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Climate Change Field Guides

The Climate Change Field Guides are designed to put useful climate change and adaptation information into the hands of natural resource professionals as they walk through the woods.

The field guides provide summary information about the major effects of climate change on northern forests and were designed to help professionals identify existing site conditions that could increase or reduce risk from climate change and a general structure to consider adaptation actions.

The field guides summarize information from climate change vulnerability assessments created for forests in the northern Midwest and includes climate adaptation information from Forest Adaptation Resources: Climate Change Tools and Approaches for Land Managers.



Field Guide sections

  1. Forest system characteristics

    Background information on typical soils, disturbance regimes, and vegetation.

  2. Climate change vulnerability and impacts

    Overall rankings for vulnerability and confidence.

    Expected climate change impacts for these forests.

  3. Adaptive capacity factors

    Factors that might help this system tolerate change.

  4. Site-level considerations

    Factors about a site that could increase or reduce risk from climate change.



Browse sub-regional climate change field guides

  • Northern Minnesota Field Guide

    This field guide includes synthesized vulnerability assessment information for Minnesota's Laurentian Mixed Forest Province to a range of future climates.

    See the Minnesota field guide

  • Northern Wisconsin Field Guide

    This field guide includes synthesized vulnerability assessment information for forests in the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province of northern Wisconsin and western Upper Michigan under a range of future climates.

    See the Northern Wisconsin field guide

  • Southern Wisconsin Field Guide

    This field guide includes synthesized vulnerability assessment information for forests Southern Wisconsin under a range of future climates.

    See the Southern Wisconsin field guide

  • Northern Michigan Field Guide

    This field guide includes synthesized vulnerability assessment information for forests in Michigan's eastern Upper Peninsula and northern Lower Peninsula to a range of future climates.

    See the Northern Michigan field guide

Acknowledgments

The booklets were created by partners from the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science, The Nature Conservancy, and the University of Minnesota who developed the original concept and the layout. The Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS) a collaborative, multi-institutional partnership led and supported by the USDA Forest Service.