The title of this project is "Treelines - A continuous Problem with a discrete Feature". This is because the main difficulty in assessing treelines, i.e. the elevation limit of tree growth, is to define a discrete line from a phenomenon that does not appear as a discrete feature at a certain elevation, neither in the data, nor in the real world. Thus, a treeline is a generalized average of the highest elevation in a particular area that allows trees to grow.
The idea behind this project originates from a hiking vacation in the Canadian Rockies. I was purely amazed of how high up trees can grow in this rugged terrain (I took a photograph of a tree at approximately 2400 m). Knowing that the highest peaks in the southern Coast Mountains are often not higher than this, and seeing that they are covered with snow patches throughout the summer, at elevations that host vast forest in the Rockies, caught my interest.
I am comparing two study areas. One of these is the Fitzsimmons Creek area by Whistler, located in Garibaldi Provincial Park in the Coast Mountains. The other one is the Wapta Lake area, located in Yoho National Park in the Rocky Mountains. I will often refer to the Coast Mountains study area as '92', and the Rocky Mountains study area as '82', as these are the map sheet codes these sites are located in. Noting this is important for understanding the modelling structure of my analysis, as filenames are coded with 92 and 82. Study area 82 (Rocky Mtns) is located at higher latitude than 92 (Coast Mtns), which makes the observed pattern of elevational differences between the two study areas even more surprising.
