Scientists at NCEAS have been studying the ecological effects of climate change in-depth since the Center's establishment in 1995. NCEAS scientists are examining environmental, economic and social impacts of modern changes in temperature (global warming), atmospheric gases, precipitation, wind patterns, and the severity of storms.

The NCEAS approach is particularly useful in climate change research, because:

• analysis and synthesis of existing data allow researchers to understand the large-scale ecological responses to climate change that have already occurred, and to improve predictions of future change
• climate change topics are necessarily interdisciplinary, and benefit from the highly collaborative discourse among physical, biological and social scientists that can be facilitated by NCEAS
• Ecoinformatics principles and tools are especially useful for organizing and analyzing the large-scale, heterogeneous data used in climate change research

NCEAS scientists examine effects of climate change on plants and animals, and on important ecological processes like the flow of nutrients and gases through ecosystems. Scientists at NCEAS have used experimental data and long-term survey records, while also comparing recent climate change to the biological dynamics seen in "deep time" as represented by the fossil record. For example, NCEAS scientists have examined such diverse topics as:

• the expansion or shift of animal ranges in response to temperature changes (1)
• plant and soil responses to interactions of changing temperature, precipitation and CO2 (2) (3)
• temperature and wind effects on ocean currents and marine life (4, 5)
• coral reef  vulnerability to the severity of storms (6), direct effects of warming, and diseases that are favored by climate change (7)

The study of disease ecology has been a special area of research at NCEAS, particularly with respect to predicting disease dynamics under climate change scenarios.

Conservation biologists and natural resource managers increasingly want to know how climate change should factor into their management decisions.  For example, NCEAS scientists have provided input for reserve design (8, 9) and wildlife management (10, 11).  Many NCEAS researchers have integrated economic and sociopolitical concerns into ecological climate change studies, recognizing that management decisions must be based on many factors that are not strictly related to the natural sciences.

Databases pertinent to climate change research that has been done at NCEAS are freely available through the NCEAS Data Registry and Repository. For example:

• Greenhouse gas flux between the land and atmosphere for major regions of the world  
• Carbon and nitrogen response to elevated CO2 in terrestrial systems - compilation of experimental results 
• Hydrodynamics of vernal pools in central California 

1. C. Parmesan et al., Nature 399, 579 (Jun 10, 1999).
2. G. R. Shaver et al., Bioscience 50, 871 (Oct, 2000).
3. B. A. Hungate et al., Science 302, 1512 (Nov 28, 2003).
4. G. M. Watters et al., Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 60, 1161 (Sep, 2003).
5. M. I. O'Connor et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in press (2007).
6. J. S. Madin et al., Nature 444, 477 (2006).
7. C. D. Harvell et al., Science 296, 2158 (Jun 21, 2002).
8. C. R. Pyke et al., Biological Conservation 125, 1 (Sep, 2005).
9. B. Halpern, in 10th International Coral Reef Symposium. (Okinawa, Japan, 2004).
10. N. Owen-Smith et al., in National Symposium on Global Change and Regional Sustainability in South Africa. (Cape Town, South Africa, 2003).
11. S. J. Martell, in 41st Annual Meeting of the Canadian Zoological Association. (Lethbridge, Canada, 2002)