Socio-Ecological Consequences of Continental-Scale Climate Change
The goal of this working group is to continue discussions initiated at the 2009 Science Council meeting that were focused on designing a continental-scale research program to assess how the major socio-ecological systems of the U.S. differ in their sensitivities to human-caused global changes - with an emphasis on determining the mechanisms and consequences of these differences. We are proposing that the LTER Network develop and lead the first coordinated, continental-scale climate change experiment to assess relative impacts of climate change on coupled socio-ecological systems across a wide range of climates and ecosystem types. With this experiment, we will address two primary questions. First, what determines the differential sensitivities of ecological systems to climate change? And second, what determines sensitivities of social systems to the ecological impacts of climate change? In this workshop, we will build on our preliminary design, with feedback from the LTER Executive Board and further develop implementation plans.