Mackay Minutes 2016/10/13

MacKay website, and minutes, and Working Report

How did we do on our todo list?

• Andy:
  • Continue with TSVD analysis; finalize yearly model
    • Put the model(s) into our report
  • Redo analyses generally, once I have the final data set. Need to
    • Impute some values, possibly
    • Redo the tensor decomposition
    • Laura will need to redo the regressions
  • Continue summarizing relevant background readings, and add to the report.
  • Bring to attention this graphic.
  • Description of the Phenochrons of Nova Scotia

• Madison:
  • Changes to the MacKay Data set
  • Finalize the data set with Laura
  • Make some choropleth maps of Nova Scotia
  • Add the regression line from Laura to the map of Nova Scotia.
  • Set up individual meeting with Steve for visualization piece

• Laura:
  • Finalize the data set with Laura
  • Get the equation of the regression line for Madison. Maybe just give some coordinates, and Madison can add a line segment along both axes, centered on Nova Scotia
  • Set up individual meeting with Andy for analysis piece

• Steve:
  • Will work with Madison on doing the animated maps of the data, using shapefiles.

The Readings

• The Climate of Nova Scotia (from The Climate of Canada).
• REFLECTIONS ON TIME AND PLACE: THE NOVA SCOTIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE IN ITS FIRST 150 YEARS: SUZANNE ZELLER -- great perspectives on MacKay and phenology
• Phyto-Phenology in its Application to the Plants of the Philadelphia Neighborhood -- describes the value of the MacKay project -- starting p. 313, but mentioned earlier as well. Also scientific results about meteorological variables and their impact upon plant growth.
• BOTANICAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES: Climate Change Effects on Arctic Plant species
• Arctic Sea Ice Back to 1850: has a picture of Newfoundland ice that may be relevant....

Moving forward

• Poster Session Deadline approaches in October... Deadline October 7th -- that's tomorrow. Let's go over that.....

• Why not unwrap the data? Rather than consider it "by year", let's consider it a time series with occasional spikes, and see what falls out? We might ramp the data up from "first appearance" to "becoming common" dates, using a logistic or the like. Then we can run a time series of temperatures over the data, to see which month/period pops out.

• Grant possibility....

In the News

• Climate change is advancing spring onset across the U.S. national park system: Here, we use estimates of start of spring based on climatically modeled dates of first leaf and first bloom derived from indicator plant species to evaluate the recent timing of spring onset (past 10–30 yr) in each U.S. natu- ral resource park relative to its historical range of variability across the past 112 yr (1901–2012). Of the 276 high latitude to subtropical parks examined, spring is advancing in approximately three-quarters of parks (76%), and 53% of parks are experiencing “extreme” early springs that exceed 95% of historical conditions.
• Climate change could affect fall foliage timing: Autumnal phenological shifts (leaf senescence and dormancy) because of climate change bring substantial impacts on community and ecosystem processes (e.g. altered C and N cycling and phenological mismatches) and the fall foliage ecotourism industry. However, the understanding of the environmental control of autumn phenology has changed little over the past 60 y. We found that cold, frost, wet, and high heat-stress lead to earlier dormancy dates across temperate deciduous forest communities, whereas moderate heat- and drought-stress delayed dormancy. Divergent future responses of fall dormancy timing were predicted: later for northern regions and earlier for southern areas. Our findings improve understanding of autumn phenology mechanisms and suggests complex interactions among environmental conditions affecting autumn phenology now and in the future.
  • Deciduous forest responses to temperature, precipitation, and drought imply complex climate change impacts (2015: pdf available).
  • I'd hoped that this would have something about Canada, but it's only the Eastern U.S. Still, I think that it might have some relevance and bearing on flowing in the spring of the next year, which we discussed last time....

• The USA National Phenology Network

Todo for next week

• All:

• Andy:

• Madison:

• Laura:

• Steve:

Next meeting

Thursday, 10/20, 3:00