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Climate Change and the Inland Rainforest
Overview
The unique character of the northern interior wetbelt depends, in part, on its unique climate. As air masses moving east from the Pacific Ocean approach the Rocky Mountains and begin to rise, they drop precipitation on the western flanks of the mountains. This maritime influence creates a climate that is wetter than that of other ecosystems of the British Columbia interior. At the same time, the high latitude of the northern wetbelt and its distance from the ocean create a continental climate – one with a warmer summer and a colder winter than a coastal climate at the same latitude. As a result of these two influences, maritime and continental, a substantial portion of the precipitation in the interior wetbelt comes as snow. As the snow gradually melts each spring, it feeds the streams, rivers, and lakes of the interior wetbelt. It also seeps downslope through the soil, helping to keep water-receiving sites at low elevations moist throughout the growing season.
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How will this unique regional climate, the ecosystems that depend on it, and the people that depend on the ecosystems, be affected by global climate change? That is the topic of a current multidisciplinary research program, being conducted under the auspices of the Future Forest Ecosystems Scientific Council of British Columbia at the University of Northern B.C.
Left: Changes to winter snowpack are a key climate variable that could have large influences on the future composition of B.C.'s inland rainforests. Project student Asha MacDonald, here at the Ancient Forest trail, is developing lichen biomonitoring protocols to assess climate change.
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