Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Short-Tailed Temperature Distributions Over North America And Implications For Future Changes In Extremes, Paul C. Loikith, J. David Neelin

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Some regions of North America exhibit nonnormal temperature distributions. Shorter-than-Gaussian warm tails are a special subset of these cases, with potentially meaningful implications for future changes in extreme warm temperatures under anthropogenic global warming. Locations exhibiting shorter-than-Gaussian warm tails would experience a greater increase in extreme warm temperature exceedances than a location with a Gaussian or long warm-side tail under a simple uniform warm shift in the distribution. Here we identify regions exhibiting such behavior over North America and demonstrate the effect of a simple warm shift on changes in extreme warm temperature exceedances. Some locations exceed the 95th percentile …

Prescribed Fire Monitoring Report, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve 2014 (Iqcs Fire Number 285382, 285383, 266782, 285677), Sherry A. Leis, Sarah E. Hinman

United States National Park Service: Publications

Introduction

In 2014, the preserve’s federal and NGO partners conducted prescribed fires during March, April, and October that encompassed 8129.8 acres of Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (TAPR). This was a unique burn year in that prescribed burns occurred in the spring, the traditional burn season, and the fall. Fall burns were conducted to support needed archaeological surveys as part of the environmental compliance for a symphony event scheduled for June 2015 at the preserve. Burns at TAPR were coordinated with local US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and various units of the National Park Service.

Burns …

On Nine Mile, Allen Morris

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The photographs of On Nine Mile were made to explore my developing relationship with the place I now inhabit. They compare the reality of a place against preconception and actual experience versus idealized expectations. I made this work to help understand a landscape to which I was transplanted and to which I had no connection. This exhibition is comprised of photographs taken at a section of untilled prairie called Nine Mile that most closely resembled my visual preconception of the Great Plains. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest surrounded by the mountains, forests, and shoreline that typify the landscape …

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring For Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, 2014 Annual Report, Michael Prowatzke, Stephen K. Wilson

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

This report presents the results of vegetation monitoring efforts in 2014 at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (AGFO) by the Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN).

During the fourth full year of field work, crew members from NGPN visited six plant community monitoring plots to collect data on the vegetation at AGFO. This is part of a long-term monitoring effort that will sample six of 15 randomly located upland plots every year, so that each plot is visited for two consecutive years and then rested for three years, on a five-year rotating basis. NGPN staff captured data …

Plant Community Composition And Structure Monitoring For Scotts Bluff National Monument, 2014 Annual Report, Michael Prowatzke, Stephen K. Wilson

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

This report presents the results of vegetation monitoring efforts in 2014 at Scotts Bluff National Monument (SCBL) by the Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN).

During the fourth full year of field work, crew members from NGPN visited eight plant community monitoring plots to collect data on the vegetation at SCBL. This is part of a long-term monitoring effort that will sample eight of 20 randomly located upland plots every year, so that each plot is visited for two consecutive years and then rested for three years, on a five-year rotating basis. Additionally, NGPN staff also visited …

A One Year Landsat 8 Conterminous United States Study Of Cirrus And Non-Cirrus Clouds, Valeriy Kovalskyy, David P. Roy

GSCE Faculty Publications

The first year of available Landsat 8 data over the conterminous United States (CONUS), composed of 11,296 acquisitions sensed over more than 11 thousand million 30 m pixel locations, was analyzed comparing the spatial and temporal incidence of 30 m cloud and cirrus states available in the standard Landsat 8 Level 1 product suite. This comprehensive data analysis revealed that on average over a year of CONUS observations (i) 35.9% were detected with high confidence cloud, with spatio-temporal patterns similar to those observed by previous Landsat 5 and 7 cloud analyses; (ii) 28.2% were high confidence cirrus; (iii) 20.1% were …