News and Announcements
A Crowning Achievement
The Nature Conservancy plants 34,000 native red spruce trees to help bring back West Virginia’s mountaintop forests
Climate Science Center Research Funding Opportunity for FY 14
The U.S. Department of the Interior Northeast, South Central, and Southwest Climate Science Centers (CSCs) are seeking proposals for FY 2014. Proposals are invited for projects that support CSC science priorities.
New Online Tool Helps Producers Estimate Carbon Stowed in Soil
A new online tool , called COMET-FARM™, enables agricultural producers to calculate how much carbon their conservation actions can remove from the atmosphere.
Newest Version of Climate Funding Opportunities
This document provides a snapshot of currently available, climate-related funding opportunities compiled by NOAA and partners in the Great Lakes Region.
Protecting Southern Appalachian Wildlife in an Era of Climate Change
The Open Space Institute is pleased to announce the second round of funding through the Southern Cumberland Land Protection Fund, which will award grants and loans to conservation projects protecting habitat that facilitates wildlife adaptation to changes in climate and other environmental factors.
Designing reserves for biodiversity
What is the best way to design a new conservation reserve? There are multiple factors to consider, including species diversity, spatial extent, and future climate changes.
Forest Service Awards $44.2M to Conserve At-Risk Forests
Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell announced the award of $44.2 million in grants to permanently protect 16 working forests in 15 states, including a project that will protect 8,000 acres of working forestland in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and another project to protect 1,100-acres located in Franklin County, PA and containing a stretch of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.
Native Plants Boost Conservation Benefits, Strengthen Wildlife Populations
Native plants in many parts of the U.S. are struggling because of changes in land use and climate, posing problems for the wildlife species that depend on them for sustenance and sanctuary.
Beyond Season's End
A website created for wildlife and fisheries professionals confronting the threat of global climate change.
LCC National Council Convening
The U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution is currently convening the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC) National Council, and is currently accepting nominations for one LCC participant on the Council.
Virginia’s Climate Modeling and Species Vulnerability Assessment
The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is excited to announce the publication of Virginia’s Climate Modeling and Species Vulnerability Assessment: How Climate Data Can Inform Management and Conservation. This report is the culmination of over 4 years of effort by NWF, Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF), Conservation Management Institute, and Kutztown University to downscale climate data for Virginia and use that in a species modeling effort to project how a selections of species (wildlife, fish, and plants) may change their distribution across the landscape based on climate change.
Thomas Minney: The Nature Conservancy
Thomas Minney discusses the potential of the Appalachian LCC, how this organization can address large-scale issues like climate change, and the need to achieve common conservation goals.
Kimberly Terrell: Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Kimberly Terrell describes her work studying the biological constraints of salamanders to adjust to climate change and how the regional nature of the LCC can ensure efficiencies for conservation efforts as well as bring managers and researchers together to work towards common conservation goals.
Downscaling Scenarios of Climate Change Project to Map Entire Appalachian LCC Region
A DOI Southeast Climate Science Center funded project will be evaluating the latest generation of global climate models to generate scenarios of future change to climate, hydrology, and vegetation for the Southeastern U.S. as well as the entire range of the Appalachian LCC.
Observed Changes in Phenology Across the United States - Northeast
Phenology — the seasonal timing of life cycle events in plants and animals such as flowering, hibernation, and migration — has been linked to shifts in the timing of allergy seasons, public visitation to National Parks, and cultural festivals. Change in phenology, recognized as a bio-indicator of climate change impacts, has also been linked to increased wildfire activity and pest outbreak, shifts in species distributions, spread of invasive species, and changes in carbon cycling in forests. Phenological information can and already is being used to identify species vulnerable to climate change, to generate computer models of carbon sequestration, to manage invasive species, to forecast seasonal allergens, and to track disease vectors, such as mosquitoes and ticks, in human population centers.
EPA Releases Agency Plans for Adapting to a Changing Climate
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released its draft Climate Change Adaptation Implementation Plans for public review and comment. In support of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan and Executive Order on Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change announced today, the Implementation Plans provide detailed information about the actions EPA plans to take across the country to help communities adapt to a changing climate.
Interior Secretary Offers Vision for Conservation
Secretarial Order underscores LCC role and commitment to landscape-scale planning and design to conserve the Nation's land, water, wildlife and cultural resources in the face of climate change.
Executive Order -- Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change
President Obama signed an executive order that will begin to prepare the Nation for the impacts of climate change by undertaking actions to enhance climate preparedness and resilience.
The Nature Conservancy Releases Country-Level Temperature and Precipitation Data for Climate Resilience and Adaptation Planning
The Nature Conservancy has released a new country-level dataset for its online Climate Wizard mapping tool that enables users to visualize future climate conditions using the most recent modeled data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
What are Future Climate Projections for Precipitation and Temperature for Your County?
For the first time, maps and summaries of historical and projected temperature and precipitation changes for the 21st century for the continental U.S. are accessible at a county-by-county level on a website developed by the U.S. Geological Survey in collaboration with the College of Earth, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University.
