1. Community vulnerability and climate change Jason Kreitler, USGS

2. Various projects ongoing Geography of climate change – mostly ecological – Vulnerability and how to adapt? Community vulnerability to wildland fire – Socioecological – Less climate change

3. Impacts of climate change on communities Important general questions: – Is climate changing? – How, where, and at what rate? – What are the effects? – What are the threats? – How do those threats affect people & communities? – Changes in magintude and timing of temp & precip, vegetation distrubution and phenology – Drought, changes in severity and length of fire season, flooding, sea level rise, snowmelt timing – Direct exposure to threats, changes to agricultural production, changes in ecosystem services, cultural disruption, economic disruption, conflict

4. Global CO2 emissions – IPCC 4 th assessment Raupach et al. 2007 PNAS A2 B1: stabilizing population, rapid technology conversion growing population, high carbon energy sources

5. IPCC 2007, Fig. 10.4 Projections of future temperature – IPCC 4 th assessment A2B1

6. Bay Area climate summer max temperature precipitation water deficit winter min temperature PRISM climate layers downscaled to 270 m by Al and Lorrie Flint, USS

7. Climatic Water Deficit: excess evaporative demand relative to available water PET depends on temperature and insolation Water availability depends on precipitation, soil storage and runoff CWD courtesy: Al and Lorrie Flint, USGS see Stephenson 1998 J. Biogeog.

8. Diana Stalberg et al. 2010 PLoS ONE (PRBO)Will Cornwell et al. in prep. (UC Berkeley) Several, independent approaches to vegetation modeling agree: future climates favor shrub and grassland at the expense of forest ‘Random forest’ model of CalVeg types 800 m resolution, UCSC regional climate model Predictive vegetation modeling of Bay Area vegetation 270 m downscaled climate, GFDL mid-century future forest remaining forest  woodland forest  shrubland

9. Relative probability of vegetation transition (GFDL A2, mid-century vs. present) The vulnerability of vegetation types is very patchy: high probabilities of change occur where vegetation patches are near the edge of their climate envelope W. Cornwell et al. in prep.

10. Native vegetation transitions vs. alien invasions vegetation transitions depend on: 1)mortality of existing mature plants 2)propagule sources for new species source: Larry Workman QIN, Panoramio.com ?

11. Agents of mortality: Disease source: UC Davis; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070815145316.htmhttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070815145316.htm Sudden oak death source: Center for Invasive Species Research UC Riverside

12. Agents of mortality: Drought and pests piñon pine mortality credit: Craig Allen, USGS

13. Agents of mortality: Fire Historical probability of fire 1950-2003 (climate-driven model) 2010-2039 (A2)2070-2099 (A2) 16 GCM ensemble (A2 scenario): change relative to historical period Figures: courtesy Meg Krawchuck and Max Mortiz, UC Berkeley Historical: Parisien and Moritz 2009 Ecol. Monogr. Futures: Moritz et al. in review

14. Cohesive Strategy 3 Phases Just finished Phase 2 Next, how to quantify for national tradeoff analysis

15. Fire adapted human community conceptual diagrams