[MCN] NASA: Climate and the future of forests

[Lance Olsen]

The latest from NASA's Earth Observatory (17 May 2016)
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New Features:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/

* Natural Beauty at Risk: Preparing for Climate Change in National Parks
 
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/NationalParksClimate/?src=eoa-features
     Many National Parks were created to protect forests and 
ecosystems from development and fragmentation. But changes in 
temperature, rainfall, and atmospheric concentrations of carbon 
dioxide could eventually do as much to remake forests as humans did 
with saws and fires and bulldozers.
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"Water vapor strongly influences atmospheric dynamics and the 
hydrologic cycle through latent heat transport and diabatic heating. 
Water vapor is also the most abundant greenhouse gas. As the 
equilibrium vapor pressure of water vapor increases rapidly with 
temperature, warming (or cooling) induced by a climate forcing will 
be amplified through water vapor feedback [e.g., Soden et al., 2002]. 
The strength of this feedback is a key determinant of the 
planet'sequilibrium climate sensitivity. Assessing and understanding 
variability and change in atmospheric water vapor is hence an 
important element of climate change research."


Mark C. Serreze, Andrew P. Barrett, and Julienne Stroeve. Recent 
changes in tropospheric water vapor over the Arctic as assessed from 
radiosondes and atmospheric reanalyses. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL 
RESEARCH, VOL. 117, D10104, doi:10.1029/2011JD017421, 2012