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National News Release: Study confirms age of oldest fossil human footprints in North America

Two new lines of evidence support the 21,000 to 23,000-year age estimate of the footprints first described and dated in 2021

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What's it like to be a Climate Research and Development scientist?

Check out our "Day in the Life" video!

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USGS looks back 2,000 years to study the relationship between hurricanes and climate

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The Glacier - Climate Connection

The story of the U.S. Geological Survey Benchmark Glacier Project, one of the longest running studies of glaciers on Earth

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The National Climate Change Viewer (NCCV)

A tool that helps land managers and decision makers plan for climate change

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Paleoclimate Research

Lessons from the Past, Roadmap for the Future

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Climate Research and Development Program

The Climate Research and Development (Climate R&D) Program strives to advance the understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological components of the Earth system, the causes and consequences of climate and land use change, and the vulnerability and resilience of the Earth system to such changes.

Earth Science Matters Newsletter

Lassiter Swamp, North Carolina
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Climate history, land cover and land surface data and models are vital for assessing the impacts of climate change, evaluating ecosystem status and health, understanding spatial patterns of biodiversity, and informing land use planning. 

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Earth Science Matters - Volume 17, Fall 2023

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Going to Extremes to Uncover the Secrets of Dinosaur's Ponderosa Pine

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Climate R&D Poster Sessions and Presentations at the 2023 AGU Meeting

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Publications

Polar bear's range dynamics and survival in the Holocene

Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is the apex predator of the Arctic, largely dependent on sea-ice. The expected disappearance of the ice cover of the Arctic seas by the mid 21st century is predicted to cause a dramatic decrease in the global range and population size of the species. To place this scenario against the backdrop of past distribution changes and their causes, we use a fossil dataset to in
Authors
Heikki Seppä, Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz, Beth Elaine Caissie, Marc Macias Fauria
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Climate Research and Development Program, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center

Upscaling wetland methane emissions from the FLUXNET-CH4 Eddy Covariance Network (UpCH4 v1.0): Model development, network assessment, and budget comparison

Wetlands are responsible for 20%–31% of global methane (CH4) emissions and account for a large source of uncertainty in the global CH4 budget. Data-driven upscaling of CH4 fluxes from eddy covariance measurements can provide new and independent bottom-up estimates of wetland CH4 emissions. Here, we develop a six-predictor random forest upscaling model (UpCH4), trained on 119 site-years of eddy cov
Authors
Gavin McNicol, Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, Zutao Ouyang, Sarah Knox, Zhang Zhen, Tuula Aalto, Sheel Bansal, Kuang-Yu Chang, Min Chen, Kyle Delwiche, Sarah Feron, Mathias Goeckede, Jinxun Liu, Avni Malhotra, Joe R. Melton, William Riley, Rodrigo Vargas, Kunxiaojia Yuan, Qing Yang, Qing Zhu, Pavel Alekseychik, Mika Aurela, David P. Billesbach, David I. Campbell, Jiquan Chen, Housen Chu, Ankur Desai, Eugenie Euskirchen, Jordan Goodrich, Timothy Griffis, Manuel Helbig, Takashi Hirano, Hiroki Iwata, Gerald Jurasinski, John King, Franziska Koebsch, Randall Kolka, Ken Krauss, Annalea Lohila, Ivan Mammarella, Mats Nilson, Asko Noormets, Walter Oechel, Matthias Peichl, Torsten Sachs, Ayaka Sakabe, Christopher Schulze, Oliver Sonnentag, Ryan C. Sullivan, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Masahito Ueyama, Timo Vesala, Eric Ward, Christian Wille, Guan Xhuan Wong, Donatella Zona, Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Benjamin Poulter, Robert B. Jackson
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Climate Research and Development Program, Western Geographic Science Center

Estuarine salinity extremes: Using the Coastal Salinity Index to quantify the role of droughts, floods, hurricanes, and freshwater flow alteration

In the face of accelerating climate change, advancing understanding of how extreme climatic events influence estuarine salinities can help to inform resource management. Extreme salinities driven by droughts, hurricanes, floods, and freshwater flow alterations can lead to ecological transformations in estuarine ecosystems. Here, we applied the Coastal Salinity Index (CSI; Conrads and Darby 2017) t
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Laura Feher, Michael Osland, Christopher Swarzenski
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Research and Development Program, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center
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Drying soil samples in the lab

Regional Assessment of Drought Impacts on Soils (RADIS)

Soils are the foundation of terrestrial ecosystems. They provide critical services including supplying a substrate and the nutrients necessary for plant growth, retaining moisture from precipitation, filtering contaminants from percolating waters, and acting as a sink of carbon. Healthy soils are key to sustaining both human and ecosystem health. However, global- and regional-scale disturbances...
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Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Research and Development Program, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, Southwest Biological Science Center
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Regional Assessment of Drought Impacts on Soils (RADIS)

Soils are the foundation of terrestrial ecosystems. They provide critical services including supplying a substrate and the nutrients necessary for plant growth, retaining moisture from precipitation, filtering contaminants from percolating waters, and acting as a sink of carbon. Healthy soils are key to sustaining both human and ecosystem health. However, global- and regional-scale disturbances...
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Bear Lake, Colorado

Did we start the fire? Climate, Fire and Humans

The past decade encompasses some of the most extensive fire activity in recorded history. An area the size of Vermont (~24,000 km2) burned in a single Siberian fire in the summer of 2019 (Kehrwald et al., 2020 and references therein) while Australia, Indonesia and the Amazon have all experienced their most intense fires in recorded history (van Wees et al, 2021 and references therein). As more...
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Climate Research and Development Program, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center
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Did we start the fire? Climate, Fire and Humans

The past decade encompasses some of the most extensive fire activity in recorded history. An area the size of Vermont (~24,000 km2) burned in a single Siberian fire in the summer of 2019 (Kehrwald et al., 2020 and references therein) while Australia, Indonesia and the Amazon have all experienced their most intense fires in recorded history (van Wees et al, 2021 and references therein). As more...
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patch of burned conifers in California

Response of plant, microbial, and soil functions to drought and fire in California

California is experiencing changes in precipitation and wildfire regimes. Longer, hotter fire seasons along with extremes in precipitation are expected to continue. Not only do these disturbances affect the productivity and resilience of ecosystems, they also directly impact human health and wellbeing. Soils hold an immense amount of our terrestrial carbon pool, and the microorganisms and minerals...
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Climate Research and Development Program, Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center
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Response of plant, microbial, and soil functions to drought and fire in California

California is experiencing changes in precipitation and wildfire regimes. Longer, hotter fire seasons along with extremes in precipitation are expected to continue. Not only do these disturbances affect the productivity and resilience of ecosystems, they also directly impact human health and wellbeing. Soils hold an immense amount of our terrestrial carbon pool, and the microorganisms and minerals...
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