Debate about the reality of climate change, its magnitude and its potential impacts, has got to the point where any signals have been almost obliterated by the noise. Can we glean anything useful from projections of future climate that will help us make better decisions concerning the future management of forest resources, in spite of the many uncertainties? Scenario analysis is a technique that can assist with decision-making in long-term forest management planning. Focusing on the boreal mixedwoods of Canada, I will report on downscaled past climate observations and future projections to attempt to summarize what we know, what we may be reasonably certain of, and what is possible but by no means certain. Moisture cycles and trends in Alberta forests Dave Sauchyn PARC University of Regina sauchyn@uregina.ca Global climate change is generally perceived and expressed as rising average temperatures. Changes in precipitation, runoff and soil moisture are at least as important, especially where availability of water limits economic and ecologic productivity, such as in Canada’s western interior. The trends projected by climate models may be emerging in streamflow records that integrate the water balance over large areas. Trends are less apparent in other hydroclimatic variables, where there is small ratio of signal to noise. The noise is dominated by strong interannual and decadal variability. It is most apparent in instrumental records of winter precipitation and snowmelt runoff, and in our tree-ring reconstructions of annual hydroclimate for the past millennium. Because large-scale ocean-atmosphere oscillations largely determine the tempo and magnitude of drought and excess moisture, the impacts of global warming on forest productivity will depend on changes in these teleconnections between warming oceans and precipitation over western North America. Challenges in assessing drought impacts on boreal aspen and mixedwood stands in western Canada E.H. (Ted) Hogg and Trisha Hook Natural Resources Canada Northern Forestry Centre , Drought-induced forest decline has emerged as a major risk for the future of forests around the world under a changing climate. Analyses of the climate record in western Canada indicate a significant warming trend (>2 ºC) over the past century and a pattern of severe, rotating droughts
Debate about the reality of climate change, its magnitude and its potential impacts, has got to the point where any signals have been almost obliterated by the noise. Can we glean anything useful from projections of future climate that will help us make better decisions concerning the future management of forest resources, in spite of the many uncertainties? Scenario analysis is a technique that can assist with decision-making in long-term forest management planning. Focusing on the boreal mixedwoods of Canada, I will report on downscaled past climate observations and future projections to attempt to summarize what we know, what we may be reasonably certain of, and what is possible but by no means certain. Moisture cycles and trends in Alberta forests Dave Sauchyn PARC University of Regina sauchyn@uregina.ca Global climate change is generally perceived and expressed as rising average temperatures. Changes in precipitation, runoff and soil moisture are at least as important, especially where availability of water limits economic and ecologic productivity, such as in Canada’s western interior. The trends projected by climate models may be emerging in streamflow records that integrate the water balance over large areas. Trends are less apparent in other hydroclimatic variables, where there is small ratio of signal to noise. The noise is dominated by strong interannual and decadal variability. It is most apparent in instrumental records of winter precipitation and snowmelt runoff, and in our tree-ring reconstructions of annual hydroclimate for the past millennium. Because large-scale ocean-atmosphere oscillations largely determine the tempo and magnitude of drought and excess moisture, the impacts of global warming on forest productivity will depend on changes in these teleconnections between warming oceans and precipitation over western North America. Challenges in assessing drought impacts on boreal aspen and mixedwood stands in western Canada E.H. (Ted) Hogg and Trisha Hook Natural Resources Canada Northern Forestry Centre , Drought-induced forest decline has emerged as a major risk for the future of forests around the world under a changing climate. Analyses of the climate record in western Canada indicate a significant warming trend (>2 ºC) over the past century and a pattern of severe, rotating droughts
boreal%20mixedwoods%202012%20website%20package%20june%207%202012.docx