate Indices to NAM Seasonal Precipitation, 2) Weather Analysis and Fire Risk Management for Early Monsoon Thunderstorms, 3) Integrating Data from the North American Monsoon Experiment to Improve Analysis and Forecasting.

I would like to acknowledge many of the my colleagues and agencies who have collaborated or funded the projects discussed: 1) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - National Weather Service (NWS) Office of Tucson, AZ, 2) the Technology and Research Initiative Fund (TRIF) through the University of Arizona Water Sustainability Institute, administered by the Board of Regents of the state of Arizona, and 3) the North American Monsoon Experience through the National Corporation of Atmospheric Research.

Affiliations:

AMS American Meteorological Society
GPSC Graduate and Professional Student Council
NSHS National Scholars Honor Society
NSCS National Society of Collegiate Scholars

Web Links:

National Weather Service - Tucson, AZ
Want to know what the weather could be like in Tucson, AZ (aside from hot)? Try this link for that useful bit of information.

Dr. Christopher L. Castro's homepage
My Advisor's homepage, with links to his work and presentations.

NOAA's Earth System Research Lab's Climate Indices
A few of the climate indices that I test for my work. These include the PNA, the NAO, the Nino 1+2, Nino 3.4, Nino 4, etc.

My personal homepage
My personal homepage, containing my contact information, presentations and publications that is updated regularly.

Me at Mount Kailash, western Tibet, July 2007.

Education:

PhD, Department of Geosciences, The University of Arizona, 2010
MS, Department of Geosciences, The University of Arizona, 2006
BA, Geology, The College of Wooster, 2003

What I Do:

The scientific consensus is that humans are rapidly transforming the Earth’s climate due to emissions of greenhouse gases. How can we expect the Earth’s climate to change in the future? With reliable predictions of future climate change, perhaps we can mitigate the costs and human suffering that droughts, floods, heat waves, and hurricanes can bring on society. We rely on computer models to tell us how future climate might change, but these models must be tested. One way to test the model simulations and validate their predictions is by comparing model simulations with observational records of temperature, precipitation, and other atmospheric variables. However, these observational records are usually short, only reliable for about a century. If we want to understand and simulate the full range of climate variability, we must also compare and test the models against proxy records of climate derived from tree-rings, corals, lake and ocean sediments, and ice cores.

My research uses lake sediments to reconstruct past climate variability of two important and large climate systems: the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Asian Monsoon. Understanding large-scale aspects of the climate system is important for the health and welfare of humankind because systems such as ENSO and the monsoon affect large portions of the Earth’s human population. An El Niño event can cause mudslides in California, wildfires in Indonesia, and drought in Australia, and a strong monsoon season can cause massive flooding and much human suffering in southeast Asian countries like India and Bangladesh. I am most concerned with climate variability on shorter timescales, since the climate change we will witness in the near future will not be part of a gradual, long-term trend, but will likely be abrupt and observable in a human lifetime. How can the monsoon or ENSO change in one human generation? In a century? What drives this type of variability? By answering questions like these, we will gain a better understanding and be able to predict future climate variability in a warmer world, and in turn help mitigate the effects of climate change on the world’s population.

Useful Links:

Department of Geosciences Environmental Studies Laboratory
My advisor's lab at The University of Arizona.

NOAA World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
Download paleoclimate data here.

Climate Explorer
This site is an extremely useful tool for downloading modern climate data, making maps, and understanding modern climate dynamics.

LDEO Data Library
This site contains a variety of climate and weather data.

The Onion
When grad school is getting to you...

DATE: Friday April 25th
TIME: Noon - 2pm
PLACE: ISPE

In addition to the usual good food, wacky door prizes, and stimulating conversation we will have another one of our GC Faculty speak:

Dr. Connie Woodhouse
Department of Geography & Regional Development

Title: Looking Backwards to Plan for the Future: Streamflow Reconstructions Applied to Water Resource Management"

Read about Connie here:
http://geog.arizona.edu/people/woodhouse.php

Don't forget to invite your advisors to the luncheon! and
to RSVP to Teresa Carochi
by Friday 18 for you and your advisor.