Arid Ecosystems May Be More Resilient to Warming

After analyzing records at 35 headwater basins in the U.S. and Canada, scientists at the Long Term Ecological Research Network find that as temperatures increase in these snowpack regions, a large amount of stream water is lost due to evaporation. The results, published in BioScience, show that changes in streamflow reflect climate variability—such as El Niño—as well as past and present human influence, and records are finally long enough to where scientists can determine the effects of each individually. One surprise, according to the lead author, is that streamflow only decreased in areas with snow and ice, indicating that dry forested ecosystems might be more resilient to warming than previously thought.