| Summary: | Climate is one of the most important determinants of biotic structure and function in the alpine. High winds and low temperatures are defining elements of this ecosystem, requiring adaptations of the alpine biota. Interaction between topography and snowcover strongly influences spatial heterogeneity of microclimate, which in turn influences and is influenced by the distribution of vegetation. For nearly 50 years investigators have used Niwot Ridge to examine and document the climate and its interaction with the biota of the alpine tundra. This chapter reviews some of the many findings of these ongoing bioclimatic investigations. Climate studies started on Niwot Ridge in October 1952 when Professor John W. Marr and his students set up a transect of climate stations across the Front Range between Boulder and the Continental Divide (Marr 1961). There were originally 16 stations in groups of four representing different slope exposures in what he defined as the Lower and Upper Montane Forest, the Subalpine Forest, and the Alpine Tundra ecosystems of the Front Range. After 1 year, the network was reduced to four stations, called Al, Bl, Cl, and Dl, which all had ridge-top locations and ranged from lower montane (Al) to high alpine (Dl). From time to time, these stations were supplemented by other stations that supported particular studies. This was especially true during the International Biological Programme years in the early 1970s when focus on work on the Saddle research site of the Ridge began. Following the establishment of Niwot Ridge and Green Lakes Valley as a Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in 1980, even more intensive climatological work has been conducted. The construction of the Tundra Laboratory in August 1990 facilitated intensive winter climatological studies. Geographical locations and elevational data on most of the stations has been provided by Greenland (1989) and is also found in the LTER electronic database (http://culter.colorado.edu/). The climate of Niwot Ridge is characterized by ...
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