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Climate and Energy

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/100287
This digital collection includes presentations given at the 8th International Wildlife Ranching Symposium held in 2014 for the symposium theme: Climate and Energy.

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Browsing Climate and Energy by Author "Morisette, Jeffrey, moderator"

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    Climate change vulnerability and adpatation strategies for natural communities: pioloting methods in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014-09) Comer, Patrick, speaker; Morisette, Jeffrey, moderator; International Wildlife Ranching Symposium, producer
    Land managers need a better understanding of factors that contribute to climate change (CC) vulnerability of the natural resources they manage in order to formulate adaptation strategies. They also need more opportunities to collaborate with neighboring managers and stakeholders to develop common adaptation strategies. Analysis of natural communities shared across land ownerships provides one mechanism for this collaboration. NatureServe worked with public and private partners in the U.S. and Mexico to conduct CC vulnerability assessments of major upland and aquatic community types in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. This project piloted a new Habitat Climate Change Vulnerability Index (HCCVI), drawing on data from other research efforts. The HCCVI aims to implement a series of measures addressing climate change exposure and ecological resilience for each community type for its distribution within a given ecoregion. The combined relative scores for exposure and resilience determine the categorical estimate of climate change vulnerability by the year 2060 (i.e., 50 years into the future) for a community type. While the overall index score should be useful for regional and national priority-setting and reporting, the results of these individual analyses also provide insight for local managers for climate change adaptation. In this pilot effort, field specialists were gathered in a workshop setting to refine the assessments, clarify their thinking on CC scenarios and stressors, and document potential strategies along a continuum from immediate 'no regrets' actions to 'anticipated' or 'wait and watch' actions to monitor. By focusing on major natural community types, pragmatic strategies were identified.
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    Drought risk and adaptation in the Interior
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014-09) Morisette, Jeffrey, speaker; Morisette, Jeffrey, moderator; International Wildlife Ranching Symposium, producer
    Drought is part of the normal climate variability in the Great Plains and Intermountain Western United States, but recent severe droughts along with climate change projections have increased the interest and need for better understanding of drought science and decision making. The purpose of this study is to understand how the U.S. Department of the Interior's (DOI) federal land and resource managers and their stakeholders (i.e., National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribes, among others) are experiencing and dealing with drought in their landscapes. The Drought Risk and Adaptation in the Interior (DRAI) project is part of a DOI-sponsored North Central Climate Science Center (NC CSC) crosscutting science initiative on drought across the Center's three foundational science areas: 1. Physical climate, 2. Ecosystems impacts and responses, and 3. Human adaptation and decision making. The overarching goal is to learn more about drought within the DOI public lands and resource management in order to contribute to both the NC CSC regional science as well as providing managers and other decision makers with the most salient, credible, and legitimate research to support land and resource management decisions. Here we will present the project approach along with some initial insights (with a focus on grazing lands and related DOI/tribal resource management) learned from the research to date along with its utility for climate adaptation.
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    Hard choices in agriculture under climate uncertainty: risk & decision analysis applied to climate adaptation
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014-09) Travis, William R., speaker; Morisette, Jeffrey, moderator; International Wildlife Ranching Symposium, producer
    Land managers make decisions under great uncertainty, subject to climate variability, extreme events, and underlying climate change. Two cases are briefly described: A northern Great Plains wheat farmer expects value in switching from spring wheat to winter wheat because it pays more and offers better game bird habitat, but the switch depends on reduced chances of winter kill as the climate slowly warms. When does it pay to make the switch? Second, a rancher has to decide during the first year of drought whether to cull the herd or hold on, hoping that next year is better, a decision that involves contingent market conditions, feed prices, and effects on forage quality for the cattle and wildlife. The farmer faces a classic expected utility problem, with the added challenge that average conditions are not a good guide to the cost/loss prospects. The rangeland drought is a game theory problem because the rancher must consider not just the probability of drought next year, but also the actions of other ranchers this year, which affect both prices now and the potential costs of feed in the future. What information and decision support tools would help these land managers make choices under climate uncertainty?
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    Public and communal land considerations in response to climate changes: reflections from the US national climate assessment and the Great Plains region
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014-09) Ojima, Dennis, speaker; Morisette, Jeffrey, moderator; International Wildlife Ranching Symposium, producer
    Drought is a frequent feature in climate dynamics of the Great Plains. The manner in which drought has impacted various communities and livelihoods differ across the region and historically as drought intensity and changes in land and water resource management has changed over time. Recent assessments of drought impacts and response strategies have been completed for the Great Plains as part of the National Climate Assessment and will be presented in the context of private and communal land implications.
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    Wind power from Tribal lands: given uncertainties in hydropower
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014-09) Gough, Bob, speaker; Morisette, Jeffrey, moderator; International Wildlife Ranching Symposium, producer
    In the midst of accelerating climatic change and observed weather extremes due to long-term natural variation, as well as our more recent and all-too-efficient anthropogenic transfer of carbon from the earth to the atmosphere, Great Plains Indian Tribes see tremendous clean energy and economic development opportunities on the horizon for mitigation and adaptation literally blowing in the wind. Our centralized electrical energy generation capacity is highly water dependent and our transmission and distribution infrastructure, built over the last half-century, is strung out and exposed across the volatile Upper Great Plains. They are extremely vulnerable and highly susceptible to changes in precipitation and other weather variabilities over both the short and long-term. Our electrical generating capacity inextricably relies upon the surface water resources throughout the Missouri River basin to fuel the federal hydropower generators, and to spin and cool the conventional coal and nuclear thermal plants throughout the region. Our rural transmission and distribution systems that deliver electricity are exposed across vast distances and are extremely vulnerable to a variety of weather related disruptions. American Indian Reservations are also spread across this vast expanse where wind, one of America's most abundant renewable energy resources, can be readily tapped through both community-sized, and large, utility-scaled, distributed generation projects. The economic integration of this variable but abundant resource into the coal and hydropower dominated electrical system can benefit from better planning and forecasting in both the short and long term. This paper examines some critical planning and forecasting issues raised in this context.