Eleanor Taylor
The Forum looked at a variety of recent scientific findings on how climate change affects terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, sometimes in conjunction with other variables. It focused on current research frontiers such as the effects of changing climatic variability and extremes, connections between climate change and other human-induced stressors, thresholds and the possibility for rapid and irreversible change, and multi-trophic interactions. Ecosystems are quickly altering in response to climate change and other global change drivers, including changes in precipitation, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, water balance, ocean chemistry, and the frequency and amplitude of extreme events, among other things. Because of complex interactions among organisms, disturbance, and other stresses, ecosystems differ in their sensitivity and responsiveness to climate change.