A new tool to evaluate proposals for climate change research in U.S. wilderness

Abstract

The effects of climate change are increasingly apparent and scientists from nearly every discipline are calling for more monitoring and research. Many have suggested that wilderness would be an excellent place to conduct such work because it has escaped many of the smaller-scale anthropogenic environmental insults that occur in other areas. Also, change in the distribution of species that live in the more extreme environments of wilderness might serve as an early warning of the effects from climate change. In short, climate change research is an opportunity to use wilderness as a benchmark and as a place to understand ecological change, helping fulfill the scientific value and purpose of wilderness as stated in the 1964 Wilderness Act.

Citation

Landres, Peter. 2009. A new tool to evaluate proposals for climate change research in U.S. wilderness. International Journal of Wilderness. 15(3): 29-30.