As the nation debates the proper limits for greenhouse gas emissions, climate change already is altering human and natural systems. Preventing the most catastrophic effects will require significant reductions in emissions from every sector of the economy. But even if those reductions are achieved, starting today, changes to our climate already have begun. 

Across the Appalachian region, average temperatures have risen more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit; winter average temperatures by 4 degrees. Spring is arriving earlier, summers are growing hotter, and winters are becoming warmer and less snowy.

It’s time to take a hard look at the inevitable effects of a warming world – and then take action, says Dominique Bachelet, Ph.D., The Nature Conservancy’s Director of Climate Change Science and an expert on the impacts of climate change on plants, animals and the ecosystems that support them.

Strengthening the resilience of nature to climate change – through conservation and sustainable resource management – is an important and cost-effective response to the threats from climate change.

“Building nature’s resilience to climate change is vital to reducing impacts on people and nature,” Bachelet explains. “We should brace for losses, but be prepared to take advantage of opportunities.”

Opportunities to shore up nature’s resilience are abundant in the Central and Southern Appalachians.

This region, despite its proximity to some of the most densely populated areas in North America, holds great promise as a stronghold against extinctions due to climate change – if habitat protection efforts are successful.

“We’re going to lose some species, but the opportunities here are great for more species to survive,” says Rodney Bartgis, state director of the Conservancy in West Virginia. “We’re starting out with more species, so we’re likely to have more left once the climate stabilizes.”

Why So Many Species in this Region?

The Central and Southern Appalachians are one of the most biologically diverse temperate deciduous forests in the world. Why?

• Geography: Elevations vary by 4,500 feet throughout the region, which also includes the most land above 3,000 feet in the East. In addition, land forms vary from broad valleys, like the Shenandoah, to deep gorges (e.g. New River) to high peaks like the West Virginia’s Spruce Mountain.
   
• Watersheds: Some water flows to the Ohio River and the Gulf of Mexico; other Appalachian streams head East to the Atlantic Ocean.
   
• Habitat variety: Geologic diversity leads to a variety of habitats, including mountain ponds, bogs, mountaintop barrens and numerous caves, all of which provide unusual natural communities upon which many species depend.

How Will Climate Change Affect this Region?

Modeling impacts completed by Dr. Bachelet suggest that the Northeast forests will become drier and more susceptible to fire as the planet warms. For example, the dense Appalachian forests in Pennsylvania and West Virginia will likely become more savanna-like. Species dependent on cooler winters and more precipitation (maple-beech-birch forests, hemlock, spruce, fir) will likely move north while fire-adapted species (oak-hickory/pitch pine) will expand its range.

Some species may not survive these changes, at least not in this region. Species like highland rush, a type of plant that is at the southern limit of its range in West Virginia mountaintops, will have no place to go as the climate warms.

But the north-south orientation of these mountains, the large extent of high country, and the relatively unbroken forest cover in many areas, will allow many other species to move into habitat better suited to their needs as the climate changes.  In addition, the large variation in habitats means that species have a better likelihood of encountering the habitat they require as they shift their ranges.

What is the Conservancy Doing?

The more opportunities species have to adapt, the more likely they are to survive, however, and so The Nature Conservancy is working with public and private land managers to identify, prioritize and protect the most vulnerable natural communities, including:

• Protecting the vernal pools along South Mountain

• Protecting ridge-top barrens at places like Moosic Mountain in Pennsylvania and Dolly Sods in West Virginia, as well as caves throughout the Central and Southern Appalachian region

• Restoring the historic range of red spruce forests in the high mountain areas of West Virginia, important habitat for the federally-endangered Cheat Mountain salamander.

• Building a network of protected areas that would allow species to migrate as climate changes. For example, to protect hemlock forests, an effective strategy might focus conservation on deeper, cooler valleys.

"We won’t be able to stop species from moving in response to changing climate", Bachelet says. “The players will change, but if we protect the stage, the show will go on,”

The Nature Conservancy is working with partners in the U.S. and around the world to promote a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but we’re also working to develop strategies and tools to help people and nature cope with the inevitable changes that will come with a warming world. Time is short. The planet is already changing. Every year we wait to act means we will have to make more ambitious – and more expensive – reductions later.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Ben Thomas/TNC (Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia); Photo © Dave Spier (Northern harrier, Circus-cyaneus).