Steve Cole
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0918
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov
RELEASE: 11-121
NASA AND PARTNERS FUND NEW CLIMATE IMPACT STUDIES ON SPECIES AND ECOSYSTEMS
WASHINGTON -- NASA is partnering with other federal agencies to fund
new research and applications efforts that will bring the global view
of climate from space down to Earth to benefit wildlife and key
ecosystems.
NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and Smithsonian Institution will provide $18 million
for 15 new research projects during the next four years.
Organizations across the United States in academia, government and
the private sector will study the response of different species and
ecosystems to climate changes and develop tools to better manage
wildlife and natural resources. The projects were selected from 151
proposals.
NASA's Earth Science Division in the Science Mission Directorate has
funded several ecosystem and biodiversity research projects during
recent years. This is the first time the agency has targeted research
investigating the intersection of climate and biological studies.
The wildlife species that will be studied include polar bears in
Greenland, bowhead whales in the Arctic Ocean, and migratory birds
and waterfowl in the United States. Other studies will focus on
species of commercial interest such as clams, oysters and other
bivalves in U.S. coastal waters, and Atlantic bluefin tuna in the
Gulf of Mexico.
To learn more about climatic effects on plants, researchers will focus
on the loss of cordgrass marshes in coastal wetlands of the
southeastern states. They also will examine the stresses to native
tree species, many of commercial value, across the western states and
Canada.
"We know very little about how the majority of species and ecosystems
will respond to environmental changes related to changing climates,"
said Woody Turner, manager of NASA's Ecological Forecasting program
in Washington. "These projects bring together NASA's global satellite
data of the physical environment with ground-based data on specific
species and ecosystems and computer modeling to detect and understand
biological responses to climate. As a result, we will improve our
management and mitigation of the impact of changing climate."
The studies will use long-term observations of Earth from space,
including data on sea surface temperature, vegetation cover,
rainfall, snow cover, sea ice and the variability in the microscopic
marine green plants that form the base of ocean food chains.
One study seeks to determine how waterfowl and forest bird populations
respond to extreme events such as long-term droughts, heat waves and
cold snaps. Wildlife biologists like Patricia Heglund of the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service in La Crosse, Wis., the leader of the
study, have several hypotheses, including lower reproduction rates
and adult mortality. Satellite data will be used to map the habitats
and identify extreme events in the continental United States.
Another study will seek to explain why the distribution of native tree
species across the western states and Canada is changing and why some
species are dying as the climate becomes progressively warmer and
drier. Scientists have used computer models to explain how
environmental stresses have affected tree species in the Pacific
Northwest. The new study, led by Richard Waring of Oregon State
University in Corvallis, will extend that research to the entire
Rocky Mountain west and 25 native tree species, including aspen and
lodgepole pine.
A project led by Mitchell Roffer of Roffer's Ocean Fishing Forecasting
Service in West Melbourne, Fla., aims to improve existing models to
predict spawning habitat of Atlantic bluefin and other migratory
tunas in the Gulf of Mexico. The model will assess possible effects
of future climate change scenarios on fish populations.
According to Turner, the most ambitious project in terms of scale will
use a global inventory of data from about 1,000 species, merged with
satellite and ground-based observations of the environment and
climate. These data will be used to assess climate's impact on
biodiversity during the past 40 years in two 20-year increments. The
study, led by Walter Jetz of Yale University, will focus on
land-based mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.
For a complete list of the new projects, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_partners.html
For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
-end-
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