Vegetation dynamics and paleoclimate in western Canada

可能对自然生态系统和人类社会产生负面影响的环境扰动很多，目前公众的注意力主要集中在气候变化上，有时还集中在地震和海啸等极端事件上。自1976年以来，我的研究计划继续强调研究加拿大西部过去发生的(数千年来)环境影响，目的是更好地了解气候变化、地震、森林火灾和火山喷发等干扰的长期影响，并利用这些知识帮助预测未来对自然系统的影响。我的合作者和学生与我一起参与了各种研究项目，这些项目都提供了与过去干扰相关的植被变化的信息。由于植被可以很好地反映气候条件，过去温度和湿度的变化通常可以从植物化石数据中重建出来。这类古数据可以帮助检查基于计算机的气候模型的准确性，并为大气和海洋中反复出现的气候变化提供长时间序列。这些数据在公园、林业、渔业和文化资源的管理中也很重要，并为调查原住民历史提供了环境背景。

Environmental disturbances that can negatively affect natural ecosystems and human societies are many, with current public attention focussed primarily on climate changes, and sometimes on epsiodic events like earthquakes and tsunamis. My research program since 1976 continues to emphasize studying past occurrences (over thousands of years) of environmental impacts in Western Canada, with the aim of better understanding the long-term effects of disturbances such as climate changes, earthquakes, forest fires and volcanic eruptions, and using this knowledge to help predict future impacts on natural systems. My collaborators and students work with me on a variety of research projects that all provide information on vegetation changes associated with past disturbances. Since vegetation is a good "proxy" for climatic conditions, past changes in temperature and moisture can often be reconstructed from fossil plant data. Such paleo-data can help check the accuracy of computer-based climate models and provides long time series for recurring climate changes in the atmosphere and oceans. These data are also important in the management of parks, forestry, fisheries, and cultural resources as well as providing an environmental context for investigations of First Nations history.