Jack Williams

University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dept of Geography
Director of the Center for Climatic Research
Bryson/CPEP Professorship

Using the Last Deglaciation as a Model System for Testing Species & Community Distribution Models

Room 811 AO&SS, February 6, 2012, 3:30 PM

Abstract

Species distribution models are widely used to project the effects of climate change scenarios on species distribution, and are a major tool in conservation planning. However, most species distribution models are based upon contemporary spatial patterns of species-climate relationships, and so their predictive skill under the novel climates projected fro this century is open to question. We can use the climate changes accompanying the last deglaciation as a model system for testing the robustness of species distribution models under conditions of rapidly changing climate and climates with no modern analog. Here I will show recent data-model comparisons using fossil pollen and paleoclimate simulations from the CCSM3 SynTrace project. This work has been supported by the Bryson Climate, People, and Environment Professorship.