Publications
Listed here are publications, reports and articles by the Land Change Science Program in the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area.
Filter Total Items: 1284
Tidal wetland resilience to increased rates of sea level rise in the Chesapeake Bay: Introduction to the special feature Tidal wetland resilience to increased rates of sea level rise in the Chesapeake Bay: Introduction to the special feature
The papers in this Special Feature are the result of the first Marsh Resilience Summit in the Chesapeake Bay region, which occurred in February 2019. The Chesapeake Bay region has one of the highest rates of relative sea level rise in the U.S., jeopardizing over 1000 km2 of tidal wetlands along with other coastal lands. The goal of the Summit and this collection of articles is to analyze...
Authors
Taryn A Sudol, Gregory B. Noe, Denise J Reed
Expert assessment of future vulnerability of the global peatland carbon sink Expert assessment of future vulnerability of the global peatland carbon sink
The carbon balance of peatlands is predicted to shift from a sink to a source this century. However, peatland ecosystems are still omitted from the main Earth system models that are used for future climate change projections, and they are not considered in integrated assessment models that are used in impact and mitigation studies. By using evidence synthesized from the literature and an...
Authors
Julie Loisel, A.V. Gallego-Sala, M.J. Amesbury, G. Magnan, G. Anshari, D. W. Beilman, J. Blewett, J. C. Benevides, P. Camill, D. J. Charman, S. Chawchai, A. Hedgpeth, T. Kleinen, A. Korhola, D. Large, J. Muller, C. A. Mansilla, S. van Bellen, J. B. West, Z. Yu, J. L. Bubier, M. Garneau, T. Moore, A. B. K. Sannel, M. Väliranta, S. Page, M. Bechtold, V. Brovkin, L. E. S. Cole, J. P. Chanton, T. R. Christensen, M. A. Davies, F. De Vleeschouwer, S.A. Finkelstein, S. Frolking, M. Galka, L. Gandois, N. Girkin, .L.I. Harris, A. Heinemeyer, A.M. Hoyt, Miriam C. Jones, F. Joos, S. Juutinen, K. Kaiser, M. Lamentowicz, T. Larmola, M. Leifeld, A. Lohila, A.M. Milner, Kari Minkkinen, P. Moss, B.D.A. Naafs, J. Nichols, J. O'Donnell, R. Payne, M. Philben, S. Pilo, A. Quillet, A.S. Ratnayake, T.P. Roland, S. Sjogersten, Oliver Sonnentag, G.T. Swindles, W. Swinnen, J. Talbott, C. C. Treat, A.C. Valach, J. Wu
Soils and paleosols Soils and paleosols
Soils are naturally occurring bodies that form in the interface between the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. They are the medium for much of the Earth's plant and animal growth. Soil morphology and how it evolves are functions of the soil-forming factors of climate, organisms, relief, parent material, and time. The expression of soil morphology takes the form of layers...
Authors
Daniel R. Muhs
Forest restoration and fuels reduction: Convergent or divergent? Forest restoration and fuels reduction: Convergent or divergent?
For over 20 years, forest fuel reduction has been the dominant management action in western US forests. These same actions have also been associated with the restoration of highly altered frequent-fire forests. Perhaps the vital element in the compatibility of these treatments is that both need to incorporate the salient characteristics that frequent fire produced—variability in...
Authors
Scott L. Stephens, Mike A. Battaglia, Derek J. Churchill, Brandon M. Collins, Michelle Coppoletta, Chad M. Hoffman, Jamie M. Lydersen, Malcolm P. North, Russell A. Parsons, Scott M. Ritter, Jens T. Stevens
Climate and Ecological Disturbance Analysis of Engelmann spruce and Douglas fir in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Climate and Ecological Disturbance Analysis of Engelmann spruce and Douglas fir in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
The effects of anthropogenic climate change are apparent in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), USA, with forest die-off, insect outbreaks, and wildfires impacting forest ecosystems. A long-term perspective would enable assessment of the historical range of variability in forest ecosystems and better determination of recent forest dynamics and historical thresholds. The objectives...
Authors
Brittany Rinaldi, R. Stockton Maxwell, Thomas Callahan, Rebecca Lynn Brice, Karen Heeter, Grant L. Harley
Evaluation of Arctic warming in mid-Pliocene climate simulations Evaluation of Arctic warming in mid-Pliocene climate simulations
Palaeoclimate simulations improve our understanding of the climate, inform us about the performance of climate models in a different climate scenario, and help to identify robust features of the climate system. Here, we analyse Arctic warming in an ensemble of 16 simulations of the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (mPWP), derived from the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project Phase 2 (PlioMIP2)...
Authors
Wesley de Nooijer, Qiong Zhang, Qiang Li, Qiang Zhang, Xiangyu Li, Zhongshi Zhang, Chuncheng Guo, Kerim H Nisancioglu, Alan M Haywood, Julia C. Tindall, Harry J. Dowsett, Christian Stepanek, Gerrit Lohman, Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, Ran Feng, Linda E Sohl, Mark Chandler, Ning Tan, Camille Contoux, Gilles Ramstein, Michiel Baatsen, Anna S von der Heydt, Deepak Chandan, W. Richard Peltier, A. Abe-Ouchi, W-L Chan, Youichi Kamae, Chris M Brierley
A comparison of plant communities in restored, old field, and remnant coastal prairies A comparison of plant communities in restored, old field, and remnant coastal prairies
Temperate grasslands are experiencing worldwide declines due to habitat conversion. Grassland restoration efforts are employed to compensate for these losses. However, there is a need to better understand the ecological effects of grassland restoration and management practices. We investigated the effects of three different grassland management regimes on plant communities of coastal...
Authors
Laura Feher, Larry Allain, Michael Osland, Elisabeth Pigott, Christopher Reid, Nicholas Latiolais
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 E. Fick, Travis W. Nauman, Colby C. Brungard, Michael C. 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 M. Scheller, Feng S Zhao, Hong S 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 F Bramante, Murray Ford, Paul Kench, Andrew Ashton, Michael Toomey, Richard Sullivan, Kristopher Karnauskas, Caroline C. Ummenhofer, Jeffrey P. 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 A. Penn, Glen Liston, Kelly Gleason, C. David Moeser, David W. 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 R. Alder, Jianghui Du, Brian Haley, Tim Hobern, June Padman, Summer K. Praetorius, Andreas Schmittner, Joseph Stoner, Sarah Zellers