Session Description

Co-chairs: Michael Schlesinger, Allen Solomon, and Ranjan Muttiah

OVERVIEW:
Climatic extremes and variability refer to the tails and spread of the distributions of climatic quantities such as temperature (e.g., heat waves, cold waves, early frosts), precipitation (e.g., droughts, floods, hail), and winds (e.g., extratropical storms, hurricanes, tornadoes). Ecosystems refer not only to the mixtures of species and age cohorts covering specific areas, but also to the populations of single species growing throughout their geographic ranges. In this context, we are viewing agricultural systems as intensely managed, monospecific populations.

The objectives of the proposed 10-day session are to: (1) review and synthesize the available information on the nature of impacts on ecosystems and agriculture produced by past and present climatic extremes and variability; (2) present the current research on projecting impacts on ecosystems and agriculture of possible future anthropogenically induced changes in climatic extremes and variability; (3) identify weaknesses in current data and research efforts needed to support decision-making, and develop recommendations for ameliorating them; and (4) publicize the meeting results by publishing them as papers in a special issue of a broadly read, refereed journal such as Climatic Change that documents items (1)–(3).
The session will be organized into three parts following items (1)–(3) above. Parts I and II of the session will each consist of approximately 3 days. Part III will be Working Group meetings on the ecological and agricultural impacts. The two Working Groups will draft a report summarizing and synthesizing the material presented during Parts I and II of the session.




Participant Roster

Chairs: Michael Schlesinger, Allen Solomon, & Ranjan Muttiah
Craig D. Allen	USGS Jemez Mts. Field Station
John Antle	Montana State University
Robert Brown	Battelle Washington Operations
Harald Bugmann	Swiss Fed. Inst. of Technology
Catherine A. Cunningham	Ecology student
Margaret B. Davis	University of Minnesota
Hallie Eakin	University of Arizona
David R. Easterling	NOAA/Nat. Climatic Data Center
G. LeRoy Hahn	RLHUSMARC
Steven W. Hostetler	US Geological Survey
Anthony Joern	University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Rik Leemans	National Institute of Public Health and Environment (RIVM)
Glen M. MacDonald	Univ. of California, Los Angeles
Cherilynn Morrow	Space Science Institute
Ranjan S. Muttiah	Texas Ag. Experiment Station
Jonathan T. Overpeck	National Geophysical Data Center
Frederick Scatena	U.S.D.A. Forest Service
Michael Schlesinger	University of Illinois
Roland Schulze	Univ. of Natal, Pietermaritzburg
William K. Smith	Wake Forest University
Allen M. Solomon	US EPA, Western Ecology Div.
Richard C. J. Somerville	Scripps Inst. of Oceanography
Daniel A. Sumner	University of California, Davis
Thomas W. Swetnam	University of Arizona
Eugene S. Takle	Iowa State University