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Projected Future Vegetation Changes for the Northwest United States and Southwest Canada at a Fine Spatial Resolution Using a Dynamic Global Vegetation Model

Metadata Updated: October 29, 2023

Future climate change may significantly alter the distributions of many plant taxa. The effects of climate change may be particularly large in mountainous regions where climate can vary significantly with elevation. Understanding potential future vegetation changes in these regions requires methods that can resolve vegetation responses to climate change at fine spatial resolutions.We used LPJ, a dynamic global vegetation model, to assess potential future vegetation changes for a large topographically complex area of the northwest United States and southwest Canada (38.0–58.0°N latitude by 136.6–103.0°W longitude). LPJ is a process-based vegetation model that mechanistically simulates the effect of changing climate and atmospheric CO2 concentrations on vegetation. It was developed and has been mostly applied at spatial resolutions of 10-minutes or coarser. In this study, we used LPJ at a 30-second (~1-km) spatial resolution to simulate potential vegetation changes for 2070–2099. LPJ was run using downscaled future climate simulations from five coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (CCSM3, CGCM3.1(T47), GISS-ER, MIROC3.2(medres), UKMO-HadCM3) produced using the A2 greenhouse gases emissions scenario. Under projected future climate and atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the simulated vegetation changes result in the contraction of alpine, shrub-steppe, and xeric shrub vegetation across the study area and the expansion of woodland and forest vegetation. Large areas of maritime cool forest and cold forest are simulated to persist under projected future conditions. The fine spatial-scale vegetation simulations resolve patterns of vegetation change that are not visible at coarser resolutions and these fine-scale patterns are particularly important for understanding potential future vegetation changes in topographically complex areas.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date May 31, 2023
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date May 31, 2023
Metadata Updated Date October 29, 2023
Publisher Climate Adaptation Science Centers
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/945db72448dc5caa79f0febea3324fdf
Identifier 3cfc59f9-4d34-4317-a195-26742c6eb932
Data Last Modified 2016-04-01
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 488abb90-de28-4cbb-a19e-b73c64581b39
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -125.504166667,46.4958333333,-113.995833333,53.0041666667
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash edc2074c94445480fe48194bcda6e3766f61ad7b4cf1d9baa1569646244271d2
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -125.504166667, 46.4958333333, -125.504166667, 53.0041666667, -113.995833333, 53.0041666667, -113.995833333, 46.4958333333, -125.504166667, 46.4958333333}

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