Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK)
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Our Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center's priority is to continue the important work of the Department of the Interior and the USGS, while also maintaining the health and safety of our employees and community. Based on guidance from the White House, the CDC, and state and local authorities, we are shifting our operations to a virtual mode and have minimal staffing within our offices. If you need additional assistance, please contact Claudia Regan at cregan@usgs.gov or Judy O'Dwyer at jodwyer@usgs.gov.
NOROCK in the News
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Climate & InvasivesNOROCK Quick Links
Check out our most up-to-date data, events and science.
Retreat of Glaciers in Glacier National Park
Glacier Repeat Photography Project
NOROCK ScienceNews
IGBST Public Notifications and Resources
As part of ongoing efforts required under the 2016 Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Conservation Strategy to monitor the population of grizzly bears in the Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) captures and monitors grizzly bears for research and monitoring purposes. Here you will find capture notifications for the 2020 field season.
Detecting Invasive and Rare Species with the National Streamflow Network
Two recently published papers suggest the integration of environmental DNA, or eDNA, sampling at select National Streamflow Network streamgages in the U.S. Northwest is feasible.
An Integrated Framework for Ecological Drought Across Riverscapes of North America
Climate change is increasing extreme droughts events, posing a threat to freshwater ecosystems, particularly with human demands for diminishing water supplies.
Publications
Increased drought severity tracks warming in the United States’ largest river basin
Across the Upper Missouri River Basin, the recent drought of 2000 to 2010, known as the “turn-of-the-century drought,” was likely more severe than any in the instrumental record including the Dust Bowl drought. However, until now, adequate proxy records needed to better understand this event with regard to long-term variability have been lacking....
Martin, Justin; Pederson, Gregory T.; Woodhouse, Connie A.; Cook, Edward R.; McCabe, Gregory J.; Anchukaitis, Kevin J.; Wise, Erika K.; Erger, Patrick; Dolan, Larry S.; McGuire, Marketa; Gangopadhyay, Subhrendu; Chase, Katherine J.; Littell, Jeremy S.; Gray, Stephen; St. George, Scott; Friedman, Jonathan M.; Sauchyn, David J.; St. Jacques, Jeannine-Marie; King, John C. Parsing complex terrain controls on mountain glacier response to climate forcing
Glaciers are a key indicator of changing climate in the high mountain landscape. Glacier variations across a mountain range are ultimately driven by regional climate forcing. However, changes also reflect local, topographically driven processes such as snow avalanching, snow wind-drifting, and radiation shading as well as the initial glacier...
Florentine, Caitlyn Elizabeth; Harper, Joel T.; Fagre, Daniel B. Dynamics, variability, and change in seasonal precipitation reconstructions for North America
Cool and warm season precipitation totals have been reconstructed on a gridded basis for North America using 439 tree-ring chronologies correlated with December-April totals and 547 different chronologies correlated with May-July totals. These discrete seasonal predictor chronologies are not significantly correlated with the alternate season and...
Stahle, David W.; Cook, Edward R; Burnette, Dorian J; Torbenson, Max C.A.; Howard, Ian M; Griffin, Daniel; Villanueva Diaz, Jose; Cook, Benjamin I.; Williams, Park A.; Watson, Emma; Sauchyn, David J.; Pederson, Neil; Woodhouse, Connie A.; Pederson, Gregory T.; Meko, David M.; Coulthard, Bethany; Crawford, Christopher J.