Publications
Listed here are publications, reports and articles by the Land Change Science Program in the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area.
Filter Total Items: 1145
Evaluating natural experiments in ecology: Using synthetic controls in assessments of remotely sensed land treatments Evaluating natural experiments in ecology: Using synthetic controls in assessments of remotely sensed land treatments
Many important ecological phenomena occur on large spatial scales and/or are unplanned and thus do not easily fit within analytical frameworks that rely on randomization, replication, and interspersed a priori controls for statistical comparison. Analyses of such large‐scale, natural experiments are common in the health and econometrics literature, where techniques have been developed to...
Authors
Stephen Fick, Travis Nauman, Colby Brungard, Michael Duniway
Increased burning in a warming climate reduces carbon uptake in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem despite productivity gains Increased burning in a warming climate reduces carbon uptake in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem despite productivity gains
1. The effects of changing climate and disturbance on mountain forest carbon stocks vary with tree species distributions and over elevational gradients. Warming can increase carbon uptake by stimulating productivity at high elevations but also enhance carbon release by increasing respiration and the frequency, intensity, and size of wildfires. 2. To understand the consequences of climate...
Authors
Paul D. Henne, Todd Hawbaker, Robert Scheller, Feng Zhao, Hong He, Wenru Xu, Zhiliang Zhu
Increased typhoon activity in the Pacific deep tropics driven by Little Ice Age circulation changes Increased typhoon activity in the Pacific deep tropics driven by Little Ice Age circulation changes
The instrumental record reveals that tropical cyclone activity is sensitive to oceanic and atmospheric variability on inter-annual and decadal scales. However, our understanding of the influence of climate on tropical cyclone behaviour is restricted by the short historical record and the sparseness of prehistorical reconstructions, particularly in the western North Pacific, where coastal
Authors
James Bramante, Murray Ford, Paul Kench, Andrew Ashton, Michael Toomey, Richard Sullivan, Kristopher Karnauskas, Caroline Ummenhofer, Jeffrey Donnelly
Spatial variability in seasonal snowpack trends across the Rio Grande headwaters (1984 - 2017) Spatial variability in seasonal snowpack trends across the Rio Grande headwaters (1984 - 2017)
This study evaluated the spatial variability of trends in simulated snowpack properties across the Rio Grande headwaters of Colorado using the SnowModel snow evolution modeling system. SnowModel simulations were performed using a grid resolution of 100 m and 3-hourly time step over a 34-yr period (1984–2017). Atmospheric forcing was provided by phase 2 of the North American Land Data...
Authors
Graham A. Sexstone, Colin Penn, Glen Liston, Kelly Gleason, C. Moeser, David Clow
Phasing of millennial-scale climate variability in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans Phasing of millennial-scale climate variability in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans
New radiocarbon and sedimentological results from the Gulf of Alaska document recurrent millennial-scale episodes of reorganized Pacific Ocean ventilation synchronous with rapid Cordilleran Ice Sheet discharge, indicating close coupling of ice-ocean dynamics spanning the past 42,000 years. Ventilation of the intermediate-depth North Pacific tracks strength of the Asian monsoon...
Authors
Maureen Walczak, Alan Mix, Ellen Cowan, Stewart Fallon, Keith Fitfield, Jay Alder, Jianghui Du, Brian Haley, Tim Hobern, June Padman, Summer Praetorius, Andreas Schmittner, Joseph Stoner, Sarah Zellers
Historically unprecedented Northern Gulf of Mexico hurricane activity from 650 to 1250 CE Historically unprecedented Northern Gulf of Mexico hurricane activity from 650 to 1250 CE
Hurricane Michael (2018) was the first Category 5 storm on record to make landfall on the Florida panhandle since at least 1851 CE (Common Era), and it resulted in the loss of 59 lives and $25 billion in damages across the southeastern U.S. This event placed a spotlight on recent intense (exceeding Category 4 or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) hurricane landfalls, prompting...
Authors
Jessica Rodysill, Jeffrey Donnelly, Richard Sullivan, Philip Lane, Michael Toomey, Jonathan Woodruff, Andrea Hawkes, Dana MacDonald, Nicole d’Entremont, Kelly McKeon, Elizabeth Wallace, Peter van Hengstum
Ryder Glacier in northwest Greenland is shielded from warm Atlantic water by a bathymetric sill Ryder Glacier in northwest Greenland is shielded from warm Atlantic water by a bathymetric sill
The processes controlling advance and retreat of outlet glaciers in fjords draining the Greenland Ice Sheet remain poorly known, undermining assessments of their dynamics and associated sea-level rise in a warming climate. Mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet has increased six-fold over the last four decades, with discharge and melt from outlet glaciers comprising key components of this...
Authors
Martin Jakobsson, Larry Mayer, Johan Nilsson, Christian Stranne, Brian Calder, Matthew O’Regan, J. Farrell, Thomas Cronin, Volker Bruchert, Julek Chawarski, Bjorn Eriksson, Jonas Fredriksson, Laura Gemery, Anna Glueder, Felicity Holmes, Kevin Jerram, Nina Kirchner, Alan Mix, Julia Muchowski, Abhay Prakash, Brendan Reilly, Brett Thornton, Adam Ulfsbo, Elizabeteh Weidner, Henning Akesson, Tamara Handl, Emelie Stahl, Lee-Gray Boze, Sam Reed, Gabriel West, June Padman
Summer runoff generation in foothill catchments of the Colorado Front Range Summer runoff generation in foothill catchments of the Colorado Front Range
Climatic shifts, disturbances, and land-use change can alter hydrologic flowpaths, water quality, and water supply to downstream communities. Prior research investigating streamflow generation processes in mountainous areas has largely focused on high-elevation alpine and subalpine catchments; less is known about these processes in lower-elevation foothills and montane catchments. In...
Authors
Isaac Bukoski, Sheila Murphy, Andrew Birch, Holly Barnard
Signatures of hydrologic function across the critical zone observatory network Signatures of hydrologic function across the critical zone observatory network
Despite a multitude of small catchment studies, we lack a deep understanding of how variations in critical zone architecture lead to variations in hydrologic states and fluxes. This study characterizes hydrologic dynamics of 15 catchments of the U.S. Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) network where we hypothesized that our understanding of subsurface structure would illuminate patterns of...
Authors
Adam Wlostowski, Noah Molotch, Suzanne Anderson, Susan Brantley, Jon Chorover, David Dralle, Praveen Kumar, Li Li, Kathleen Lohse, John Mallard, Jennifer McIntosh, Sheila Murphy, Eric Parrish, Mohammad Safeeq, Mark Seyfried, Yuning Shi, Ciaran Harman
From pools to flow: The PROMISE framework for new insights on soil carbon cycling in a changing world From pools to flow: The PROMISE framework for new insights on soil carbon cycling in a changing world
Soils represent the largest terrestrial reservoir of organic carbon, and the balance between soil organic carbon (SOC) formation and loss will drive powerful carbon‐climate feedbacks over the coming century. To date, efforts to predict SOC dynamics have rested on pool‐based models, which assume classes of SOC with internally homogenous physicochemical properties. However, emerging...
Authors
Bonnie Waring, Benjamin Sulman, Sasha C. Reed, A. Smith, Colin Averill, Courtney Creamer, Daniela Cusack, Steven Hall, Julie Jastrow, Kenneth Kemner, Markus Kleber, Xiao-Jun Liu, Jennifer Pett-Ridge, Marjorie S. Schulz
Getting to the root of plant‐mediated methane emissions and oxidation in a thermokarst bog Getting to the root of plant‐mediated methane emissions and oxidation in a thermokarst bog
Vascular plants are important in the wetland methane cycle, but their effect on production, oxidation, and transport has high uncertainty, limiting our ability to predict emissions. In a permafrost‐thaw bog in Interior Alaska, we used plant manipulation treatments, field‐deployed planar optical oxygen sensors, direct measurements of methane oxidation, and microbial DNA analyses to...
Authors
Jesse Turner, Colby Moorberg, Andrea Wong, Kathleen Shea, Mark Waldrop, Merritt Turetsky, Rebecca Neumann
Soil respiration response to rainfall modulated by plant phenology in a montane meadow, East River, Colorado, USA Soil respiration response to rainfall modulated by plant phenology in a montane meadow, East River, Colorado, USA
Soil respiration is a primary component of the terrestrial carbon cycle. However, predicting the response of soil respiration to climate change remains a challenge due to the complex interactions between environmental drivers, especially plant phenology, temperature, and soil moisture. In this study, we use a 1‐D diffusion‐reaction model to calculate depth‐resolved CO2 production rates...
Authors
Mathew Winnick, Corey Lawrence, Maeve McCormick, Jennifer Druhan, Kate Maher