Introductory Overview

• Main Authors: Greenland, David, Goodin, Douglas G.
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press 2003
• Subjects: Greenland; Pacific
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195150599.003.0036

The timescale structure of this book has served well to keep the attention of investigators focused on specific aspects of climate variability and ecosystem response. Indeed, judging by the responses received by the editors of this volume, when given a choice between focusing on one timescale or several timescales, the LTER community was far more comfortable dealing with just one scale. There are obvious reasons for this, not the least of which is that focusing on a single scale greatly simplifies things. The real world, however, does not focus on one timescale. Climatic events and ecosystem responses occur simultaneously at a variety of scales. We wished to explore the climatic variability and ecosystem responses at LTER sites across several different timescales, and the two chapters in this part attempt such an exploration. The chapters consider the temperate rainforest of the H. J. Andrews LTER site in Oregon and the tallgrass ecosystem of the Konza Prairie LTER in Kansas. For the Andrews rainforest, and to some extent the Pacific Northwest (PNW) in general, Greenland et al. (chapter 19) discuss climate variability and ecosystem response at the daily, multidecadal, and century to millennial scales. This discussion for the PNW is supplemented in chapters 6 and 13 of this volume by a consideration of the quasi-quintennial scale and an additional ecosystem response at the decadal scale. The forest ecosystem is more complex than the grassland ecosystem. Greenland et al. cover a wide variety of potential ecosystem responses for the PNW Forest, ranging from severe weather events, to pine cone production, to century- and millennial-scale forest fire frequency regimes and their variation. The focus of chapter 19 is on some of the framework questions of this volume. The questions specifically addressed include the following: What preexisting conditions affect the impact of the climatic event or episode? Is the climatic effect on the ecosystems direct or cascading? Does the system return to its original state? The ...