**USGS in the 21st Century:\
Climate science and new directions**

**CIRMOUNT MTNCLIM 2008\
Silverton, CO\
June 9, 2008\
\
**Mark Myers, Director\
U.S. Geological Survey

**Title Slide**: . Good evening. I'm delighted and honored to be with
you.

\[Jill Baron to provide orientation for honored guests and audience
background.\]

**Slide 2**:

. As climate change scientists, you are already well aware that impact
of humans on the planet has expanded to the extent that humankind has
emerged as a globally important force capable of reshaping the earth,
capable of depleting or threatening many of the earth's resources.

. We are now in a situation of relatively rapid climate change in which
we know with certainty that we will be crossing thresholds beyond which
ecosystems, and the services they provide, will be irreversibly changed.

**Slide 3**:

*Image: A composite picture of the planet at night. Most of the
electrical light that is produced come from coal fired generation
plants.*

. This image of night light around the world reminds us visually - at
the most fundamental level - about how much power humans now have to
influence the natural environment.

. Climate change will directly and indirectly threaten the stability of
natural resources and human well-being.

**Slide 4**:

. If we do not focus on sustainable management of our earth's resources,
the lack of resources that we have enjoyed in the past undoubtedly will
become a more and more of a threat for people in many nations.

=================

Drawing from the works of hundreds of researchers, the "Global Change"
study (Steffen et al. 2004; Chapter 3) concluded that perhaps 50% of the
world's

ice-free land surface has been transformed by human action; the land
under cropping has doubled during the past century at the expense of
forests, which

declined by 20% over the same period. More than half of all accessible
freshwater resources have come to be used by humankind. Fisheries remove
more than

25% of the primary production of the oceans in the upwelling regions and
35% in the temperate continental shelf regions (Pauly and Christensen
1995).

Steffen,W. et al., eds. 2004. Global Change and the Earth System.
Heidelberg: Springer.

+++++++

***Humans as geologic agents: A deep-time perspective***

Bruce H. Wilkinson; Department of Geological Sciences, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA

ABSTRACT

Humans move increasingly large amounts of rock and sediment during
various construction activities, and mean rates of cropland soil loss
may exceed rates of formation by

up to an order of magnitude, but appreciating the actual importance of
humans as agents of global erosion necessitates knowledge of prehistoric
denudation rates imposed on land

surfaces solely by natural processes.

*Geology;* March 2005; v. 33; no. 3; p. 161--164; doi: 10.1130/G21108.1

**Slide 5**:

. The combination of climate change, population growth, and greater use
of irrigated agriculture has resulted in increased stress on water
resources around the world. Water has emerged as a global issue that
requires international multi-disciplinary cooperation on assessment,
research, and management. The problem is exacerbated with the expansion
of population centers in water-scarce regions, such as in central
Mexico, southern India, and southeast Australia.

. Water issues are familiar in the western states, but widespread water
shortages that are magnified by urban growth have recently begun to
appear in the southeastern U.S.

. At first glance, the boy in this picture might appear to be from
Africa, judging from the look of his necklace. But he could just as well
live in our own state of Georgia. Or he could stand in for other
children who live in the Southwest. The challenges that climate and
population growth present for our natural resources know no boundaries.

**Slide 6**:

. At USGS, we've recently developed a science strategy that we believe
will help our organization address complex environmental problems.

. The strategy is based on a systems approach to evaluate broad causes
and consequences of the use and management of natural resources and
earth processes.

. There are six interrelated thematic components - directions -- in our
science strategy that you see listed in this slide. Climate variability
and change is not only one of these directions, but it must be carefully
considered in addressing any of the other directions.

. The seventh component, data integration, is the passport to
transcending a discipline-based approach to science. It brings the other
science directions together in the most basic and, at the same time, the
most productive ways.

. The interaction and correlation of these science directions both
reflect and reveal the complexity of the Earth's natural, physical, and
life systems. They describe the breadth of our systems approach that
calls upon the full range of USGS science capabilities.

**Slide 7**:

. At USGS we believe that the starting point to understanding the
complexity of earth systems is the concept of ecosystems.

. Ecosystems constitute the Earth's biosphere and support human
existence. The plants, animals, microbes, and physical products from
ecosystems provide people, as components of those ecosystems, with the
energy, water, biomass, medicine, and mineral resources needed to
sustain human societies.

**Slide 8**:

. Understanding ecosystems and predicting ecosystem change requires
robust scientific assessments and modeling of ecosystem conditions as
climate and human-induced land changes occur.

. Ecosystems are inherently "interdisciplinary," with geographical,
biological, geological, hydrological, and other components. Ecosystems
are also inherently "multiscalar," spatially and temporally.

. Geographically standardized ecosystem inventories -- as maps or
databases -- enable scientists to pursue:

\+ conservation planning (through GAP analysis)

\+ resource management

\+ predictive forecasting of ecosystem conditions.

**Slide 9**:

. The essential point that I want to make today, a perspective that I
support very strongly, is that all of earth's resources are
interrelated.

. In this first decade of the 21st Century, we face many threats to
earth resources - threats on a global scale such as climate change,
drought, natural disasters, deforestation, competition for energy and
mineral resources. Additionally, there are important human health
impacts that are tied to the quality of our air and our water.

. We believe that this comprehensive, interdisciplinary, systems
approach to a science strategy will pay dividends in making our science
more relevant to environmental issues in public policy.

**Slide 10**:

. Founded in 1879, the USGS has a proud tradition of mapping that was
largely established by John Wesley Powell, the second USGS director from
1881-94. At that time, topographic maps were the premiere instrument for
integrating place-based science information.

. This served Powell's interests well since he was interested all facets
of the Western landscape -- from geology, soils, and water to its Native
American heritage. During the years that he led the Survey, Powell was
also the head of the Smithsonian's Bureau of Ethnology, 1879 to 1902,
the year of his death.

. Today, with its long-term observational networks, extensive databases,
and diverse scientific expertise, the USGS can provide the broad
perspective needed to expand understanding of current climate
variability, climate change, and their effects on the Nation's resources
and economy.

**Slide 11**:

. Let's look closer at the challenges concerning climate change in the
West.

. The American West is an arid region of the world, with deserts and
high plains punctuated by mountain ranges. Water is one of the scarcest
and most prized resources, as noted by John Wesley Powell.

*"Every iota of value there is to the lands to be redeemed for
agriculture depends upon the water with which they are supplied. The
intrinsic value exists in the water. And the water falls not on their
own \[the farmers'\] land -- the water falls elsewhere in the
mountains\..." Powell, J.W., 1889. Address to the Montana State
Constitutional Convention. In: Proceedings and Debates of the
Constitutional Convention: 820-823.*

**Slide 12**:

. Temperature in the Interior West is warming faster than most other
parts of the nation except Alaska (5).

. During the past four decades, the mean duration of prolonged dry warm
season episodes (1 month or longer in the eastern United States and 2
months or longer in the southwestern United States) has significantly
increased (6).

. As this slide suggests, the Western mountains have climate change
similarities with Alaska. In Alaska a key ecological threshold is
melting permafrost, which affects everything from infrastructure to
forests to hydrology to carbon stored in soils.

. In Western mountains, climate warming has triggered large changes in
the hydrologic cycle, primarily by affecting the snowpack (but also
other aspects of hydrology).

. Keep in mind that this image indicates **temperatures during the
spring**, the most critical time of year for water in the Western
mountains.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

5.  Hoerling, NOAA, maps, 2006

6.  Groisman, P.Y. and R.W. Knight 2008. Prolonged dry episodes over the
    conterminous United States: new tendencies emerging during the last
    40 years. J. Climate 21:1850-1863.

**Slide 13**:

. Western ecosystems evolved with a pretty dependable snow supply.

. Increased temperatures -especially increased temperatures in
springtime - are already causing, and will continue to cause, large
decreases in snowpack, increased peak winter flows and flooding, and
reduced summer flows.

The consequences are:

• smaller snowpacks, meaning less storage of water as snow (7)

• earlier and quicker spring runoff, for which western water storage
structures are unprepared (8).

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

7\. Knowles, N., M.D. Dettinger, and D.R. Cayan, 2006: Trends in
snowfall versus rainfall in the Western United States. Journal of
Climate, 19(18), 4545-4559.

Mote, P.W. 2003. Trends in snow water equivalent in the Pacific
Northwest and their climatic causes. Geophys Resear. Let. 30: NO. 12,
1601, doi:10.1029/2003GL017258, 2003

8\. Stewart, I.T., D.R. Cayan, and M.D. Dettinger, 2005: Changes toward
earlier streamflow timing across western North America. Journal of
Climate, 18(8), 1136-1155.

**Slide 14**:

. Further consequences of large decreases in snowpack, increased peak
winter flows and flooding, and reduced summer flows are:

• less recharge of mountain and basin aquifers: less groundwater (3,9)

• reduced river flows (10)

• more drought (11)

• loss of glaciers (12)

. 50-80% of western river flows come from mountain snowpacks (2). Water
stored as snow supports nearly all western agricultural activities, a
multibillion dollar recreation industry, and 60 million people -40
million alone in the Colorado River Basin. (3)

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

2\. Stewart, I.T., D.R. Cayan, and M.D. Dettinger, 2005: Changes toward
earlier streamflow timing across western North America. Journal of
Climate, 18(8), 1136-1155.

3\. Bales, R.C., N.P. Molotch, T.H. Painter, M.D. Dettinger, R. Rice, J.
Dozier. 2006. Mountain hydrology of the western US. Wat. Resour. Resear.
VOL. 42, W08432, doi:10.1029/2005WR004387, 2006

9\. Earman, S., and M. Dettinger. 2007. Climate influences on
groundwater recharge: implications for western groundwater and surface
water resources in the face of climate change. Eos Trans. AGU, 88(52),
Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract H14E-04.

10\. Hoerling, M., and E.Eischeid. 2007. Past peak water in the
Southwest. Southwest Hydrology Jan/Feb 2007, 18-25

11\. Milly, P.C.D., J. Betancourt, M. Falkenmark, R.M. Hirsch, Z.W.
Kundzewicz, D.P. Lettenmaier, R.J. Stouffer. 2008. Stationarity is Dead:
Whither Water Management? Science 319:573-574.

Barnett, T.P., D.W. Pierce, H. G. Hidalgo, C. Bonfils, B. D. Santer, T.
Das, G. Bala, A.W. Wood, T. Nozawa, A. A. Mirin, D.R. Cayan, M. D.
Dettinger. 2008. Human-induced changes in the hydrology of the western
United States. Science 319:1080-1084.

12\. Dyurgerov, M.B. and M.F. Meier. 2000. 20th century climate change:
evidence from small glaciers. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.USA (PNAS), 97(4),
1406--1411.

Hall, M.P. and D.B. Fagre. 2003. Modeled climate-induced glacier change
in Glacier National Park, 1850-2100. BioScience 53:131-140.

**Slide 15**:

. This model (published by Milly, et al, Nature, 2005) projects that
large parts of the West will have to manage with up to 40% less annual
runoff in 35-40 years.

. Massive engineered infrastructure exists today to capture mountain
snowmelt, store it, and release on demand. This ranges from the many
large reservoirs of the Colorado River system (e.g. Lakes Powell and
Mead), to transbasin diversions, canals, and more than six thousand
smaller reservoirs.

. Western agriculture and municipalities have developed to their present
level because of our ability to trap snowmelt in reservoirs. Now,
however, cities, industries (such as timber and recreation), DOI, and
other natural resource agencies are beginning to consider the
implications of this projected rapid change in region-wide water
supplies. New management practices and new attitudes about water
conservation are needed to allow society and ecosystems to adapt to
climate change.

**Slide 16**:

. These diagrams project future snowmelt runoff patterns based on an
ensemble of downscaled GCM model outputs for the IPCC B1 scenarios
(somewhat moderate world growth with inclusion of efficient technologies
and emphasis on economic, social, and environmental stability).

.Center of Mass timing is the point in a water year by which half the
annual volume has passed a gage. The center of mass for many western
gaging stations is already 5-15 days earlier than in the mid- 20th
century (top panel). Later in the 21st century snowmelt will shift to
even earlier in the spring, so that half the water in any given water
year is projected to have moved downstream 15-35 days earlier than
historical dates.

. As discussed in so many of the other slides here, the earlier loss of
snow influences water storage and water supply, soil moisture and the
occurrence of fire, tree water stress, mortality, and susceptibility to
insects.

**Slide 17**:

. Warming temperatures are higher elevations are increasingly exposing
large tracts of high elevation whitebark pine to bark beetles. Mountain
pine beetles have not been a threat to whitebark pine before; their
exposure is a response to warming.

. Whitebark pine is a species with little commercial value, but great
ecosystem value. The significant mortality now occurring poses a threat
to grizzly bears, for whom whitebark pine nuts are an important fall
food supply, and other species, such as Clarks Nutcrackers (discovered
by William Clark of Lewis and Clark expedition) that coevolved with
whitebark pines.

**Slide 18**:

. Long-term USGS research in the Sierra Nevada indicates that in forests
that otherwise appear to be healthy:

\+ Tree mortality rates have doubled

\+ This doubling parallels temperature-driven increases in drought

. Preliminary results to be presented at this meeting suggest similar
trends are occurring West-wide.

**Slide 19**:

. The occurrence of large wildfires (\>400 ha) has dramatically
increased across the western U.S. in correlation with increased spring
and summer temperatures during the last 20 years.

. Warm spring temperatures melt the snow earlier so that summers have
longer dry periods. Hot summer temperatures also lead to dry periods.

**Slide 20**:

. Phenology is the study of the timing of biological events, such as
when plants leaf out or flower or when birds migrate.

. Lilacs, a nearly ubiquitous species, have been used to document
earlier spring flowering all over the country. An index of flowering has
been developed, shown here, with isolines showing the julian day of the
year when flowering occurs. The graph to the right illustrates earlier
flowering by 2-4 days all over the country since the early 1980s.

**Slide 21**:

. Climate change in the Western mountains is further evidenced by the
earlier emergence of hibernating marmots and the earlier arrival of
robins in the spring.

. The newly established National Phenology Network is mobilizing
citizens all over the country to keep records of phenological events
since many cyclical biological phenomena, such as flowering and
migration, are easily observable and completely objective indicators of
climate. Plants and animals, after all, respond to their environment,
not to politics or science.

**Slide 22**:

. Stationarity -- the idea that natural systems fluctuate within an
unchanging envelope of variability -- is a foundational concept that
permeates training and practice in water-resource engineering.

. In a recent paper published in Science Magazine, USGS scientists
assert that stationarity is dead because substantial anthropogenic
change of Earth's climate is altering the means and extremes of
precipitation, evapotranspiration, and rates of discharge of rivers.

. Nor can stationarity be revived. Even with aggressive mitigation,
continued warming is very likely, given the residence time of
atmospheric CO2 and the thermal inertia of the Earth system.

. As I noted earlier in this talk, all of Earth's systems are
interrelated. And so we must face the hard reality that, looking beyond
water management, the concept of stationarity is no longer operative for
other fields of natural resource management -- such as land management
and wildlife management.

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Milly, P.C.D., J. Betancourt, M. Falkenmark, R.M. Hirsch, Z.W.
Kundzewicz, D.P. Lettenmaier, R.J. Stouffer. 2008. Stationarity is Dead:
Whither Water Management? Science 319:573-574.

**Slide 23**:

. The dilemma: resource managers are seeing changes occurring now, and
need to make management decisions on the ground now, but knowledge of
how the causes for change interact with ecosystem and hydrologic systems
is lacking.

. Our hydrologic gaging stations, 20 NEON sites, and other sparse
monitoring networks are insufficient for understanding the complex
changes, interactions, and feedbacks caused by climate change in concert
with other stresses, particularly at regional to watershed scales of
most value to resource managers and other decision-makers.

. We plan to dedicate resources to research and monitoring of ecosystem
and hydro-ecosystem responses at plot and watershed scale, and design
study programs so that they can be scaled up to provide insight to
regions. The first NCEN site is going to be in the Yukon Basin, but
others are planned in other areas identified as particularly responsive
to climate change: high elevations, drylands, coastal areas. All will
build on existing research strengths within and outside USGS.

**Slide 24**:

. This evening I've described how the USGS has developed what we believe
is a versatile, powerful approach - a science strategy based on systems
analysis - to grasp the environmental issue of our time, global climate
change and its implications for earth systems.

. And we've seen that Western mountain systems and river basins are
especially sensitive to rain versus snow, the length of frozen seasons,
and rain-flood responses to projected warmings. Western water systems
derive about 2/3 of their supplies from these basins.

Furthermore, western fires, insect outbreaks, and tree mortality are
correlated to climate change. Phenological changes are clearly evident.
Stationarity - the concept and practice that natural systems fluctuate
within an unchanging envelope of variability - is no longer operative.

. With climate change, we are all at risk. And we must act together to
mitigate and adapt to that risk. We need a better knowledge base -- a
comprehensive scientific, engineering, economic framework - from which
we can build social and economic policies that lead to greater energy
and resource sustainability at national and international levels. A
National Climate Effects Network is a significant step in acquiring such
a knowledge base.

. Inevitably national and world leaders will be obliged to make
decisions in the next few years -- whether in boldness or in inaction --
that will influence the future health of our planet. These leaders - who
speak for all of us - must have a more confident understanding of the
science of the natural world if we, as societies, are to act wisely and
implement sound policies that promote a sustainable prosperity.