Abstract
Anthropogenic climate change is having significant impacts on montane and high-elevation areas globally. Warmer winter temperatures are driving reduced snowpack in the western USA with broad potential impacts on ecosystem dynamics of particular concern for protected areas. Vegetation phenology is a sensitive indicator of ecological response to climate change and is associated with snowmelt timing. Human monitoring of climate impacts can be resource prohibitive for land management agencies, whereas remotely sensed phenology observations are freely available at a range of spatiotemporal scales. Little work has been done in regions dominated by evergreen conifer cover, which represents many mountain regions at temperate latitudes. We used moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data to assess the influence of snowmelt timing and elevation on five phenology metrics (green up, maximum greenness, senescence, dormancy, and growing season length) within Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, USA from 2001 to 2012. Earlier annual mean snowmelt timing was significantly correlated with earlier onset of green up at the landscape scale. Snowmelt timing and elevation have significant explanatory power for phenology, though with high variability. Elevation has a moderate control on early season indicators such as snowmelt timing and green up and less on late-season variables such as senescence and growing season length. PCA results show that early season indicators and late season indicators vary independently. These results have important implications for ecosystem dynamics, management, and conservation, particularly of species such as whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) in alpine and subalpine areas.
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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE1322106. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors also express their appreciation for support from the Young Leaders in Climate Change Fellowship, a partnership between The George Melendez Wright Foundation, The University of Washington College of the Environment, and The US National Park Service, as well as support from Crater Lake National Park and the Crater Lake National Park Science and Learning Center.
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O’Leary, D.S., Kellermann, J.L. & Wayne, C. Snowmelt timing, phenology, and growing season length in conifer forests of Crater Lake National Park, USA. Int J Biometeorol 62, 273–285 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1449-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-017-1449-3