Article
Agreement and uncertainty among climate change impact models: A synthesis of sagebrush steppe vegetation projections
bioRxiv
(2020)
Abstract
Ecologists have built numerous models to project how climate change will impact rangeland vegetation, but these projections are difficult to validate, making their utility for land management planning unclear. In the absence of direct validation, researchers can ask whether projections from different models are consistent. High consistency across models based on different assumptions and emission scenarios would increase confidence in using projections for planning. Here, we analyzed 42 models of climate change impacts on sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.), cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.), pinyon-juniper (Pinus L. spp. and Juniperus L. spp.), and forage production on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in the United States Intermountain West. These models consistently projected the potential for pinyon-juniper declines and forage production increases. In contrast, cheatgrass models mainly projected no climate change impacts, while sagebrush models projected no change in most areas and declines in southern extremes. In most instances, vegetation projections from high and low emissions scenarios differed only slightly.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2020
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.16.154989
Citation Information
Peter B. Adler. "Agreement and uncertainty among climate change impact models: A synthesis of sagebrush steppe vegetation projections" bioRxiv (2020) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/peter_adler/194/