As a scholar of the checkerspot butterfly, Weiss is concerned that the macroclimatic models of climate change are irrelevant to species with small home ranges. His talk presented methods for down-scaling climate data to model mesoclimates (1-100km), topoclimates (10m to 1km) and microclimates. By using iButtons (tiny, cheap, climatic sensors — we’re using them at my field site in Carrizo and despite being kind of finicky to get started, they are very cool), and a multiple regression using topographic features, he can model quite accurately (r^2=.93) how temperature is distributed across the site. By embedding this model across the mountain range, temperature can be modeled to much higher resolution than the current country-wide climate change models.