Climate Commons^™

Dynamic Microclimate Boundaries Across A Sharp Tropical Rainforest–Clearing Edge, Eric A. Graham, Mark Hansen, William J. Kaiser, Yeung Lam, Eric Yuen, Philip W. Rundel

Biology Faculty Scholarship

As landscapes become increasingly fragmented, research into impacts from disturbance and how edges affect vegetation and community structure has become more important. Descriptive studies on how microclimate changes across sharp transition zones have long existed in the literature and recently more attention has been focused on understanding the dynamic patterns of microclimate associated with forest edges. Increasing concern about forest fragmentation has led to new technologies for modeling forest microclimates. However, forest boundaries pose important challenges to not only microclimate modeling but also sampling regimes in order to capture the diurnal and seasonal dynamic aspects of microclimate along forest edges. …

Drought-Induced Biomass Burning As A Source Of Black Carbon To The Central Himalaya Since 1781 Ce As Reconstructed From The Dasuopu Ice Core, Joel D. Barker, Susan Kaspari, Paulo Gabrielli, Anna Wegner, Emilie Beaudon, M. Roxana Sierra-Hernández, Lonnie Thompson

Geological Sciences Faculty Scholarship

Himalayan glaciers are melting due to atmospheric warming, with the potential to limit access to water for more than 25 % of the global population that resides in these glacier meltwater catchments. Black carbon has been implicated as a factor that is contributing to Himalayan glacier melt, but its sources and mechanisms of delivery to the Himalayas remain controversial. Here, we provide a 211-year ice core record spanning 1781–1992 CE for refractory black carbon (rBC) deposition from the Dasuopu glacier ice core that has to date provided the highest-elevation ice core record (7200 m). We report an average rBC concentration …

Weather And Climate Summary And Forecast: April 2021 Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report provides a summary of the weather and climate forecast for April 2021. It includes forecast information specific to the Pacific Northwest and the western United States, as well as forecast information for other portions of the United States and abroad.

Alaska Trip Geared To Support K-16 Climate Change Education Initiative, Joe Garvey

News Items

No abstract provided.

Droughtscape, Spring 2021, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Spring 2021

Climate Projections For Western Australia, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Climate science factsheets

Current climate model projections for Western Australia (WA) indicate that the average annual temperature will increase by 1.1–2.7°C in a medium-emission scenario, and 2.6–5.1°C in a high-emission scenario by the end of the century. Annual rainfall in the south-west is projected to decline by 6% by 2030 and 12% by 2100 (median values) for a medium-emission scenario, and by 5% and 18%, respectively (median values) for a high-emission scenario. In the northern and central parts of WA, annual rainfall remains relatively unchanged. The climate of WA varies annually, the future projection variation is not within the historical variation.

Investigating Decadal Changes Of Multiple Hydrological Products And Land-Cover Changes In The Mediterranean Region For 2009–2018, Wenzhao Li, Sachi Perera, Erik Linstead, Rejoice Thomas, Hesham El-Askary, Thomas Piechota, Daniele Struppa

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Land-cover change is a critical concern due to its climatic, ecological, and socioeconomic consequences. In this study, we used multiple variables including precipitation, vegetation index, surface soil moisture, and evapotranspiration obtained from different satellite sources to study their association with land-cover changes in the Mediterranean region. Both observational and modeling data were used for climatology and correlation analysis. Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Land Data Assimilation System (FLDAS) and Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) were used to extract surface soil moisture and evapotranspiration data. Intercomparing the results of FLDAS and GLDAS suggested that FLDAS data had better …

Exploring Viirs Continuity With Modis In An Expedited Capability For Monitoring Drought-Related Vegetation Conditions, Trenton D. Benedict, Jesslyn F. Brown, Stephen P. Boyte, Daniel M. Howard, Brian A. Fuchs, Brian D. Wardlow, Tsegaye Tadesse, Kirk A. Evenson

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Vegetation has been effectively monitored using remote sensing time-series vegetation index (VI) data for several decades. Drought monitoring has been a common application with algorithms tuned to capturing anomalous temporal and spatial vegetation patterns. Drought stress models, such as the Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI), often use VIs like the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The EROS expedited Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrora-diometer (eMODIS)-based, 7-day NDVI composites are integral to the VegDRI. As MODIS satellite platforms (Terra and Aqua) approach mission end, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) presents an alternate NDVI source, with daily collection, similar band passes, and …

Exploring Viirs Continuity With Modis In An Expedited Capability For Monitoring Drought-Related Vegetation Conditions, Trenton D. Benedict, Jesslyn F. Brown, Stephen P. Boyte, Daniel M. Howard, Brian A. Fuchs, Brian D. Wardlow, Tsegaye Tadesse, Kirk A. Evenson

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Vegetation has been effectively monitored using remote sensing time-series vegetation index (VI) data for several decades. Drought monitoring has been a common application with algorithms tuned to capturing anomalous temporal and spatial vegetation patterns. Drought stress models, such as the Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI), often use VIs like the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The EROS expedited Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrora-diometer (eMODIS)-based, 7-day NDVI composites are integral to the VegDRI. As MODIS satellite platforms (Terra and Aqua) approach mission end, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) presents an alternate NDVI source, with daily collection, similar band passes, and …

Weather And Climate Summary And Forecast: March 2021 Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report provides a summary of the weather and climate forecast for March 2021. It includes forecast information specific to the Pacific Northwest and the western United States, as well as forecast information for other portions of the United States and abroad.

Ecological Risk Assessment Of Managed Relocation As A Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, Aviv Karasov-Olson, Mark W. Schwartz, Julian D. Olden, Sarah Skikne, Jessica J. Hellmann, Sarah Allen, Christy Brigham, Danielle Buttke, David J. Lawrence, Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, Jeffrey T. Morisette, Gregor W. Schuurman, Melissa Trammell, Cat Hawkins Hoffman

United States National Park Service: Publications

Executive Summary

Changing climate and introduced species are placing an increasing number of species at risk of extinction. Increasing extinction risk is increasing calls to protect species by relocating, or translocating, them to locations with more favorable biotic or climatic conditions. Managed relocation, or assisted migration, of species entails risks to both the conservation target organisms being moved as well as the recipient ecosystems into which they are moved.

Recognizing this risk, calls have been made for practitioners interested in considering a managed relocation project to engage in a serious risk assessment prior to advancing a project. We engaged a …

Comprehensive Record Of Volcanic Eruptions In The Holocene (11,000 Years) From The Wais Divide, Antarctica Ice Core, Jihong Cole-Dai, David G. Harris, Joshua A. Kennedy, Michael Sigl, Joseph R. Mcconnell, T. J. Fudge, Lei Geng, Olivia J. Maselli, Kendrick C. Taylor, Joseph M. Souney

Ice Core and Environmental Chemistry Lab Datasets and Publications

A comprehensive record (WHV2020) of explosive volcanic eruptions in the last 11,000 years is reconstructed from the West Antarctica Ice Sheet Divide deep ice core (WDC). The chronological list of 426 large volcanic eruptions in the Southern Hemisphere and the low latitudes during the Holocene are of the highest quality of all volcanic records from ice cores, owing to the high-resolution chemical measurement of the ice core and the exceptionally accurate WDC timescale. No apparent trend is found in the frequency (number of eruptions per millennium) of volcanic eruptions, and the number of eruptions in the most recent millennium (1,000–2,000 …

The Drought Monitor Comes Of Age, Brad Rippey, Brian Fuchs, David Simeral, Deborah J. Bathke, Richard R. Heim Jr., Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

The 20th century featured immense scientific discoveries and advances. Astrophysics gained Einstein’s life-altering theory of relativity, opening the door to nuclear weaponry and the mind-bending Big Bang theory. The medical field achieved stunning success in suppressing or vanquishing a host of deadly diseases, including polio and smallpox. And through advances in computing technology, meteorological forecasting moved from back-of-the-envelope calculations to supercomputers. However, drought monitoring fell behind the curve of scientific advancement. Not until 1965, when the United States Department of Commerce published Wayne C. Palmer’s “Research Paper No. 45: Meteorological Drought,” was there even a complex mathematical definition of drought. …

Flash Drought Onset Over The Contiguous United States: Sensitivity Of Inventories And Trends To Quantitative Definitions, Mahmoud Osman, Bejamin F. Zaitchik, Hamada S. Badr, Jordan I. Christian, Tsegaye Tadesse, Jason A. Otkin, Martha C. Anderson

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

The term “flash drought” is frequently invoked to describe droughts that develop rapidly over a relatively short timescale. Despite extensive and growing research on flash drought processes, predictability, and trends, there is still no standard quantitative definition that encompasses all flash drought characteristics and pathways. Instead, diverse definitions have been proposed, supporting wide-ranging studies of flash drought but creating the potential for confusion as to what the term means and how to characterize it. Use of different definitions might also lead to different conclusions regarding flash drought frequency, predictability, and trends under climate change. In this study, we compared five …

Weather And Climate Summary And Forecast: February 2021 Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report provides a summary of the weather and climate forecast for February 2021. It includes forecast information specific to the Pacific Northwest and the western United States, as well as forecast information for other portions of the United States and abroad.

Coastal Watershed Monitoring And Management: Geomorphology, Geochemistry, And Hydrologic Modeling Of Los Peñasquitos Creek, Ca, Ravleen Khalsa-Basra

Theses

Rivers in semi-arid climates are directly influenced by local geographic and hydrologic conditions and impacted by modifications to hydrology via urbanization. Changes can influence erosion, morphology, habitat sustainability, and watershed health. In highly urbanized southern California coastal regions, these rare open spaces provide vital ecosystem services. Los Peñasquitos Creek in San Diego County is one such watershed. Using stream surveying and laboratory methods we quantified channel characteristics, grain size distribution, total metal concentration [M], organic carbon (%OC), and phosphate to longitudinally characterize the creek for improved management. Results identified three distinct reaches in the watershed (upper, middle, lower). Downstream, depth …

A Continental-Scale Assessment Of Density, Size, Distribution And Historical Trends Of Farm Dams Using Deep Learning Convolutional Neural Networks, Martino E. Malerba, Nicholas J. Wright, Peter I. Macreadie

Climate Science Research Articles

Farm dams are a ubiquitous limnological feature of agricultural landscapes worldwide. While their primary function is to capture and store water, they also have disproportionally large effects on biodiversity and biogeochemical cycling, with important relevance to several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the abundance and distribution of farm dams is unknown in most parts of the world. Therefore, we used artificial intelligence and remote sensing data to address this critical global information gap. Specifically, we trained a deep learning convolutional neural network (CNN) on high-definition satellite images to detect farm dams and carry out the first continental-scale assessment on density, …

Weather And Climate Summary And Forecast: January 2021 Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report provides a summary of the weather and climate forecast for January 2021. It includes forecast information specific to the Pacific Northwest and the western United States, as well as forecast information for other portions of the United States and abroad.

Valuation Of Drought Information: Understanding The Value Of The Us Drought Monitor In Land Management, Tingting Liu, Richard Krop, Tonya Haigh, Kelly Helm Smith, Mark D. Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Droughts affect recreation and tourism, grazing, forests, and timber, and can have important indirect effects for the ecosystems and species that rely on water. Despite its importance, the effect of drought in the land management sector is less understood than in other water-intensive sectors, such as agriculture and public water supplies. This study presents the first-ever estimates of the economic valuation of the information provided by the U.S. Drought Monitor using the avoided cost method. These estimates are based on the time and labor saved by using the U.S. Drought Monitor rather than compiling drought-related information from other sources, or …

Vintage 2020: Rogue Valley Reference Vineyard Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report describes the impacts of climate and phenology on vintage for the Rogue Valley in Oregon in 2020. A mild and dry winter in 2019-20 was followed by a dry growing season continuing the ongoing drought concerns for Oregon and the majority of the western US. The spring was relatively cool with mild frosts into early May, then followed by wide swings between early season heat then cool, wet conditions leading up to and during flowering. The result was widespread issues with fruit set leading to generally high amounts of shatter, smaller berries and clusters for many in the …

Vintage Report 2020: North Willamette Valley, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report describes the impacts of climate and phenology on vintage for the North Willamette Valley in Oregon in 2020. A mild and dry winter in 2019-20 was followed by a dry growing season continuing the ongoing drought concerns for Oregon and the majority of the western US. The spring was relatively cool with mild frosts in early April, then followed by wide swings between early season heat then cool, wet conditions leading up to and during flowering. The result was widespread issues with fruit set leading to generally high amounts of shatter, smaller berries and clusters for many in …

Vintage 2020: Umpqua Valley Reference Vineyard Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report describes the impacts of climate and phenology on vintage for the Umpqua Valley in Oregon in 2020. A mild and dry winter in 2019-20 was followed by a dry growing season continuing the ongoing drought concerns for Oregon and the majority of the western US. The spring was relatively cool in the Umpqua Valley with mild frosts into mid-April, then followed by wide swings between early season heat then cool, wet conditions leading up to and during flowering. The result was widespread issues with fruit set leading to generally high amounts of shatter, smaller berries and clusters for …

Observation Of New Particle Formation In The Northern Hemisphere At Altitude From 4 To 20 Km, Mohamed Saad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

New particle formation (NPF) is investigated using measurements of aerosol size distributions and meteorological variables made in two continents, including USA and Europe. Despite the considerably different aerosol particle abundances among the sites, a common relationship was found between the characteristics of NPF events and the air mass convective and/or advective transport. CO and O3 act as tracers of tropospheric and stratospheric air, respectively, their statistical relationship can be used to quantify air mass characteristics and origins. The mixing ratio values of CO increased within the upper troposphere layer before/during NPF events, which may serve as an indicator of occurring …

Ranchers’ Use Of Drought Contingency Plans In Protective Action Decision Making, Tonya Haigh, Michael Hayes, Jolene Smyth, Linda Stalker Prokopy, Charles A. Francis, Mark Burbach

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Drought contingency planning is an increasingly common tool in the ranchers’ climate adaptation toolboxes, but its effect on drought response has not yet been evaluated. We use cognitive models of protective action decision making and planning to explore the effects of having a drought plan on the use of drought early warning information and drought response (and timing). Results of a cross-sectional, probability-based survey of livestock producers affected by a 2016 flash-drought are used to describe the characteristics of operations with drought plans and provide evidence of whether having a plan predicts drought information use and response. While larger operations …

Whose Ground Truth Is It? Harvesting Lessons From Missouri’S 2018 Bumper Crop Of Drought Observations, Kelly Helm Smith, Mark E. Burbach, Michael Hayes, Patrick Guinan, Andrew Tyre, Brian Fuchs, Tonya Haigh, Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Drought-related decision-making and policy should go beyond numeric hydrometeorological data to incorporate information on how drought affects people, livelihoods, and ecosystems. The effects of drought are nested within environmental and human systems, and relevant data may not exist in readily accessible form. For example, drought may reduce forage growth, compounded by both late-season freezes and management decisions. An effort to gather crowdsourced drought observations in Missouri in 2018 yielded a much higher number of observations than did previous related efforts. Here we examine 1) the interests, circumstances, history, and recruitment messaging that coincided to produce a high number of reports …

Tweetdrought: A Deep-Learning Drought Impacts Recognizer Based On Twitter Data, Beichen Zhang, Frank Schilder, Kelly Helm Smith, Michael Hayes, Sherri Harms, Tsegaye Tadesse

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Acquiring a better understanding of drought impacts becomes increasingly vital under a warming climate. Traditional drought indices describe mainly biophysical variables and not impacts on social, economic, and environmental systems. We utilized natural language processing and bidirectional encoder representation from Transformers (BERT) based transfer learning to fine-tune the model on the data from the news-based Drought Impact Report (DIR) and then apply it to recognize seven types of drought impacts based on the filtered Twitter data from the United States. Our model achieved a satisfying macro-F1 score of 0.89 on the DIR test set. The model was then applied to …

Developing A Strategy For The National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network, Michael H. Cosh, Todd G. Caldwell, C. Bruce Baker, John D. Bolten, Nathan Edwards, Peter Goble, Heather Hofman, Tyson E. Ochsner, Steven Quiring, Charles Schalk, Marina Skumanich, Mark D. Svoboda, Mary E. Woloszyn

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Soil moisture is a critical land surface variable, affecting a wide variety of climatological, agricultural, and hydrological processes. Determining the current soil moisture status is possible via a variety of methods, including in situ monitoring, remote sensing, and numerical modeling. Although all of these approaches are rapidly evolving, there is no cohesive strategy or framework to integrate these diverse information sources to develop and disseminate coordinated national soil moisture products that will improve our ability to understand climate variability. The National Coordinated Soil Moisture Monitoring Network initiative has developed a national strategy for network coordination with NOAA’s National Integrated Drought …

Evaluation Of Remotely Sensed Precipitation Estimates From The Nasa Power Project For Drought Detection Over Jordan, Muhammad Rasool Al‑Kilani, Michel Rahbeh, Jawad Al‑Bakri, Tsegaye Tadesse, Cody Knutson

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Droughts can cause devastating impacts on water and land resources and therefore monitoring these events forms an integral part of planning. The most common approach for detecting drought events and assessing their intensity is use of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), which requires abundant precipitation records at good spatial distribution. This may restrict SPI usage in many regions around the world, particularly in areas with limited numbers of ground meteorological stations. Therefore, the use of remotely sensed derived data of precipitation can contribute to drought monitoring. In this study, remotely sensed precipitation estimates from the POWER/Agroclimatology archive of NASA and …

Ua12/13 Student Affairs - Sustainability, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about the Office of Sustainability.

A Model-Based Exploratory Study Of Sulfur Dioxide Dispersions From Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations In The Southeastern United States, Jesse Winchester, Rezaul Mahmood, William Rodgers, Philip J. Silva, Nanh Lovanh, Joshua D. Durkee, John Loughrin

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

In the Southeastern U. S. there are Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that emit a variety of gases, including SO₂. Sulfur is emitted as reduced sulfur compounds and can react in the atmosphere to produce SO₂. It is expected that the concentra­tion and spread of SO₂ emissions from these sources would differ between wet and dry periods. In this research, SO₂ emissions from locations representing CAFOs and its dispersion over the south­eastern U.S. were simulated through sensitivity experiments using the Weather Research and Forecasting-Chemistry (WRF- Chem) model. Simulations were performed for dry periods and …