Grassland/atmosphere response to changing climate: Coupling regional and local scales

Technical Report · Sat Jul 28 04:00:00 EDT 1990

OSTI ID:6654004

Coughenour, M B; Kittel, T; Parton, W ^[1]; Pielke, R A ^[2]

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1. Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (USA). Natural Resources Ecology Lab.
2. Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (USA). Dept. of Atmospheric Science

This study is an interdisciplinary research project designed to increase our understanding of the ecological impacts of climate change and elevated CO{sub 2} projected to occur over the next 50 to 100 years due to globally increasing atmospheric levels of CO{sub 2} and other greenhouse gases. The project study area is the North American Central Grasslands. The objectives are to develop multiscaled modeling systems linking extant state-of-the-art models from the ecological and atmospheric sciences with different spatial and temporal resolutions and to evaluate the response of grassland ecosystems to atmospheric change at regional and site scales. Responses are to be evaluated in terms of ecosystem function and potential biospheric impacts to climate. In the first seven months of the first year, we have implemented fine-scaled models of photosynthesis and decomposition, used regional and site level ecosystem models, in an unlinked mode, to simulate ecosystem response to climate and CO{sub 2} change, addressed scaling issues associated with linking models. Time remains in this first budget period to complete other tasks. Second year work is discussed and does not significantly vary from that described in the original proposal. 27 refs., 4 figs.

• Research Organization: Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/ER
• DOE Contract Number: FG02-90ER60932
• OSTI ID: 6654004
• Report Number(s): DOE/ER/60932-1; ON: DE90015814
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540120 -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
540220* -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (1990-)
ATMOSPHERES
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON DIOXIDE
CARBON OXIDES
CHALCOGENIDES
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CLIMATES
DECOMPOSITION
DOCUMENT TYPES
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
ECOSYSTEMS
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MICROCOSMS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PHOTOCHEMICAL REACTIONS
PHOTOSYNTHESIS
PROGRESS REPORT
RANGELANDS
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
SIMULATION
SYNTHESIS
TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
VARIATIONS