Technical Support for Partners

The Northwest Climate Conference annually brings together researchers and practitioners from around the Pacific Northwest to discuss scientific results, challenges, and solutions related to climate impacts on people, natural resources, and infrastructure in the region. It is the region's premier opportunity for a cross-disciplinary exchange of knowledge and ideas about regional climate...

The Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers provide drinking water to millions of people in the Southwest and South Central U.S. Snowmelt accounts for 70% of streamflow in these rivers, meaning that water use downstream is directly impacted by snow accumulation and snowmelt patterns in the mountains. Mountain forests are a critical part of the hydrologic cycle that feeds these rivers, providing...

Phenology, or the timing of the annual cycles of plants and animals, is extremely sensitive to changes in climate. We know that plants and animals may adjust the timing of certain phenological events, such as tree flowering or migration, based on changes in weather. However, it’s important that we also understand how the timing of phenological events is changing over longer time frames...

Invasive plants are a major land management problem in the Western U.S. Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is the most prominent and problematic invader in cold deserts, with negative effects on rangeland fire patterns, wildlife habitats, and forage/vegetation. Red brome (B. madritensis) is an invader in the Mojave Desert, and can similarly introduce a new fire patterns to sensitive warm...

In many places around the world, spring events, like warming temperatures, are coming earlier and fall events are coming later than they have in the past. These changes have implications for the phenology, or the timing of natural life events (e.g. the timing of plant flowering in Spring or leaves falling in Autumn), of many plant species. However, not all species and regions are...

Alaska’s Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) and Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD) provide essential habitat for wildlife of management interest, including diverse communities of shorebirds and waterfowl. The low-lying ACP region is located on the North Slope of Alaska, and is rich with shallow lakes and ponds that form as a result of permafrost freeze-thaw cycles. This region is a primary nesting site...

Wildfires scorched 10 million acres across the United States in 2015, and for the first time on record, wildfire suppression costs topped $2 billion. Wildfire danger modeling is an important tool for understanding when and where wildfires will occur, and recent work by our team in the South Central United States has shown wildfire danger models may be improved by incorporating soil...

Many inland waters across the United States are experiencing warming water temperatures. The impacts of this warming on aquatic ecosystems are significant in many areas, causing problems for fisheries management, as many economically and ecologically important fish species are experiencing range shifts and population declines. Fisheries and natural resource managers need timely and...

Communities, resource managers, and decision makers in Arctic Alaska are in need of scientific information to base important decisions related to anticipating and adapting to changes in temperature and precipitation. Since its inception in 2011, the Alaska Climate Science Center (AK CSC) and its partners have produced a variety of scientific products and datasets aimed at supporting this...

Climate change impacts on water resources in the Pacific Northwest are predicted to have transformational effects on agriculture. Loss of winter snow pack, reduced summer stream flows, and increased summer temperatures are all phenomena that have already been observed, and are expected to worsen over this century. Research is ongoing in the Northwest to understand agriculture practices...

Scientists, planners, policy makers and other decision-makers in the South Central U.S. want to understand the potential impacts of changes in climate, precipitation, and land-use patterns on natural and cultural resources. Though the potential impacts of climate change can be modeled to help decision-makers plan for future conditions, these models rarely incorporate changes in land-use...

The North Central Climate Science Center (NC CSC) is committed to bringing the best possible climate science to bear in order to inform decisions made by Department of the Interior (DOI) planners and other land and resource managers across the country. To help accomplish this mission, key partnerships have been established between the NC CSC and the DOI Landscape Conservation...