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Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) undergo an iconic multi‐generational migration, traveling thousands of kilometers from the summer breeding grounds in southern Canada to overwintering sites in central Mexico. This migration phenomena can be affected by climate change, which may have important implications on fitness and ultimately populations status. We investigated the long‐term trends in fall migration phenology of monarchs using a 25‐year dataset collected along the coast of Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada. We also investigated local long‐term trends in weather covariates that have the potential to influence migration phenology at this site. Patterns in standardized daily counts of monarchs were compared with local weather covariates using two methods (i.e., monthly averages and moving windows) to assess difference in outputs between analytical approaches. Our results suggest that monarch migration timing (migration midpoint, average peak, first peak, and late passage) and weather covariates have been consistent over time, in direct contrast to a similar study in Cape May, New Jersey, which showed a significant increase in both fall temperature and a 16‐ to 19‐day shift in monarch migration timing. Furthermore, our results differed between analytical approaches. With respect to annual variability in air temperature, our monthly average analysis suggested that for each degree increase in September air temperature, late season passage would advance 4.71 days (±1.59 SE, p =.01). However, the moving window analysis suggested that this result is likely spurious and found no significant correlations between migration timing and any weather covariates. Importantly, our results caution against extrapolating the effects of climate change on the migration phenology of the monarch across study regions and the need for more long‐term monitoring efforts to better understand regional drivers of variability in migration timing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arctic and boreal ecosystems play an important role in the global carbon (C) budget, and whether they act as a future net C sink or source depends on climate and environmental change. Here, we used complementary in situ measurements, model simulations, and satellite observations to investigate the net carbon dioxide (CO2) seasonal cycle and its climatic and environmental controls across Alaska and northwestern Canada during the anomalously warm winter to spring conditions of 2015 and 2016 (relative to 2010–2014). In the warm spring, we found that photosynthesis was enhanced more than respiration, leading to greater CO2 uptake. However, photosynthetic enhancement from spring warming was partially offset by greater ecosystem respiration during the preceding anomalously warm winter, resulting in nearly neutral effects on the annual net CO2 balance. Eddy covariance CO2 flux measurements showed that air temperature has a primary influence on net CO2 exchange in winter and spring, while soil moisture has a primary control on net CO2 exchange in the fall. The net CO2 exchange was generally more moisture limited in the boreal region than in the Arctic tundra. Our analysis indicates complex seasonal interactions of underlying C cycle processes in response to changing climate and hydrology that may not manifest in changes in net annual CO2 exchange. Therefore, a better understanding of the seasonal response of C cycle processes may provide important insights for predicting future carbon–climate feedbacks and their consequences on atmospheric CO2 dynamics in the northern high latitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Winter thaw episodes, especially when accompanied by rain, can significantly deplete the winter snowpack, which is a critical water storage component in the mountainous headwater regions of the major river basins of western Canada. Here we identify the characteristic synoptic‐scale mid‐tropospheric atmospheric circulation regimes that tend to foster such extreme hydrologic events using self‐organizing map analysis of meteorological reanalysis data from 1949 to 2012. Daily winter 500 hPa geopotential height fields over the Pacific Ocean and western Canada are classified into 12 dominant synoptic types, for which conditional probabilities of above‐freezing temperatures and rainfall are then calculated and mapped using daily high‐resolution gridded data. Results show that above‐freezing surface air temperatures and rain events in winter are commonly associated with the occurrence of a ridge of high pressure over western Canada, which induces southwesterly advection of relatively warm, moist maritime air masses into the continental interior, and that the intensity and spatial footprint of the surface climate response is related to the strength and position of the ridge. Conversely, the development of a ridge of high pressure over the Pacific Ocean and adjacent trough of low pressure over western Canada, which favours northwesterly to westerly mid‐tropospheric flow over the continental interior in winter, tends to suppress the occurrence of above‐freezing temperatures and rain. The synoptic type most strongly associated with winter thaw and rain events underwent a statistically significant step‐change increase in mean frequency in 1977, accompanied by a corresponding step‐change decrease in the frequency of the dominant synoptic type depicting westerly (zonal) circulation, coinciding with a well‐documented shift to a positive phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]