Climate Change and Rocky Mountain Ecosystems

This book is the result of a team of approximately 100 scientists and resource managers who worked together for two years to understand the effects of climatic variability and change on water resources, fisheries, forest vegetation, non-forest vegetation, wildlife, recreation, cultural resources and ecosystem services. Adaptation options, both strategic and tactical, were developed for each resource area. This information is now being applied in the northern rocky Mountains to ensure long-term sustainability in resource conditions.The volume chapters provide a technical assessment of the effects of climatic variability and change on natural and cultural resources, based on best available science, including new analyses obtained through modeling and synthesis of existing data. Each chapter also contains a summary of adaptation strategies (general) and tactics (on-the-ground actions) that have been developed by science-management teams.

Dr. Jessica Halofsky is a Research Scientist in the University of Washington, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. She has been involved in climate change research since 2008, and is a national leader in climate change adaptation, especially the application of climate change science in natural resource management. The author of many journal articles and book chapters on climate change and fire ecology, this will be her first book.Dr. David Peterson is a Senior Research Biologist with the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station. He has been involved in climate change research for 25 years and is a national leader in climate change assessment and adaptation. The author of 220 scientific articles, this will be his fourth book, including Climate Change and United States Forests (a Choice Award winner published by Springer in 2014).