The Dukes Lab at Purdue and UMass Boston
News
The first meeting of all BACE researchers was held on July 16-17, 2009 in Waltham. See the picture below.
On November 19, 2007 the Daily News Tribune covered the BACE in "Professor is plotting the path of global warming."
On July 10, 2007 the BACE was featured on the 5 o'clock news on WCVB-TV Boston (Channel 5; ABC). You can read or view the story here.
Climate of the future? Boston Globe story about the BACE (June 21, 2007)
On April 26, 2007 the BACE was featured on the 6 o'clock news on WBZ-TV Boston (Channel 4; CBS), as one installment of their "Project Mass.: Global Warming" series. You can read or view the story here.
On Earth Day 2007 the BACE opened its "Climate Change Classroom" with displays on the topic of climate change. This area is open to the public.

Part of the BACE public exhibit was displayed at the 2007 New England Spring Flower Show at the Bayside Expo Center, where it won a Silver Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.

You can view many of the displays and obtain more information here.
What is the BACE?

The Boston-Area Climate Experiment (BACE) is designed to characterize ecosystem responses to climate change over a response surface, as opposed to testing responses to single step increases. Will the processes and properties of communities and ecosystems respond linearly to changes in temperature, or are there important threshold temperatures that could be reached? To what extent does an ecosystem's response to warming depend on precipitation patterns? The BACE will test these questions experimentally, in a New England old-field ecosystem. Researchers will measure responses of several variables, including growth of wildflowers, grasses, and tree seedlings.

The BACE is coordinated by the Dukes lab at Purdue University and the University of Massachusetts Boston. For more information, contact Jeff Dukes by email (dukes (at) stanfordalumni.org).

Collaborating laboratories include those of: Richard Conant (Colorado State University), Michael Daley (Lasell College), Jennifer Martiny (University of California Irvine), Paul Moorcroft (Harvard), Bill Parton (CSU), Richard Primack (Boston University), Eldor Paul (CSU), Vikki Rodgers (Babson College), and Matthew Wallenstein (CSU).

The BACE was constructed with funding from the National Science Foundation, and is supported by the National Institute for Climatic Change Research. The BACE is endorsed by the Global Land Project.

Volunteering at BACE

We are always looking for volunteers who would be interested in helping us out at our field site in Waltham, Massachusetts. Vounteers can expect to learn more about climate change and old-field ecosystems, as well as the science of ecology. If you're a high school student, college student, recent graduate, or community member and you're interested in getting involved, please email Jeff Dukes at dukes (at) stanfordalumni.org.

Climate Change Links

An informative blog about climate change, and climate science in general, written by climate scientists. Find good responses to your burning questions here.

The Nobel-prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or "IPCC"), which produces the most comprehensive and authoritative reports on climate change (all available free online).


BACE researchers collecting data in June 2009



BACE researchers at the meeting in July 2009



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