Mapping Wildlife-Relevant Snow Properties in Arctic-Boreal North America; Novel Modelling, Remote-Sensing, and Ground Observation Approaches

• Main Author: Cosgrove, Christopher Liam
• Other Authors: Nolin, Anne W., Jones, Julia A., Zhao, Bo, Kennedy, Robert E., College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English; unknown
• Published: Oregon State University
• Subjects: Arctic
• Online Access: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/zp38wk852

Arctic-boreal regions are exhibiting the symptoms of profound ecological shifts as they experience pronounced warming. Wildlife in high-latitudes are one such harbinger of change, and their populations are undergoing range-shifts, declines, and extinctions in response to their rapidly altering habitats. As the circumpolar and boreal north is snow-covered for up to 10 months of the year, changes to the quality, quantity and duration of snow are major factors driving disturbances in the region’s ecology. Yet the area’s vast expanse and inaccessibility presents great difficulty in obtaining data to better understand snow-wildlife interactions and their consequences for population dynamics. This dissertation hence presents novel approaches to produce maps of wildlife-relevant snow properties in Arctic-boreal North America, answering a call for improved data to compare to modern GPS-tracking sensors and long-term datasets of wildlife demography.