Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Seasonal Variability And Predictability Of Monsoon Precipitation In Southern Africa, Matthew F. Horan, Fred Kucharski, Moetasim Ashfaq

Faculty Publications

Rainfed agriculture is the mainstay of economies across Southern Africa (SA), where most precipitation is received during the austral summer monsoon. This study aims to further our understanding of monsoon precipitation predictability over SA. We use three natural climate forcings, El Niño–Southern Oscillation, Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), and the Indian Ocean Precipitation Dipole (IOPD)—the dominant precipitation variability mode—to construct an empirical model that exhibits significant skill over SA during monsoon in explaining precipitation variability and in forecasting it with a five-month lead. While most explained precipitation variance (50%–75%) comes from contemporaneous IOD and IOPD, preconditioning all three forcings is key …

Irrigation’S Impact On A Precipitation Event During Grainex In Nebraska, Usa, Daniel Whitesel

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Numerous precipitation events were observed during the Great Plains Irrigation Experiment (GRAINEX). However, the precipitation event that was observed the morning of 23 July 2018 is the focus of this thesis. Six experiments were conducted which involved increasing or decreasing soil moisture by 5% increments over the irrigated cropland. An additional experiment, which changed the irrigated land use to grassland, showed precipitation increases. It was found that regardless of strength of irrigation, average precipitation decreased. Average precipitation decreased by up to 72% when irrigation increased compared to the control simulation and decreased by up to 85% when irrigation decreased compared …

Examination Of The Climate Factors That Reduced Wheat Yield In Northwest India During The 2000s, Avik Mukherjee, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Parichart Promchote

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

In India, a significant reduction of wheat yield would cause a widespread impact on food security for 1.35 billion people. The two highest wheat producing states, Punjab and Haryana in northern India, experienced a prolonged period of anomalously low wheat yield during 2002–2010. The extent of climate variability and change in influencing this prolonged reduction in wheat yield was examined. Daily air temperature (T_max and T_ave) was used to calculate the number of days above optimum temperature and growing degree days (GDD) anomaly. Two drought indices, the standard precipitation and evapotranspiration index and the radiation-based precipitation index, …

Analyzing Accuracy Of The Lufft Ws600 In Remotely Measuring Precipitation Events, Justin Gay

STAR Program Research Presentations

The goal of this project was to analyze the accuracy of the Lufft WS600 Weather Sensor in measuring the rate of both liquid and solid precipitation. Measurement accuracy, especially in remote locations, can be difficult to obtain and quantify. Wind, blowing debris, and atmospheric particles can all have the capacity to interfere with instruments that are not being continuously compared to manual observations. Access to quality precipitation data sets are important for both hydrologic and weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and understanding the role of water cycling through ecosystems. Commercially, weather sensors are heavily relied upon by the Federal Aviation Administration …

Slides: Water Allocation And Water Markets In Spain, Nuria Hernández-Mora

Coping with Water Scarcity in River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned from Shared Experiences (Martz Summer Conference, June 9-10)

Presenter: Nuria Hernández Mora, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain

22 slides

Slides: California's Bay-Delta Conveyance Problem: A Light At The End Of The Tunnel(S)?, Jerry Meral

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Jerry Meral, Director of California Water Programs, Natural Heritage Institute

8 slides

Slides: Perspectives On Water Management In Arizona, Kathy Jacobs

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Kathy Jacobs, Director, Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions (CCASS), Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, University of Arizona

25 slides

A Weather Monitoring System For The Study Of Precipitation Fields, Weather, And Climate In An Urban Area, Francesco Lo Conti, Dario Pumo, Antonia Incontrera, Antonio Francipane, Leonardo Valerio Noto, Goffredo La Loggia

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

The possibility to study the precipitation dynamics with advanced and specific tools is an important task of the research activity addressing the understanding, the modeling, and the managing of rainfall events. Over the last years, the hydrology laboratory of the Department of Civil, Environmental, Aerospace Engineering, and Materials (DICAM) at the University of Palermo, has installed several instruments for the monitoring and the study of precipitation within the urban area of Palermo (Italy). The main instrument of this system is the X-band weather radar, which allows monitoring the precipitation fields with high resolution in space and time. This instrument is …

The Contribution Of Fine Scale Atmospheric Numerical Models In Improving The Quality Of Hydraulic Modelling Outputs, Rabia Merrouchi, Dalila Loudyi, Mohamed Chagdali

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

The atmospheric numerical models have known great advances with the ongoing development of numerical weather prediction and computing resources. The spatial and temporal resolution of the global atmospheric models has improved and therefore, the accuracy and reliability of their results have substantially increased. Emphasis was made on the improvement of models dynamics and physical aspects, but also on data assimilation and input data diversification using new numerical schemes and new physical parameterizations that better assess the small-scale weather phenomena. However, these models were not able to overcome their physical limitations and therefore, some small-scale processes are far from being thoroughly …

Statistically Downscaled North American Precipitation Using Support Vector Regression And The Big Brother Approach., Carlos F. Gaitan, Keith W. Dixon, Venkatramani Balaji, Renee Mcpherson

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

We implemented a hybrid downscaling model using classification and regression trees and support vector regression with evolutionary strategies to statistically downscale precipitation occurrences and amounts from 16 points across North America. All the selected points belong to different climate regions. In addition, to evaluate the downscaling model’s historical and future performances we used daily precipitation outputs (from a high resolution ~25km grid spacing global atmospheric model) as predictands, and coarsened versions of the same high-resolution outputs from the nearest nine gridpoints (interpolated to a ~100km grid), as predictors. This experimental setup, known as “Big-Brother” allows us to use the high-resolution …

Precipitation Sensor Network Optimal Design Using Time-Space Varying Correlation Structure, Juan Carlos Chacon-Hurtado, Leonardo Alfonso, Dimitri P. Solomatine

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Design of optimal precipitation sensor networks is a common topic in hydrological literature, however this is still an open problem due to lack of understanding of some spatially variable processes, and assumptions that often cannot be verified. Among these assumptions lies the homoscedasticity of precipitation fields, common in hydrological practice. To overcome this, it is proposed a local intensity-variant covariance structure, which in the broad extent, provides a fully updated correlation structure as long as new data are coming into the system. These considerations of intensity-variant correlation structure will be tested in the design of a precipitation sensor network for …

Are Climate Model Simulations Useful For Forecasting Precipitation Trends? Hindcast And Synthetic-Data Experiments, Nir Y. Krakauer, Balázs M. Fekete

Publications and Research

Water scientists and managers currently face the question of whether trends in climate variables that affect water supplies and hazards can be anticipated. We investigate to what extent climate model simulations may provide accurate forecasts of future hydrologic nonstationarity in the form of changes in precipitation amount. We compare gridded station observations (GPCC Full Data Product, 1901–2010) and climate model outputs (CMIP5 Historical and RCP8.5 simulations, 1901–2100) in real and syntheticdata hindcast experiments. The hindcast experiments show that imputing precipitation trends based on the climate model mean reduced the root mean square error of precipitation trend estimates for 1961–2010 by …

Slides: Is There A Dust Bowl In Our Future?: Projections For The Eastern Rockies And Central Great Plains, Dennis Ojima

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

Presenter: Dennis Ojima, Senior Research Scientist, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University (NREL/CSU)

30 slides

Impacts Of Climate Change On The Surface Water Balance Of The Central United States, 1984-2007, Bo Dong

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The climate system and the hydrologic cycle are strongly connected with each other. Understanding the interactions between these two systems is important, since variations in climate can trigger extensive changes in the hydrologic cycle, with significant impacts on agriculture, ecosystems, and society. Observations over the central U.S. in recent decades show numerous changes in climatic variables. This includes decreases in cloud cover and wind speed, increases in air temperature, and seasonal shifts in precipitation rate and rain/snow fraction. To assess the impacts of these variations in climate on the regional water cycle, a terrestrial ecosystem/land surface hydrologic model (Agro-IBIS) is …

Slides: Risk Management Strategies Of The Upper Basin: Addressing Potential Shortages, Eric Kuhn

Navigating the Future of the Colorado River (Martz Summer Conference, June 8-10)

Presenter: Eric Kuhn, Colorado River Water Conservation District

15 slides

Effects Of Drought On Avian Community Structure, Thomas P. Albright, Anna M. Pidgeon, Chadwick D. Rittenhouse, Murray K. Clayton, Curtis H. Flather, Patrick D. Culbert, Brian D. Wardlows, Volker C. Radeloff

Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Droughts are expected to become more frequent under global climate change. Avifauna depend on precipitation for hydration, cover, and food. While there are indications that avian communities respond negatively to drought, little is known about the response of birds with differing functional and behavioral traits, what time periods and indicators of drought are most relevant, or how response varies geographically at broad spatial scales. Our goals were thus to determine (1) how avian abundance and species richness are related to drought, (2) whether community variations are more related to vegetation vigor or precipitation deviations and at what time periods relationships …

Slides: The Use Of Terrestrial Cyanobacteria For The Rehabilitation Of Arid Soils: Not Just Another Good Idea, Timothy Flynn

Best Practices for Community and Environmental Protection (October 14)

Presenter: Dr. Timothy Flynn, Primordial Solutions Inc.

42 slides

Slides: Water Footprints: Consciousness Raising Meets Risk Management, Steve Malloch

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Steve Malloch, Senior Western Water Program Manager, National Wildlife Federation, Seattle, WA

38 slides

Slides: Climate Change And The Death Of Stationarity: A New Era For Western Water?, Stephen T. Gray

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Steven T. Gray, Wyoming State Climatologist, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY

48 slides

Slides: Summary: Sources Of Stress And The Changing Context Of Natural Resources Law And Policy In The New West, William R. Travis

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: Dr. William R. Travis, Department of Geography, University of Colorado at Boulder

43 slides

The Future Of Groundwater In The West, James S. Lochhead

Groundwater in the West (Summer Conference, June 16-18)

7 pages.

Slides: The Spokane And The Yakima: A Tale Of Two Aquifers, Rachel Paschal Osborn

Groundwater in the West (Summer Conference, June 16-18)

Presenter: Rachael Paschal Osborn, Private Practice and Gonzaga Law School.

89 slides.

Slides: Balancing Drought And Flood In The Pacific Northwest: The Challenge Of Climate Change, Doug Mcchesney

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

1 page "Abstract" and 36 slides

"Doug McChesney, Manager, Policy and Planning Section, Washington Department of Ecology"

Slides: California Water And Climate Change, Dan Cayan, Mike Dettinger

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

Presenter: Dan Cayan, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

32 slides

"Dan Cayan (1,2) 1 Mike Dettinger (2,1) SIO 2 USGS 3"

Transport Modeling – Technical And Legal Issues, Adrian Brown

Uncovering the Hidden Resource: Groundwater Law, Hydrology, and Policy in the 1990s (Summer Conference, June 15-17)

27 pages.

Contains footnotes.

Fundamental Groundwater Hydrology And Well Hydraulics, E. D. Gutentag

Uncovering the Hidden Resource: Groundwater Law, Hydrology, and Policy in the 1990s (Summer Conference, June 15-17)

23 pages (includes illustrations and maps).

Agenda: Water Quality Control: Integrating Beneficial Use And Environmental Protection, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Water Quality Control: Integrating Beneficial Use and Environmental Protection (Summer Conference, June 1-3)

Conference organizers and/or faculty included University of Colorado School of Law professors David H. Getches, Lawrence J. MacDonnell and Charles F. Wilkinson.

Protecting water quality is essential to preserve the many beneficial uses of western water resources. This conference addresses the dominant federal requirements in the Clean Water Act, including the important major revisions enacted by Congress in 1987, with special attention to western problems regarding nonpoint source pollution. Developments in groundwater quality regulation are considered, as are selected issues concerning the implications of state and federal water quality regulation for the traditional exercise of water rights.

Usu Remote Total Precipitation Telemetry Station, Duane G. Chadwick

Reports

A total precipitation catchment and telemetering device is described for use in mountainous regions. The precipitation transucer uses a weighing-type mechanism which has a variable inductor sensor.

The catchment system floats on springs and has negligible static friction. The radio transponder is powered by dry batteries. It responds upon coded interrogation, sending hydrologic or meteorological data through a mountaintop translator to a base station

The Storage And Use Of Soil Moisture. Report Of Experimental Substation, North Platte, Nebraska, W. W. Burr

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

The profitable cultivation of the non-irrigable lands in west central and western Nebraska is limited by the amount and efficient use of the precipitation. There are tracts of land in the sand hills and minor tracts of badly worn heavier soils where the need of soil fertility is becoming evident. But, in the main, the great problem at present is not one of soil fertility, but of how to get enough water to make use of the fertility now present. The rainfall of this section, which varies from an actual shortage to seldom more than a meager sufficiency, makes it …