The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was introduced on December 2, 1970 by President Richard Nixon. The agency is charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress. The EPA's struggle to protect health and the environment is seen through each of its official publications. These publications outline new policies, detail problems with enforcing laws, document the need for new legislation, and describe new tactics to use to solve these issues. This collection of publications ranges from historic documents to reports released in the new millennium, and features works like: Bicycle for a Better Environment, Health Effects of Increasing Sulfur Oxides Emissions Draft, and Women and Environmental Health.

Earth's climate is changing, as evidenced by warming temperatures, increased temperature variability, fluctuating precipitation patterns, and climate-related environmental disturbances. And with considerable uncertainty about the future, Forest Service land managers are now considering climate change adaptation in their planning efforts. They want practical approaches to managing forests and rangelands that will sustain key ecosystem functions, services, and critical habitats in the face of climate change. Climate change studies are proliferating, and locating pertinent information, as it applies to a particular Northwest landscape, can be a daunting task. Two Pacific Northwest Research Station scientists and their collaborators reviewed and synthesized extensive scientific knowledge and summarized model projections that describe vegetation vulnerability to climate-related environmental changes in the Pacific Northwest. They evaluated climate change issues for the region's five major biome types: (1) subalpine forests and alpine meadows, (2) maritime coniferous forests, (3) dry coniferous forests, (4) savannas and woodlands, and (5) interior shrub steppe. A general technical report titled Climate Change Effects on Vegetation in the Pacific Northwest provides a valuable snapshot of current information on a wide variety of climate change issues that managers may encounter during planning processes and in interactions with stakeholders.

The U.S. Pacific Northwest contains a wide variety of ecosystems, all subject to relatively dry summers and wet winters. As has been shown with paleoclimatic and paleoecological data, the region is vulnerable to changes in climate. We assessed the sensitivities of vegetation distributions, carbon stocks, and fire regimes to 21st century climate change by running MC1, a dynamic general vegetation model, over a large domain across Oregon and Washington at 800-meter resolution. During the historical period, MC1 generally overestimated carbon stocks in the Western Forests region and underestimated carbon stocks in the Eastern Forests and Columbia Plateau. MC1 displayed a strong bias in the seasonality of NPP towards decreased summer and increased winter production. This suggests the model's productivity equations may be overly sensitive to low soil moisture and under-sensitive to low temperatures. We downscaled nine future climate projections from three General Circulation Models (CSIRO Mk3, MIROC 3.2 medres, and Hadley CM 3), each run through three CO2 emission scenarios (SRES B1, A1B, and A2). Temperatures increased ubiquitously and concurrently with increasing emission scenario, but precipitation was more varied. CSIRO climates were relatively cool and wet, MIROC climates were hot and wet, and Hadley climates were hot and dry. Precipitation generally increased in winter and decreased in summer, and temperature increases were highest in summer. Previous work showed that CSIRO performed poorly, MIROC moderately well, and Hadley very well in the Pacific Northwest for the historical period. Future climate projections amplified the seasonal trends in climatic variables, water stress, and productivity. MC1 simulated the Pacific Northwest's western maritime forests as being vulnerable to large increases in fires, subsequent losses in carbon stocks, and encroachment from more southerly and/or easterly forest types. The arid, fire-adapted forests east of the Cascade appeared to be resilient to climate changes under MC1. With increasing precipitation, MC1 simulated vast expanses of shrublands in the Columbia Plateau and Northern Basin converting to grasslands or woodlands. Across the domain, MC1 runs under the CSIRO climate projections averaged 82% increases in biomass combusted and 1.2% (0.1 Pg C) decreases in ecosystem carbon, while those under MIROC averaged 22% increases in biomass combusted and 0.8% (0.07 Pg C) increases in ecosystem carbon. Climate projections from the Hadley model resulted in the most extreme changes, averaging 259% increases in biomass combusted and 15% (1.26 Pg C) decreases in ecosystem carbon. Our study suggests some areas within the Pacific Northwest may be vulnerable, and others resilient, to climate change, although this is highly dependent on model assumptions and uncertainties.

This volume offers a scientific assessment of the effects of climatic variability and change on forest resources in the United States. Derived from a report that provides technical input to the 2013 U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the book serves as a framework for managing U.S. forest resources in the context of climate change. The authors focus on topics having the greatest potential to alter the structure and function of forest ecosystems, and therefore ecosystem services, by the end of the 21st century. Part I provides an environmental context for assessing the effects of climate change on forest resources, summarizing changes in environmental stressors, followed by state-of-science projections for future climatic conditions relevant to forest ecosystems. Part II offers a wide-ranging assessment of vulnerability of forest ecosystems and ecosystem services to climate change. The authors anticipate that altered disturbance regimes and stressors will have the biggest effects on forest ecosystems, causing long-term changes in forest conditions. Part III outlines responses to climate change, summarizing current status and trends in forest carbon, effects of carbon management, and carbon mitigation strategies. Adaptation strategies and a proposed framework for risk assessment, including case studies, provide a structured approach for projecting and responding to future changes in resource conditions and ecosystem services. Part IV describes how sustainable forest management, which guides activities on most public and private lands in the United States, can provide an overarching structure for mitigating and adapting to climate change.