Projecting Potential Vegetation Distribution

After LoiczView was used to derive a ‘best prediction’ for Rzedowski’s Potential Vegetation Distribution, the model was used to project ‘current’ potential vegetation distributions fifty years into the future under conditions of global climate change.  Similar to Classification 34, LoiczView was used to produce a 12-cluster classification using elevation, and slope at a .05-degree grid resolution and with the maximum scaled distance measure.  In contrast, projected maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation were used instead of Conabio’s current maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation (19-class).  Two sets of projected climate data were used, one set a conservative scenario for projected climate assumed a 0.5% / annum CO2  increase and incorporated the negative forcing from sulfate aerosols, and the other set a less conservative or more extreme scenario for projected climate assumed a 1.0% / annum CO2  increase and did not incorporate the negative forcing from sulfate aerosols (see Projecting Potential Vegetation Distribution in Methods).
 
 

Figure 23: Change in Vegetation Distribution from Current to Projected
Conservative Climate Change Scenario.
 

Figure 24: Change in Vegetation Distribution from Current to Projected
Less-Conservative Climate Change Scenario
 
 
 

Table 16: Percent Shifts from Current to Projected Vegetation Distributions.





home         CONCLUSIONS