18. El Nino & Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Sites

Greenland, David. (ed). 1994. El Nino and Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Sites. Publication No. 18. LTER Network Office: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque USA. 57 pp. Six papers, or shorter contributions, describe studies of analysis of climatic, or proxy climatic, data at or near the following five LTER sites: Sevilleta (NM), Niwot Ridge (CO), Andrews (OR), Konza Prairie (KS), and North Temperate Lakes (WI). LTER areas and regions for the most part display El Nino signals consistent to those already found in continental scale studies. The El Nino climatic signals take different forms at different sites. The signals appear with different time lags and different intensities. Sometimes La Nina signals are more important than those of El Nino. The timing of El Nino occurrence and its climatic response at an LTER site is important with regard to the ecological response at the site. Sites whose ecosystems are influenced by winter and spring climatic events such as amounts of winter/spring precipitation, snowpack buildup, soil moisture storage, or time of ice breakup, display the largest ecological impacts of El Nino-related climatic phenomena.