Climate Change

Assessment Highlights Need for Climate-Aware Conservation

Climate change is impacting birds and their habitats in dramatic and different ways, necessitating a move toward "climate-aware conservation" — the science of incorporating future climate scenarios into today’s species conservation planning and programs. This recommendation and others were recently put forward in a new assessment of climate change impacts in the playa lakes region.

The assessment — Anthropogenic Climate Change in the Playa Lakes Joint Venture Region: Understanding Impacts, Discerning Trends, and Developing Responses — was conducted for the PLJV by Dr. John Matthews, Climate Change Adaptation Specialist for the World Wildlife Fund. The assessment serves to inform PLJV partners of the realized and potential impacts of climate change to bird habitats and populations in the region, and to recommend appropriate habitat conservation actions to compensate for these impacts.

Nearly 100 research papers, reports and other sources were reviewed and analyzed for the assessment. The assessment provides an overview of ongoing and predicted climate and weather changes and trends, and how these changes are impacting birds and bird habitats now and into the future.

Impacts to the region vary by area — with the South and Southwest experiencing more severe and frequent droughts, potentially reaching dust-bowl like conditions by mid-century. In the North and East, springs and winters are becoming more wet and warm. Increased intensity in rainfall events is expected to cause flooding and increased sediment runoff into playas and other aquatic habitats.

How birds will respond to changing climate and habitat conditions varies widely based on their ability to adapt. In general, a majority of studies show that breeding and over wintering populations of birds will shift north. Avian communities of today might look different in the future as species respond to climate change at different rates and form different assemblages. Species most vulnerable to climate change are those with already restricted ranges, specialized habitat needs and migrant species.

Planning for bird conservation in light of climate change will require conservationists to let go of old notions that today’s climate is the norm, wrote Matthews in the assessment. Regional and global shifts in climate always have occurred, sometimes quite dramatically. However, this current phase of change is exponentially more rapid than ever before, making it more important than ever to incorporate climate as an integral factor in conservation programs. Those that don’t risk becoming irrelevant, he asserted.

~May 2008

PLJV Assessing Impacts of Climate Change on Playa Region

In an effort to conserve birds now and into the future, the PLJV is conducting an assessment of the ongoing and predicted impacts of climate change on playas and other bird habitats in the region. The JV is working with Dr. John Matthews, Climate Adaptation Specialist for the World Wildlife Fund on the assessment, and a summary of Dr. Matthew’s findings is now available as a Microsoft Power Point presentation.

"A better understanding of climate change is absolutely necessary if the PLJV is going to be successful in meeting its future wildlife goals," said PLJV Chairman Jeff Ver Steeg. "That’s why the Joint Venture commissioned an assessment of the impact of climate change on the PLJV region. We hope the information will stimulate both dialogue and action among our many friends and partners."

The assessment describes potential future conditions of playas and other bird habitats, how birds may be impacted, and is based on a review of more than 80 studies. While there is limited research specific to the playas, regional climate trends and weather patterns paint a fairly clear picture of how birds and habitats might be affected.

According to the assessment, the region will experience more extreme droughts and flooding, increased spring and decreased summer precipitation, and earlier springs and longer summers and falls. These trends will affect bird habitats in a variety of ways, from increased invasive vegetation and disturbance by fire, to the drying up of playas and other shallow wetlands in the south and southwest. Migratory bird corridors are expected to shift toward more reliable water sources and east of current routes. Over-wintering waterfowl and shorebird species will be more concentrated on fewer and smaller water bodies, leading to increased avian disease. Habitat generalists, species that breed in the spring and species that primarily consume insects rather than amphibians are expected to do well despite climate change. These findings are now being incorporated into PLJV biological planning.

The PLJV encourages its partners to view the presentation and share it with colleagues. The full assessment report will be available soon and will be announced in a future Playa Post.

~April 2008

Producers Help Wildlife and Warming via Carbon Banking

Agricultural producers across the PLJV region are raising a new commodity that reduces global warming and benefits wildlife — carbon banking. Conservation practices such as no-till, grass restoration and range management keep carbon in the soil and wildlife on the land, all while benefiting producers’ pocketbooks.

“Anything we can do to make conservation practices more attractive and cost beneficial to agricultural producers, the better,” said Liz Mathern, Program Specialist for the National Farmers Union (NFU) Carbon Credit Program. The NFU is a carbon offset aggregator, meaning they pool offsets generated by multiple producers engaged in carbon sequestration practices and sell them on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), then give the profits back to landowners.

Over the past two years, the NFU has pooled over 3.5 million acres of no-till or new grass land from 2,300 agricultural producers nationally, bringing in about $4.8 million in payments to enrollees so far. They are also bringing their first pool of range management offsets to market this year with about 150 - 200 ranchers onboard and 1 million acres enrolled so far. Landowners must commit to carrying out carbon sequestration practices for five years to become part of a pool. Pools are open for enrollment for about a year and then brought to market around the first of the following year. So, for example, landowners who entered the 2007 NFU pool will start receiving payments for that year in mid 2008. NFU will be moving to aggregating and selling two pools per year soon.

The amount a landowner gets paid depends on a national rating scale of an area’s ability to store carbon based on its soils and vegetation. For example, in the northern part of Bird Conservation Region 18, grass restoration is rated at storing 1 metric ton of carbon per acre per year, whereas the southern portion of the BCR is rated at storing .4 metric tons per acre per year (see map). Currently, carbon offsets are trading on the CCX at about $4.50 per metric ton. So a landowner in the BCR 18 portion of Nebraska or Colorado would earn $4.50 per acre per year, and a landowner in the BCR 18 portion of Texas or New Mexico would earn $1.80 per acre per year, minus whatever fees the aggregator charges. Prices can change over the course of a 5-year contract and so payments will vary each year.

Carbon offset buying and selling is a relatively new financial market. The CCX opened its online trading floor in 2003, and since then hundreds of industrial and energy companies and carbon offset aggregators and providers have joined. The market is wholly financed by private industry, state and local governments and other entities that have voluntarily committed to reduce and offset their carbon emissions. Since the funding is private, landowners receiving Federal payments for restoring grass like through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) can stack carbon offset payments on top.

“Farmers are able to help bridge the carbon gap as the nation recognizes the need to lower emissions. If a carbon emitter cannot meet its greenhouse gas reduction goal, they can buy offsets from farmers. It really acknowledges the positive impact that agricultural producers can have on the environment,” Mathern said.

Although relatively new, carbon banking is taking off in the PLJV region. Especially in eastern Colorado and western Kansas and Nebraska where NFU has pooled and is selling offsets produced on 300,000 acres from 300 landowners involved in no-till, grass restoration and range management. There are other aggregators working in the region, such as AgraGate which is a subsidiary of the Iowa Farm Bureau. Even conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited are getting into the carbon sequestration business in the Prairie Pothole region.

Learn More on Playa Country Radio

~March 2008

Climate Change Expert Calls for New Framework for Conservation

Conservation planning in the age of climate change will require a new framework. One that can adapt — as wildlife adapts — to changing ecological communities and weather patterns, says a leading climate change expert.

“You might say we are in a crisis,” said Dr. John Matthews, Global Freshwater Climate Change Adaptation Specialist for the World Wildlife Fund. “We tend to say, it must be healthy if it looks like it did in the past. But possibly that isn’t true, and in a few decades, it won’t be true.”

What we know about ecological systems is largely based on the past few centuries when the climate was fairly stable. Now conservation professionals are facing planning for birds as global temperatures are on the rise and weather patterns in flux. Biological models must account for how species will adapt to this change and how their relationships to other species will change.

“The way we assess how species are doing might be entering a period that has to show some flexibility and change. My work is about adaptation. Adaptations call for being aware that it’s not going to look like that in the future and you have to look forward to something else. It’s quite humbling actually,” Matthews said.

For example, playas in the Southern High Plains will be facing increased periods of drought and an overall net drying effect, so less of the wetlands will be available for birds during migration. Conservation models should already be accounting for this drop in habitat availability.

“When we think about species in isolated wetlands like playas, those that are probably going to be able to adapt are those who can get around the easiest,” Matthews said. “So there is less concern about birds, which can alter migratory routes. But lots of species, like fresh-water mollusks, will have greater difficulty in responding.”

But shifts in birds’ patterns, migrations and relationships to habitat will require conservation planners to re-think species-and-habitat association models. Birds that might flock together today may not in the future, or might not use the same habitat as before. The same is also true for other types of wildlife.

“We might see in the future the disassembly of communities that we know and re-formation of new communities,” Matthews said. “That is what we see when we look at long term records. Associations of species don’t seem to make sense as we look back five, 10 or 20 thousand years. Playas have changed quite a bit. There have been otter bones found in some old playas dating back to glacial period when there was more water. They moved east and could handle it.”

Playas may be the canary in the coal mine for climate change. Scientists are seeing the earliest impacts of climate change on small, isolated freshwater systems like playas and prairie potholes. Not only are playas highly vulnerable, they are also some of the most challenging wetlands to study.

“One of the real weaknesses with small isolated wetlands is that we often don’t know very much about individual systems,” Matthews said. “We don’t have decades of information on how much variation occurred in the past. It’s going to be tough to develop good plans and test the limits of adaptive management.”

It is these complex challenges and more that the PLJV and other Joint Ventures are trying to accommodate for in their biological models and plans. As Matthews aptly sums up, “I think that climate change is not just impacting ecosystems and people, but affecting science itself.”

~February 2008

Playa Post Series to Cover Climate Change and Birds

It seems every day there is a burning news story on global warming. The media are quick to cover how climate change is causing the demise of the polar bear, loss of coastlines, and drought in Africa. But what you won’t see in the New York Times is a headline on how climate change is affecting the playa lakes region. That is where the Playa Post comes in.

The Post will explore issues surrounding climate change as it relates to bird conservation in the playa lakes region. We will be interviewing climate and avian experts from around the nation and within our region to bring you the latest information, predictions and recommendations on how to plan and manage for birds in this age of global warming.

This first installment is a climate change primer of sorts — a gathering and summation of information and web sites that provide relevant background for our exploration.

Climate Change and Global Warming

Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate such as temperature, precipitation or wind lasting for an extended period (decades or longer). Global warming refers to average increases in the temperature of the air near the Earth’s surface (Environmental Protection Agency: Climate Change Basic Information). Sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably, but scientists prefer the term ‘climate change’, because it helps convey that there are other changes occurring in addition to warming.

Both natural and human influences can cause climate change. But scientists have found that human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels for energy production, transportation, industry and other uses, have caused a steady rise in global temperatures over the last 50 years. The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gasses trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, causing the planet to warm. This is known as the “Greenhouse Effect” and is a naturally-occurring process. Without it, the Earth would be freezing and uninhabitable, but too much and the Earth warms beyond long term averages.

We are emitting carbon dioxide in greater quantities than the Earth can handle to sustain its current climate. Over the past five decades, CO2 emissions have risen from around 310 to over 380 parts per million. And as greenhouse gasses increase, so does global temperature. Over the last 100 years, temperatures have rose 0.74 ± 0.18 °C per year. Climate models predict that average global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the 21st century.

Impacts of Climate Change on Natural and Human Systems and Birds

A growing body of evidence backed by an international group of climate experts indicates that climate change — particularly global warming — is already affecting natural and human systems worldwide. Glaciers are shrinking, ice caps are melting, ranges of plants and animals are shifting, and water supplies dwindling, among other impacts. (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Climate Change 2001- Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability).

Among animals, birds are particularly impacted by climate change. Research has shown that the ranges of some birds are shifting northward and to higher elevations to stay within their ideal temperature ranges and habitat conditions as the climate changes. For example, several species of warblers have shifted their range northward by 65 miles over the past 24 years (American Bird Conservancy).

According to report commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund last year that synthesized more than 200 studies, bird groups that are at high risk from climate change include: migratory, mountain, island, wetland, Arctic, Antarctic and seabirds. The report also suggests there is a trend towards a major bird extinction from global warming.

Climate Change and the Playa Lakes Region

Few studies exist on how climate change is impacting birds and bird habitats of the playa lakes region. Efforts are underway by the U.S. Geological Survey and a handful of others. Some scientists are predicting there will be similar shifts in migration patterns and timing as seen with birds elsewhere. Some say many playas of the Southern High Plains will dry up completely. And still others say sedimentation trumps climate change as the biggest threat to playas.

All these assumptions and more must be incorporated into biological planning models and habitat management strategies for birds. This is no easy task, but one that the PLJV is working toward.

Further Reading and Listening

Playa Country Radio

Climate Change

Birds and Climate Change

~December 2007

Blocked Kansas Power Plant Confounds Conservation for Birds

Environmentalists may have lost one in their battle to score one to combat climate change by blocking an expansion of a coal-fired power plant in western Kansas that would have restored 34,000 acres of prairie habitat to benefit at-risk species like the Lesser Prairie-Chicken. This conflict between potentially negative and positive environmental outcomes underscores just how complicated land and resource-use decisions can be.

Sunflower Electric’s plans to expand its Holcomb-area plant are on hold after the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) denied the company an air quality permit to construct two proposed coal-fired generators. The decision marks the first time a U.S. power plant proposal has been rejected for its potential contribution to climate change. Sunflower has filed its own lawsuit challenging the KDHE’s action which is being considered by the Kansas Supreme Court.

As plans to expand the plant are on hold, so too are Sunflower’s plans to restore thousands of acres of sand sage prairie. As part of the expansion, Sunflower purchased land and irrigation rights for 34,000-acres of cropland and is restoring the land back to native sand sage prairie. So far, Sunflower has restored about 10,000 acres, but plans to restore another 24,000 acres are on hold pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

The area planned for restoration is adjacent to another 20,000 acres of native sand sage which already provides habitat for the Lesser Prairie-Chicken, Northern Bobwhite Quail, Loggerhead Shrike and Cassin's Sparrow, among other prairie bird species. The Sunflower site and adjacent prairie combined could make a noteworthy impact on achieving the habitat goal for sand sage for western Kansas, according to PLJV planning.

The PLJV Area Implementation Plan for Bird Conservation Region (BCR) 18 of Kansas calls for the restoration of an additional 200,000 acres of sand sage. The 34,000 acre site will take a 17% bite out of that goal. Currently, there are an estimated 400,000 acres of sand sage in Kansas BCR 18.

~December 2007