{"id":299,"date":"2012-06-04T16:20:37","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T23:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/?p=299"},"modified":"2012-06-04T16:21:21","modified_gmt":"2012-06-04T23:21:21","slug":"reflections-from-coweeta-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/2012\/06\/04\/reflections-from-coweeta-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections from the Coweeta Forest Lab, Part 3: The value of being in it for the long haul"},"content":{"rendered":"

(If you missed them, here\u2019s Part 1<\/a> and Part 2<\/a>. Now for the final installment\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

Coweeta<\/a> and other LTER<\/a>s have all kinds of equipment which continuously monitor and record temperature, precipitation, stream flow, water chemistry, and so forth, and thus have compiled valuable long-term records.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>\n
This is one of the meteorological stations at H.J. Andrews forest, but the one at Coweeta looks pretty much the same. Photo by Al Levno<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

At Coweeta, these records date back to 1934, and two climate\u00a0trends are\u00a0evident from the data that\u2019s been collected since then. First, there\u2019s been an upward trend in temperature since around 1980 (before that, there was no discernible trend). Second, with respect to rainfall, the wettest years have been getting wetter, and the driest years have been getting drier. They collect data on rainfall chemistry too; and\u00a0interestingly, they started seeing a sharp drop in sulfate concentrations around 1990 \u2013 coincident with the passage of the Clean Air Act which was enacted in response to sulfur dioxide deposition (a.k.a. acid rain).<\/p>\n

The biggest takeaway I left Coweeta with was an appreciation for the value and power of long-term observation. Forests grow slowly, and so we need to be really patient if we want to understand how they work. This is one of the reasons why the network of LTER sites across the country is so valuable.<\/p>\n

This leads to some further musings. One, as a family forest landowner, you\u00a0probably don’t have access to fancy monitoring equipment, or a Ph.D. scientist (or two or three) for hire. However, you do have a place that you observe on a fairly regular basis and you and your family may have a long-term connection to that place. Your observations, and more importantly your recording of your observations, have power. You can monitor changes on your property for your own purposes \u2013 wildlife sightings, stream changes \u2013 whatever fits your interests. For example, if you attend the upcoming\u00a0June 23rd<\/sup> tour at Hyla Woods<\/a>, you\u2019ll learn how the\u00a0host family has been monitoring birds in different forest types on their property for years.<\/p>\n

Additionally, there are opportunities to contribute your locally collected data to larger networks to help scientists understand long-term and large-scale patterns of change. Some examples include the National Phenology Network<\/a>, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS)<\/a>, and the Oregon Invasive Species Hotline<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0final thought\u00a0\u2013 partly because nature\u00a0is full of\u00a0long-term processes, our scientific understanding evolves over time, and sometimes what seems like a pattern or a clear result in the short term turns out to be different in the long term. I suppose that\u2019s why forest management practices are based on the \u201cbest available science\u201d of the time, but as time passes we might revisit and revise what is considered a best management practice. If those scientists who planted the pine watershed at Coweeta<\/a> had stopped their experiment after ten years, they would have come to false conclusions about different tree species\u2019 water use. And if climate scientists looked at trends over just a decade or two, they would certainly also miss the big picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(If you missed them, here\u2019s Part 1 and Part 2. Now for the final installment\u2026) Coweeta and other LTERs have all kinds of equipment which continuously monitor and record temperature, precipitation, stream flow, water chemistry, and so forth, and thus have compiled valuable long-term records. At Coweeta, these records date back to 1934, and two… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1783,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[112,523],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-climate-change","tag-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1783"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/treetopics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}