%0 Journal Article %J Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists %D 2014 %T Adapting to climate change in California %A Davis, F.W. %A Chornesky, E.A. %X

Many aspects of the Californian approach to controlling the greenhouse gases that cause climate change now have a sufficient track record to provide potential models or lessons for national and even international action. In comparison, the state’s efforts on climate change adaptation, although multifaceted, are less well developed and thus far have focused largely on information sharing, impact assessments, and planning. Still, adaptation could advance more quickly in California than in many other regions, given relatively high public awareness and concern, extensive scientific information, a strong tradition of local and regional planning, and some enabling policies and institutions. Much more political support and sufficient financing will have to be mustered at state and local levels to enable new projects and initiatives to cope with sea level rise, water management, and ecosystem adaptation, not to mention public health and other key areas of concern. Even so, California’s initial efforts to adapt to unavoidable changes in climate may offer insights for other governments that will, inevitably, need to fashion their own adaptation strategies.

%B Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists %V 70 %G eng %& 62 %0 Journal Article %J Diversity and Distributions %D 2014 %T Bioclimatic velocity: The pace of species exposure to climate change %A Serra-Diaz, J.P %A Franklin, J. %A Ninyerola, M. %A Davis, F.W. %A Syphard, A.D. %A Regan, H.D. %A Ikegami, M. %X

Aim

To investigate the velocity of species-specific exposure to climate change for mid- and late 21st century and develop metrics that quantify exposure to climate change over space and time.

Location

California Floristic Province, south-western USA.

Methods

Occurrences from presence/absence inventories of eight Californian endemic tree species (Pinus balfouriana [Grev.&Balf.], Pinus coulteri [D.Don], Pinus muricata [D.Don.], Pinus sabiniana [D.Don], Quercus douglasii [Hook.&Arn.], Quercus engelmannii [Greene], Quercus lobata [Nee] and Quercus wislizeni [A.DC.]) were used to develop eight species distribution models (SDMs) for each species with the BIOMOD platform, and this ensemble was used to construct current suitability maps and future projections based on two global circulation models in two time periods [mid-century: 2041–2070 and late century (LC): 2071–2100]. From the resulting current and future suitability maps, we calculated a bioclimatic velocity as the ratio of temporal gradient to spatial gradient. We developed and compared eight metrics of temporal exposure to climate change for mid- and LC for each species.

Results

The velocity of species exposure to climate change varies across species and time periods, even for similarly distributed species. We find weak support among the species analysed for higher velocities in exposure to climate change towards the end of the 21st century, coinciding with harsher conditions. The variation in the pace of exposure was greater among species than for climate projections considered.

Main conclusions

The pace of climate change exposure varies depending on period of analysis, species and the spatial extent of conservation decisions (potential ranges versus current distributions). Translating physical climatic space into a biotic climatic space helps informing conservation decisions in a given time frame. However, the influence of spatial and temporal resolution on modelled species distributions needs further consideration in order to better characterize the dynamics of exposure and species-specific velocities.

 

%B Diversity and Distributions %V 20 %G eng %N 2 %& 169 %0 Generic %D 2014 %T Optimization in the utility maximization framework for conservation planning: a comparison of solution procedures in a study of multifunctional agriculture %A Kreitler, J. %A Stoms, D.M. %A Davis, F.W. %K conservation planning %G eng %U https://peerj.com/articles/690/#additional-information %R 10.7717/peerj.690/supp-1