Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Abstract
Climate zones play a significant role in shaping the forest ecosystems located within them by influencing multiple ecological processes, including growth, disturbances, and species interactions. Therefore, delineation of current and future climate zones is essential to establish a framework for understanding and predicting shifts in forest ecosystems. In this study, we developed and applied an efficient approach to delineate regional climate zones in the northeastern United States and maritime Canada, aiming to characterize potential shifts in climate zones and discuss associated changes in forest ecosystems. The approach comprised five steps: climate data dimensionality reduction, sampling scenario design, cluster generation, climate zone delineation, and zone shift prediction. The climate zones in the study area were delineated into four different orders, with increasing subzone resolutions of 3, 9, 15, and 21. Furthermore, projected climate normals under Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios were used to predict the shifts in climate zones until 2100. Our findings indicate that climate zones characterized by higher temperatures and lower precipitation are expected to become more prevalent, potentially becoming the dominant climate condition across the entire region. Thes changes are likely to alter regional forest composition, structure, and productivity. In short, such shifts in climate underscore the significant impact of environmental change on forest ecosystem dynamics and carbon sequestration potential.
Department
Earth Systems Research Center
Publication Date
3-25-2024
Journal Title
Ecological Indicators
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Samuel Roy, Xinyuan Wei, Aaron Weiskittel, Daniel J. Hayes, Peter Nelson, Alexandra R. Contosta, Influence of climate zone shifts on forest ecosystems in northeastern United States and maritime Canada, Ecological Indicators, Volume 160, 2024, 111921, ISSN 1470-160X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.111921.
Rights
© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Comments
This is an open access article published by Elsevier BV in Ecological Indicators in 2024, available online: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.111921