AGU Fall Meeting

We invite you to contribute your abstract to special session focusing on phenology at the AGU Fall Meeting, December 10-14, 2007!

B17: Observing, Analyzing, and Modeling Phenologies at Multiple Scales.

Co-conveners: G. Henebry (South Dakota State University), M. Losleben (USA National Phenology Network), A. Bunn (Western Washington University)

Phenology is the study of the timing of recurring biological and ecological events and the biotic and abiotic forces that influence the timing. Phenology is, in the words of Aldo Leopold, a "horizontal science" that cuts across and binds together multiple biological disciplines. It is a far-reaching but poorly understood and underutilized aspect of the environmental sciences. Phenologies come in many forms - the appearance of migratory species, the stages of crop development, and the onset of spring across the vegetated land surface, leaf fall in deciduous species, or growth and development of indicator species. The methods used to observe, analyze, and model these phenologies are diverse. With the advent of the National Phenology Network, the United States has for the first time a federal program designed to coordinate, collect, analyze, and disseminate phenological observations at multiple scales and across scientific and social disciplines. This centralized resource enables the integration of spatially-extensive phenological data and models with both short and long-term climatic forecasts to be used as a powerful agent for human adaptation to ongoing and future climate change. This session provides a meeting place for a multiplicity of approaches to phenological study to exchange data and information. We encourage researchers across disciplines and across the planet to contribute to this multidisciplinary session.

The session is sponsored by the Biogeosciences section and co-sponsored by the Atmospheric Sciences, Global Environmental Change, and Hydrology sections.  This year marks the fourth in a series of phenology special sessions at the AGU Fall Meetings, and it promises to be an exciting forum to share knowledge as well as to learn about the newly emerging USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN).

Why a National Phenology Network for the USA?  To fully capture the value of phenological data, a new resource is required to integrate networks of phenological observations, link with other relevant data sources, and provide access to tools to analyze these data at multiple scales.  The USA-NPN is currently being designed and organized to engage federal agencies, environmental networks and field stations, educational institutions, and mass participation by citizen scientists.

AGU allows only one contributed presentation at the meeting (whether poster or talk). The deadline for submission of presentations is September 6.  When you submit your abstract (online through <http://submissions3.agu.org/submission/entrance.asp>), be sure to select the Special Session entitled "Observing, Analyzing, and Modeling Phenologies at Multiple Scales". (At the moment, the session is assigned the code B17, but this code can change during the abstract submission period.)

In case you are not familiar with the AGU way, there is no guarantee at this stage that this special session will be allocated one or more oral sessions. Most of the presentations at AGU are posters and oral sessions are allocated proportionally to the number of abstracts submitted directly to that session. However, the track record for phenology sessions is good: one oral session in 2004; two oral sessions both in 2005 and 2006.

If you have questions or you are not an AGU member and need to have your abstract submission sponsored by a member, please do not hesitate to contact us!

We look forward to receiving your abstract and your participation in
this session!

Geoff Henebry (geoffrey.henebry@sdstate.edu)
Andy Bunn (Andy.Bunn@wwu.edu)
Mark Losleben (losleben@email.arizona.edu)