Climate Change for the Southern Coastal Plain James M. Vose Center for Integrated Forest Science USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
Climate Change for the Southern Coastal Plain
James M. Vose
Center for Integrated Forest Science USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
Today’s Talk….
• Overview and summary of potential changes
in climate for the coastal plain • Discussion of direct and indirect effects • Introduction to potential impacts and
vulnerabilities
Direct effects o Warming o Changing precipitation (amount and extremes) o Elevated CO2 o Sea level rise
Indirect effects o Fire o Insects and pathogens o Invasive species
Combined effects, stress complexes
Climate change effects on SE Coastal Plain forests
Changing Forests…Enduring Values
Drought severity will increase
Changing Forests…Enduring Values
From Burke et al. (2006) …the “hotter drought” (Millar and Stephenson 2015)
Projected Keetch-Byram drought index, based on temperature and precipitation changes for the end of the 21st century
Orange-red colors indicate areas with highest fire potential
Projected wildfire potential
Changing Forests…Enduring Values
Data from Liu et al. (2010)
Winter
Autumn Summer
Spring
Interactions of multiple stressors will accelerate with higher temperature and more droughts
Stress complexes for upland and coastal forests in the southern U.S.
Stress complexes will be affected by a warmer climate
Changing Forests…Enduring Values
From Don McKenzie
Understanding and Managing Forests in the Face of Climate Change
Challenges: • Responses to novel and extreme conditions
– Biological – Physical
• Multiple, co-occurring stresses (complexes)
Impacts and Vulnerabilities
Forests are adapted to climate variation and composition, structure, and function has been shaped by historical and contemporary climate and disturbance regimes
• varies among species and ecosystems • management has and can shape resilience and
resistance
Impacts and Vulnerabilities Forests in many areas in the eastern US are changing in response to recent climate trends and new disturbance regimes…
McEwan et al. 2011
• mesophication of eastern hardwood forest • altered vulnerability to future climatic conditions pine plantation vs. hardwood • more susceptible to threshold responses?
(Klos et al. 2009)
Fig. 2. Mean annual mortality rates by drought class for the (a) pine, (b) oak, and (c) mesophytic species groups. For each species group, the results of the least significant difference test are indicated with letter designations shown above each bar. Significant differences were determined using a P value of 0.05.
Millar and Stephenson (2015)
How will SE Coastal Forest Ecosystems Respond to New Disturbance Regimes?
Can we manage forests to change thresholds or keep ecosystem services once thresholds are crossed? Manage “mega-disturbance” occurrence? Manage “mega-disturbance” impacts by…. Managing species? Managing genetics? Managing structure?
Clark et al. (2016)
Conclusions
• Predicting climate futures are uncertain, but most models predict hotter and drier – the “hot drought”
• Forests are already being impacted by these environmental conditions (lower growth; higher mortality)
• It’s complicated – stresses are usually not individual, but rather a combination of stressors