We continue work on the hydrologic and biogeochemical effects of changing climate. There are several components to this work.  First, we continue long-term measurements and experiments on climate change at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, NH. A focus of this research is on winter climate change, including effects on snowpack accumulation and belowground winter processes and ice storms. We hypothesize that climate change is driving the northern forest toward a condition of oligiotrophication (decreasing nutrient status). We recently had a proposal funded by NSF to test this hypothesis. Climate change research at Hubbard Brook was expanded with an NSF-funded project examining the effects of ice storms on the structure and function of the northern forest. Plots were established and experimental icing treatments ice storm conducted during winters 2016 and 2017. A number of papers have been published on this work, including effects on the forest nitrogen cycle (Weitzman et al. 2019); disturbance to the tree canopy structure (Fahey et al. 2020); and three methods papers addressing the procedures used for the experimental icing treatments and methods for quantifying ice accumulation on trees (Campbell et al. 2020a,b, Rustad et al. 2020). I am also leading (with Julia Jones, Oregon State University) a cross site synthesis of climate changes effects for forest and freshwater, dryland, coastal and open marine ecosystems within the NSF-funded Long-term Ecological Research network.  This will be a series of five papers targeted for the journal BioScience.

A focus of current research is the linkages between air pollution and climate change. In this regard, we conducted a synthesis of anticipated future health and ecosystem effects of air pollution in the context of climate change (von Schneidemesser et al. 2020), and an analysis of changes in the supply of nitrogen and eutrophication of coastal waters for the coterminous U.S. (Shih et al. in review).

References:

Campbell, J. L., L. E. Rustad, S. Garlick, N. Newman, J. S. Stanovick, I. Halm, C. T. Driscoll, B. Barjenbruch, E. Burakowski, S.  Hilberg, K. Sanders, J. C. Shafer and N. J. Doesken. 2020. A comparison of low-cost collector configurations for quantifying ice accretion. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 59:1429-1442. doi: 10.1175/JAMC-D-19-0280.1.

Campbell, J. L. L. E. Rustad, C. T.  Driscoll, I. Halm, T. J. Fahey, H. Fakhraei, P. M Groffman, G. J. Hawley, W. Leuenberger and P. G. Schaberg. 2020. Simulating ice storm impacts on forest ecosystems. Journal of Visual Experiments, 160:e61492. doi:10.3791/61492.

Fahey, R. T., J. Atkins, J. L. Campbell, L. E. Rustad, M. Duffy, C. T. Driscoll, T. J. Fahey and P. G. Schaberg. 2020. Effects of an experimental ice storm on forest canopy structure. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 50(2):136-142. doi:10.1139/cjfr-2019-0276.

Rustad, L., J. L. Campbell, C. T. Driscoll, T. J. Fahey, P. M. Groffman, P. Schaberg, G. Hawley, I. Halm, F. Bowles, W. Leuenberger, G. Schwaner, G.Winant and B. Leonardi. 2020. Experimental approach and initial forest response to a simulated ice storm experiment in a northern hardwood forest. PLOS One, 15(9): e0239619. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0239619.

Shih, J-S., C. T. Driscoll, D. Burtraw, H. Shen, R. A. Smith, A. Keyes, K. F. Lambert, Y. Chen and A. G. Russell. In review. Energy Policy and Water Quality: An Integrated Air and Water Quality Modeling Approach. Environmental Science & Technology.

Weitzman, J. N., P. M. Groffman, J. L. Campbell, C. T. Driscoll, R. T. Fahey, T. J. Fahey, P. G. Schaberg and L. E. Rustad. 2019. Ecosystem nitrogen response to a simulated ice storm in a northern hardwood forest. Ecosystems.  doi:10.1007/s10021-019-00463-w.

von Schneidemesser, E., C. T.  Driscoll, H.  E. Rieder and L. D. Schifer. 2020. How will air quality effects on human health, crops, and ecosystems change in the future? Philosophical Transactions A, 378: 20190330. doi:10.1098/rsta/378/2183.