Yellow Cedar Climate Suitability Modeling

These maps were part of a group project for ENVS-420 (Analysis and Modeling) at Western Washington University. The project uses a historical and future climate model to figure out where climate is suitable for the yellow cedar. 

The first part of the project involved using historic range of the species and a historic climate model to figure out what climate variables impact where the yellow cedar live. Based on a literature review and reviewing the 95th and 5th percentile for each climate variable, my group and I chose to use mean annual temperature, mean temperature of the coldest month, mean annual precipitation, degree-days below zero Celsius, and precipitation as snow.

Then, we used a future climate model (A1B for most of the analysis, with a subsequent comparison to A2) and a simple raster calculator expression to find where conditions fall within the 5th and 95th percentile of the same variables used to develop the historic climate envelope. A1B is a moderate carbon emissions scenario, and A2 is a high carbon emissions scenario.

Below are the maps I contributed to the project and the model used to determine the climate envelope!