date: Wed, 22 May 1996 16:16:26 -0500 (EST) from: LUCKMAN@SSCL.UWO.CA subject: IAI treelines meeting to: K.BRIFFA@UEA.AC.UK Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K1. telephone 519-679-2111 ext 5012 Fax 519-661-3750 e-mail Luckman@sscl.uwo.ca May 21st, 1996 Dear Keith, Last year the US National Science Foundation initiated the Inter American Institute for Global Change Start-up Grant Program (IAISG). The objective of these grants is to provide funds to facilitate the development of proposals that address the IAI Science Agenda and will be submitted to IAI Phase II. Broadly speaking this agenda addresses global change issues in the Americas and stresses international scientific collaboration at the individual, institutional, national and international levels. Simultaneously a series of research initiatives were being developed in conjunction with the PEP-1 (Americas) transect of IGBP PAGES. As a response to both of these initiatives an IAISG proposal was developed to request funds for a meeting of scientists to discuss and develop research proposals relating to climate variability and change based on the natural archives found in treeline environments along the American Cordillera. The concept was hold a meeting in Canada in October 1996 with about 30-40 scientists drawn from the fields of ecology, paleoecology, climatology, dendrochronology, quaternary geology/ geomorphology and glaciology. This proposal was recommended for IAI funding and, though I have not yet received formal notification of funding from NSF, it is expected within the next month. The meeting will be held in Jasper, Alberta, Canada between ca. 5th-10th October 1996 (precise timing will be confirmed later). A brief outline of the proposed meeting and the goals of this project are appended. I am writing to you at this time as one of the key participants to find out whether you are interested in and able to attend this meeting and to provide some preliminary details. In order to plan the program effectively I need some information from potential participants and a realistic estimate of their travel costs. The funds from IAI will not cover the entire cost of the meeting for all participants and I am trying to obtain additional financial support for the meeting from other sources. I anticipate that conference costs in Canada (i.e. to and from Calgary) will be covered for all invited participants plus a major part of their travel expenses but cannot give a firmer commitment until I have a clearer picture of the total budget. The first part of the meeting will consist of overview papers on selected topics plus short presentations of recent results by participants. As you can see from the attached outline the general focus is on treeline ecology/paleoecology; dendrochronology and long records from these environments plus complementary high (annual) resolution proxy climate data sets. The second part and major focus of the meeting will consist of working group discussions targetted towards proposal development which would be completed during the meeting. There will also be opportunities to visit a number of classic treeline sites in the Canadian Rockies (e.g. Peyto Lake, Athabasca Glacier\Sunwapta Pass). ... 2/ - 2 - At the present time I am requesting certain basic information from all potential participants. I would be grateful if you could provide me with the information requested on the attached list as soon as possible. I will contact you again, hopefully within a month, with a list of confirmed participants and a tentative program of presentations. I hope that you will be able to join us in Jasper in October and that we will have a very productive exchange of information and ideas that will lead to the development of long term collaboration between participants relating to global/climate change within the Americas. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Yours sincerely Brian Luckman Professor P.S. Please excuse this formal letter. Other tree-ring people will include malcolm, gordon, lisa, stahle, villalba, lara and boninsegna. My guess is you might want to talk about methods but you might, I think, have some south American stuff as well but we can discuss particulars later. At this stage I wanted to let you know the dates and see whether you can be tempted to fit us into your schedule. I will guarantee the Columbia Icefields but cannot promise the weather will be as welcoming!! Cheers Brian **************************************************************************** INFORMATION REQUESTED Name/Title Institutional address Office Telephone Number Home Telephone number Office FAX number E-Mail Address Will you be able to attend the "treelines" meeting ca October 5-10 in Jasper, Alberta, Canada. Estimated travel cost to Calgary, Alberta (US $$ please) (APEX or excursion fare, advanced booking, travel over a Saturday night) Would you be able to meet partial travel costs to attend the meeting (this is not a commitment but for information only at this stage) Topics on which you would be prepared to contribute to the discussions (see scientific themes attached) and area of specific regional expertise. Are there any periods during the next 6 months when you will be away from your home institution for periods of several weeks. If so could you provide an alternative contact address for these periods. ***************************************************************************** THE ASSESSMENT OF PRESENT, PAST AND FUTURE CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN THE AMERICAS FROM TREELINE ENVIRONMENTS The PEP-1 transect in the Americas contains several unique geographical features namely; (i) it is the longest contiguous latitudinal terrestrial transect on earth; (ii) the western cordillera provide a physiographic unity to this transect that is not found elsewhere at this scale; and, (iii) the juxtaposition of mountains and ocean throughout the transect allow comparison of terrestrial and marine records. Therefore the PEP-1 (Americas) transect offers unique opportunities for collaborative scientific work that addresses; interhemispheric comparisons between similar environments; comparison of records along major latitudinal gradients; and comparison of adjacent terrestrial and oceanic records. These latitudinal dimensions allow significant insight into global patterns of climate change at various timescales that cannot easily be accomplished in other areas of the world. Evaluation of these patterns can yield critical information for the testing of ideas about forcing functions and controls of climate variability at interannual and decade-to century timescales. The presence of mountain environments throughout this transect is of paramount significance because of the proven potential of these areas to yield high quality paleoenvironmental data. The sharp environmental gradients allow the close juxtaposition of diverse, climatically-sensitive, environments (e.g. glaciers, upper and lower treelines, internally draining lake basins) that have the potential to preserve relatively long, continuous records of environmental changes. Upper and lower treeline areas provide the greatest opportunities because of the strong contrasts in vegetation, microclimates and processes between adjacent environments. Moreover, the severe environments (dry and/or cold) adjacent to treelines are conducive to the preservation of evidence on or near the surface that would quickly decay in more temperate environments. The treelines of the Americas are also home to many of the longest-lived tree species in the world. Thus, although the PEP-1 Americas Transect lacks the long instrumental or human documentary records common in some other areas of the world, it contains some of the best and longest high resolution natural archives. PROPOSAL A meeting will be held in Jasper, Alberta, Canada in early October 1996. The meeting will involve scientists from a wide range of IAI member countries who will review the present status and discuss the development of comparative studies at treeline environments along the American cordillera that will; (i) evaluate and benchmark the climate signals found at modern treeline sites and determine the response of this sensitive environment to recent climate variation; (ii) develop a network of comparable high resolution proxy climate series that show interannual climate variation at treeline over the last ca 1000 years for key localities; (iii) utilise these data to examine the local and regional patterns of interannual and longer term climate variability to develop data on key temporal and spatial patterns of forcing functions. SCIENTIFIC THEMES TO BE ADDRESSED 1. TREELINE ENVIRONMENTS AS ARCHIVES OF PAST CHANGES (i) understanding the contemporary environments (a) dynamics and characteristics of present treelines climate controls ecological controls fire and other natural hazards human effects regional differences (species, human interference etc) disturbance regimes (b) dendroclimatology and isotope dendroclimate of treeline sites nature of the contemporary climate signal recovered from tree-ring studies at treeline approaches to the reconstruction of paleorecords from these data sampling networks transfer functions synoptic dendroclimatology (ii) paleoenvironmental reconstruction based on records from treeline sites in the American Cordillera (a) reconstruction of recent trends from population and seedling studies- responses of contemporary treelines to recent climate fluctuations and other controls (last 1- 200 years) (b) longer term histories based on macrofossil (subfossil) snag material on the surface histories based on palynology and bog records macrofossils etc (last 1-2000 years?) (c) proxy climate histories based on tree ring studies from treeline sites (width, density,isotopes, last 1000 years) (d) complementary histories based on other high resolution proxy data sources from this (and adjacent) environments (glacier fluctuations, glacio-lacustrine and ice-core records) 2. INFERENCES ABOUT CLIMATE VARIABILITY, REGIONAL AND LOCAL TELECONNECTIONS BASED ON RECORDS FROM NETWORKS OF TREELINE SITES (a) climate variability at interannual, decadal and centennial timescales. (b) environmental changes along latitudinal gradients (c) interhemispheric comparison of high resolution proxy climate records. (d) comparison of treeline environments with differing latitudes and hemispheres (e) information from records about forcing functions GOALS OF THE PROPOSED MEETING 1. Overview of existing state of knowledge in the SCIENTIFIC THEMES listed above (invited review statements prepared for the meeting to form a basis for discussion). 2. Recognise obvious areas of existing strength and collaborative potential. Examples might include, contrasts in the controls and history of treelines along the cordillera; differences in response to past and present climate of treelines and tree-ring signals for different taxa in different geographical regions; comparisons of glacier-treeline records of the American cordillera and southern Andes. 3. Identify significant gaps in the site networks, available data or the techniques used. There are major differences in the amount, detail and development of studies available along this transect and it is clear that significant work is necessary within South and Central America, and to a lesser extent Canada, to provide a balanced geographic network of sites. 4. Examine the existing database sources for material related to these projects. Several research areas are well served in this regard- e.g. the International Tree-ring Databank, existing Palynological and Ice core data bases- but the meeting may need to review the need for repositories for new project data which does not fit easily into existing archives. This would also involve the development of a series of data protocols for these materials. 5. Assess the scientific resources, personnel and areas for possible collaboration within the research fields discussed and identify critical groups of researchers in each of these fields to develop proposal/funding ideas. The goal would be to strengthen interhemispheric research ties along the PEP-1 transect and open up and develop stronger research and institutional links within the Americas. This could include recommendations for the development of programs and/or facilities for the academic exchange of researchers and students between cooperating institutions. 6. Identify the critical research questions that should be addressed using the data presented and discussed at the meeting. 7. Develop a long-term research strategy to address these questions that would also involve international cooperation in facility and research personnel development. This would involve a mix of research endeavours that; (i) could be accomplished from data exchange and collaboration using presently available data; (ii) could be accomplished using data from studies presently in progress or by minor updating of presently available data (e.g. tree- ring chronologies); (iii) would require major new data collection initiatives. This would involve the identification of key resources, geographic or thematic areas to be targeted for future work. 8. Select material from these discussions for the development of a series of stage 2 proposals. 9. Develop the outline, framework and timetable for a proceedings volume ("Treeline Environments of the Americas") to address the main themes in (1) and perhaps some initial comparative studies as discussed in (2). This might include the development of a reference data base of compatible annually or decadally resolved time series from various proxy sources for the use of researchers and/or students within this field. 10. Discuss the possibilities of continued monitoring (possibly in association with AMIGO or IGBP monitoring programs) at selected treeline environments. STRUCTURE OF MEETING One Week (Saturday-Thursday) Four working days, one day at local treeline sites for field discussion of problems, etc. Scientific Program Section 1: Present treelines- ecology, controls, north-south differences- recent dynamics Section 2: High resolution records from treeline environments and other proxy data sources Section 3: Climate variation at interannual to century timescales: spatial and temporal patterns. Section 4: Review and development of proposals, preparation of meeting reports General format (paper sessions) a) Keynote- overview (probably separate regional accounts)-30/45 minutes b) Individual case studies of new/ongoing projects (20 minutes) c) Some initial comparative studies d) Rapporteur's comments; identification of major themes/issues. VENUE/ MEETING DETAILS Locality: Jasper, Alberta, Canada Conference Facility: Conference Hotel in Jasper Dates: October 5 -10th, 1996.