The winter “Sequoia Speaks” series of weekly lectures and presentations starts on January 29. Discover the untold stories of Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks through the explorations and experiences of scientists, artists, and historians. This series is resented by the National Park Service. See dates and topics below image.
All programs are free and open to the public, and will be held at the Three Rivers Arts Center on North Fork Drive in Three Rivers.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 29, 2011 7-8 pm
Climate is Changing and So Must We
Accelerated changes in climate and its impacts to water and ecosystems are already being observed in many parts of our planet, including the Southern Sierra Nevada, and more are projected. In the face of these unprecedented global changes, past conditions no longer provide us with sensible management targets. What are land managers to do? The future is uncertain, forcing us to think and act in fundamentally new ways. Koren Nydick, Science Coordinator, will address what the National Park Service and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are doing to meet this challenge head-on.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2011 7-8 pm
Shifting Water Dynamics in the Sierra Nevada National Parks and their Consequences
Meet Jennie Skancke, the Sierra Network’s new physical scientist, and discover what profound implications warming temperatures and shifts from snow to rain in the Sierra Nevada will have for resources in the national parks and for state water management. Find out how anticipating and documenting these changes will allow the National Park Service resource managers and state water managers to focus their restoration or protection efforts.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2011 7-8 pm
Fire in the National Park Service: An Evolving Relationship
Patterns of fire occurrence in the Sierra Nevada are governed by biological factors, such as plant species composition and fuel production, and environmental and physical factors, such as topography, weather, and climate. Global climate change is likely to cause changes to these patterns. Tony Caprio, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park’s fire ecologist will look at past and contemporary patterns and consider how they may change in the future.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2011 7-8 pm
Taking the Long View: park biologists and citizen scientists working together to monitor alpine plant communities
Join Park Plant Ecologist, Sylvia Haultain, on a stunning photographic tour of the plants and animals that live above treeline. She will highlight the parks’ participation in the international Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA) network and the newly established High Sierra monitoring sites in the Mt. Langley area. Discover an exciting new program that engages you, citizen scientists, in documenting changes in the timing of life cycle events of local plants. Your observations can contribute to our understanding of local climate change effects.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2011 7-8 pm
A Legacy of Joseph Grinnell: predicting the future from the record of the past
Joseph Grinnell, the founding director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC-Berkeley and an influential naturalist of the early 20th century, began his career at the museum with this vision: “…the greatest purpose of our museum…will not be realized until the lapse of many years, possibly a century…and this is that the student of the future will have access to the original record of vertebrate conditions in California.” Grinnell’s vision stemmed from his concern for the loss of nature habitats, but today we also face climate change.
Join Jim Patton, Curator and Professor Emeritus, from the University of California, Berkeley in his discussion of the Grinnell Resurvey Project. This project began in 2003 and centered along the length of the Sierra Nevada as a realization of Grinnell’s early vision. He will detail the changes in range distributions of small mammals and birds over the past century, discuss the potential forces underlying these shifts, and address the likely future for several of our most iconic terrestrial vertebrate species.
For more information, please call 559-565-4212.
Image source: nps.gov/seki
