Dr. Jeffrey Morisette, Director, DOI North Central Climate Science Center

Abstract: The presentation will provide an overview of the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center (NCCWSC) program and the current status of the regional North Central Climate Science Center (NC CSC) that is under that national program. The talk will present the NC CSC’s framework for climate change vulnerability assessment and how that framework is being used to direct its five year research plan. The framework can also be used to highlight the relationship between the DOI Climate Science Centers (CSCs) and the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs). Some of the initial work at the center is considering how climate variability and future climate projections can be integrated with ecological response models to help inform today’s land management decisions.

The NC CSC is host to the central U.S. node of the NASA Applied Sciences DEVELOP Program. Also, the NCCWSC contributed to the NASA ROSES 2010 Biodiversity program. The talk will consider how those two programs can contribute to climate change vulnerability assessment, but the talk will conclude with some open ended questions on how remote sensing data and analysis can contribute to the NC CSC’s strategic plan.