Abstract: "This report documents trends and impacts of climate change on America's forests as required by the Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974. Recent research on the impact of climate and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide on plant productivity is synthesized. Modeling analyses explore the potential impact of climate changes on forests, wood products, and carbon in the United States."

This book presents the major findings and selected highlights from Climate Change Impacts in the United States, the third National Climate Assessment. The National Climate Assessment assesses the science of climate change and its impacts across the United States, now and throughout this century. It documents climate change related impacts and responses for various sectors and regions, with the goal of better informing public and private decision-making at all levels. A team of more than 300 experts, guided by a 60-member National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, produced the full report. The assessment draws from a large body of scientific peer-reviewed research, technical input reports, and other publicly available sources; all sources meet the standards of the Information Quality Act. The report was extensively reviewed by the public and experts, including a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, the 13 Federal agencies of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the Federal Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability.

The forested land in the United States is an asset that is owned and managed not only by federal, state, and local governments, but also by families and other private groups, including timber investment management organizations and real estate investment trusts. The more than 10 million family forestland owners manage the largest percentage of forestland acreage (35 percent) and the majority of the privately owned forestland (62 percent). The Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for the stewardship of all of the nation's forests, has long worked with private owners of forestland on forest management and preservation. At a time when all forestland is facing intensified threats because of the long-term effects of global climate change, the Forest Service recognizes that family forestland owners play a key role in protecting forestland. It is working to identify optimal ways to engage this diverse group and support them in mitigating threats to the biologically diverse land they own or manage. Climate Change Education: Engaging Family Private Forest Owners on Issues Related to Climate Change is the summary of a workshop, convened by the National Research Council's Board on Science Education and Board on Environmental Change and Society as part of its Climate Change Education Roundtable series, to explore approaches to the challenges that face state foresters, extension agents, private forestry consultants, and others involved with private family forestland owners on how to take climate change into consideration when making decisions about their forests. The workshop focused on how findings from the behavioral, social, and educational sciences can be used to help prepare for the impacts of climate change. The workshop participants discussed the threats to forests posed by climate change and human actions; private forestland owners' values, knowledge, and dispositions about forest management, climate change, and related threats; and strategies for improving communication between forestland owners and service providers about forest management in the face of climate change.

The chapters in this book present a snapshot of the state of knowledge of air pollution effects at the beginning of the 21st century. From their different disciplines, a distinguished collection of authors document their understanding of how leaves, trees, and forests respond to air pollutants and climate change. Scenarios of global change and air pollution are described. The authors describe responses of forests to climate variability, tropospheric ozone, rising atmospheric CO2, the combination of CO2 and ozone, and deposition of acidic compounds and heavy metals. The responses to ozone receive particular attention because of increasing concern about its damaging effects and increasing concentrations in rural areas. Scaling issues are addressed - from leaves to trees, from juvenile trees to mature trees, from short-term responses to long-term responses, and from small-scale experiments and observations to large-scale forest ecosystems. This book is one major product of a conference sponsored by the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations, the USDA Forest Service Global Change Northern Stations Program, the Arthur Ross Foundation, NCASI, the Canadian Forest Service, and Michigan Technological University. The conference, held in May 2000 in Houghton, Michigan, USA, was appropriately titled "Air Pollution, Global Change, and Forests in the New Millennium". The Editors, David Karnosky, Kevin Percy, Art Chappelka, Caroline Simpson, and Janet Pikkarainen organized the conference and edited this book.

The United States has a diverse array of forest cover types on its 747 million acres of forest land. Forests in the United States have been shaped by many natural and human-caused forces, including climate, physiography, geology, soils, water, fire, land use changes, timber harvests, and other human interventions. The major purpose of this document is to describe area projections of forest cover changes on timberland areas of the United States, in support of the 2000 Resources Planning Act assessment by the USDA Forest Service. Forest area projections differ markedly by region, owner, and forest cover type. Although some regions such as the North are projected to have relatively small percentage changes in common types such as maple-beech-birch (less than 5 percent), others in the South have relatively large projected changes: reductions of 19 percent for upland hardwood on nonindustrial private forest timberlands and 58 percent on forest industry timberlands in the South Central region; and increases in excess of 25 percent for planted pine for both private ownerships in the South. Although the area of softwoods is projected to increase across many regions of the country, especially on forest industry lands, hardwoods will remain the dominant forest type on private lands.

Applies advanced new economics methodologies to assess possible impacts of climate change on the US economy; for graduate students, researchers and policymakers.

Includes policy and scientific overviews; atmospheric and oceans processes; human health implications of climate change and ozone depletion; agricultural, ecological and water resource implications; implications for coastal planning; urban planning; the Caribbean, Arctic, and various other regions; energy implications; and developing a framework for international climate change.