The first g2p2pop workshop, Navigating Climate Change, will be held in Flagstaff, Arizona from September 19-21, 2018. On day 1, three speakers will be featured. Dr. Scott Goetz, Dr. Andrew Richardson, Dr. Tom Whitham, and Dr. Stephen Jackson.
Dr. Andrew Richardson is a professor at Northern Arizona University in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems and in the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society. He is the Principle Investigator of PhenoCam Network, a system of high-resolution cameras that are used to track how phenology is changing across North America. Together with David Hollinger, he runs the AmeriFlux tower in the Bartlett Experimental Forest, which measures carbon dioxide, water, temperature, and energy.
Dr. Richardson use many different methods to better understand how climate change is impacting phenology. Recently, he and a colleague used photographs from aerial drones taken of forest canopies over different seasons. They were looking at how specific color changes in the canopy might correlate with events in the leaf life cycle to better analyze phenology data. In the study published in Sensors, they found that both green and red colors correlate to leaf aging in autumn, and the redness can track the progression of leaf fall that begins with peak redness.
In addition to this data, Dr. Richardson uses data from PhenoCam to model how phenology may shift in the changing climate. His study published in Global Change Biology shows how leaf-out dates in deciduous forests in the Northern Hemisphere may shifting by up to 11 days.
Dr. Richardson also measures the temperature of forest canopies using the AmeriFlux towers equipped with thermal cameras reading at hourly intervals, as published in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. As air temperature can be quite different from canopy temperature, Richardson and colleagues hoped to see how these dynamics differ between species and over different timescales.
Overall, this line of research has important implications for ecosystem dynamics, and we look forward to speaking with Dr. Richardson!