Climate Commons^™

Umphlett Qci Sept 2014, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

􏰞􏰥􏰬􏰨􏰤􏰵􏰶􏰫Streamflow

Long-term Impacts of Drought

Cool, Wet Summer Benefits

Heavy Precipitation Impacts the Missouri River and its Tributaries

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

Soil Moisture Conditions

Crop Advisors As Climate Information Brokers: Building The Capacity Of Us Farmers To Adapt To Climate Change, Maria Carmen Lemos, Yun-Jia Lo, Christine Kirchhoff, Tonya Haigh

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

This paper examines the role of crop advisors as brokers of climate information to support US corn farmers to adapt to climatic change. It uses quantitative data collected from a broad survey of crop advisors in the US Corn Belt to examine the factors that shape advisors’ use of (and willingness to provide) climate information to their clients. Building upon a general model of climate information usability we argue that advisors’ willingness to provide climate advice to farmers is influenced by three main factors: their information seeking habits and behavior, their experience with innovation in the past, and how climate …

Time, Money, And Melting Ice: Proposal For A Coopertive Study Of The World’S Cave Ice In A Race Against Climate Change, George Veni, Lewis Land, Aurel Perşoiu

The International Workshop on Ice Caves

Climate change is a global phenomenon that is melting and threatening to melt ice deposits in many of the world’s ice caves. The National Cave and Karst Research Institute of the USA is concerned that major and important paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental records stored in cave ice will soon be lost, and is proposing an international collaborative effort to overcome funding and logistical challenges to sample and analyze at least a representative collection of ice from several regions before further melting occurs.

Using Temporal Changes In Drought Indices To Generate Probabilistic Drought Intensification Forecasts, Jason A. Otkin, Martha C. Anderson, Christopher Hain, Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

In this study, the potential utility of using rapid temporal changes in drought indices to provide early warning of an elevated risk for drought development over subseasonal time scales is assessed. Standardized change anomalies were computed each week during the 2000–13 growing seasons for drought indices depicting anomalies in evapotranspiration, precipitation, and soil moisture. A rapid change index (RCI) that encapsulates the accumulated magnitude of rapid changes in the weekly anomalies was computed each week for each drought index, and then a simple statistical method was used to convert the RCI values into drought intensification probabilities depicting the likelihood that …

Droughtscape, Summer 2014, Kelly Smith

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

Contents

Director’s report

Outlook

Drought & climate summary

Drought impacts

International drought monitoring and planning

Visiting scholars

North American Drought Monitor Forum

New primary Dust Bowl source

New additions to online webinar archive

Community Capitals Framework Institute

Umphlett Qci June 2014, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

􏰞􏰥􏰬􏰨􏰤􏰮􏱨Streamflow

Drought Impacts to Livestock

Continued Cold Hampers Producers in North

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook

Water In The 21st Century, Grayson Michael Shor

Social Sciences

The aim of this research project is to provide a comprehensive and global analysis of water use in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive grasp of current and impending issues. The included five (5) chapters discuss water distribution, conservation, purification, law, international development, economic debates, ethical consideration, as well as educated estimations of the effects water related issues may cause in the next one-hundred years.

Water-Use Restriction Information: Information Sharing Between Public Water Systems And State Government Offices, Christopher Carparelli

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

In many states there is an absence of communication between the state and local levels about many aspects of water resource management. This research examines the interaction between the state and local levels regarding water-use restrictions for public water systems (PWSs). This information is useful for state-level drought planning and mitigation through the assessment of drought impacts on public water supplies. Officials from five state-level entities that collect and disseminate local water-use restriction information were interviewed over the phone for this research. Each official was asked eleven questions about how and why their state collects and disseminates PWS water-use restriction …

Issue Brief: Asset Management For Stormwater, New England Environmental Finance Center, Sustainable Communities Learning Network

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

Asset management is a strategic approach to maintaining and sustaining infrastructure in order to meet the needs of the community at the lowest overall life cycle cost. This approach helps communities know how and where to prioritize limited funds in order to achieve the greatest benefit. Often applied to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, this method is well suited to managing any assets, including stormwater systems.

This issue brief is intended to introduce local governments to the asset management process and to show how it can be applied in managing stormwater assets. It was adapted from an appendix written by …

Droughtscape, Spring 2014, Kelly Smith

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

Contents

Director’s report

Outlook . 2

Drought climate recap 3

Drought impacts .

DroughtAtlas

Missouri River Basin pilot 9

NASA Horn of Africa project 10

U2U tools and social science . 12

Consulting for Turkey 14

Czech drought monitoring 14

Umphlett Qci March 2014, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Mountain Snowpack

Agriculture

Tourism and Recreation

Missouri Basin Flood Outlook

U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook

Investigating The Effect Of The ‘‘Land Between The Lakes’’ On Storm Patterns, Joshua D. Durkee, Ahmed M. Degu, Faisal Hossain, Rezaul Mahmood, Jesse Winchester, Themis Chronis

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

The artificially created region around the ‘‘Land between the Lakes’’ (LBL) in Kentucky represents unique land use and land cover (LULC) heterogeneities. Over a distance of 100 km, the LULC comprises artificially created open water bodies (i.e., two parallel large run-on-river dams separated by the LBL), mountainous terrain, forest cover, and extensive agricultural land. Such heterogeneities increase (decrease) moisture supply and sensible heat, resulting in a differential air mass boundary that helps to initiate (inhibit) convection. Hence, the LBL can potentially modify precipitation formation. Historical anecdotes reveal a tendency for storms to dissipate or reintensify near the LBL. The specific …

A Comparison Of The Mm5 And The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System Simulations For Land--Atmosphere Interactions Under Varying Soil Moisture, Astrid Suarez, Rezaul Mamood, Arturo I. Quintanar, Adriana Beltran-Prezekurat, Roger Pielke Sr.

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

A comparison between two mesoscale models, Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) version 4.4 coupled with the Land-Ecosystem--Atmosphere Feedback Model (LEAF2) and Penn State/NCAR’s Mesoscale Model (MM5) coupled with NOAH Land Surface Model, was conducted in order to assess the sensitivity of forecasted planetary boundary layer (PBL) variables to anomalous initial volumetric soil moisture conditions. The experiments were conducted using three synoptic events: June 11, 17 and 22, 2006. For each event, one control run and six additional simulations were completed using RAMS and MM5. In each of the events, initial volumetric soil moisture was increased and decreased …

Winter Wind Chill Climatology For The High Plains Region, Holly B. Lussenden, Natalie A. Umphlett, Martha D. Shulski, Daniel Ebert

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

During the winter months in the High Plains region of the United States, wind chill temperatures can reach dangerous levels for humans and animals. Knowing the frequency in which extreme wind chill temperatures occur could help forecasters know when to issue wind chill advisories and also the general public understand just how rare, or common, certain wind chill temperatures are. A climatology spanning a 37-year period was created using data from 57 stations in and around the plains portion of the High Plains region from the Integrated Surface Hourly Database at National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). These climatologies were completed …

Climate Masters Of Nebraska: An Innovative Action-Based Approach For Climate Change Education, Tapan Pathak, Tonya Bernadt, Natalie A. Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Climate Masters of Nebraska is an innovative educational program that strategically trains community volunteers about climate change science and corresponding ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an interactive and action-based teaching environment. As a result of the program, 91% of participants indicated that they made informed changes in their lives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Approximately 500 hours of volunteer work was reported by participants as an outreach for greenhouse gas emission reduction. The program can be easily replicated to other locales with an effective planning and with small leadership team.

Droughtscape, Winter 2014, Kelly Smith

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

Contents

Director’s report

Outlook & quarterly review . 2

Drought in 2013 review.

Quarterly impacts review . 5

Impacts in 2013 review.

Belmont Forum research0

USDM change maps 11

Central Asia drought planning

Kansas RC&D planning

Publication compares plans

Drought for planners webinar

Soil moisture networks

Kansas farm and ranch planning

$500 to develop leadership

Kids seek solutions

Plains symposium April 1-4

Wetlands And Greenhouse Gas Fluxes: Causes And Effects Of Climate Change – A Meta-Analysis, Robert E. Ventura

Pomona Senior Theses

Climate change is one of the largest problems facing this generation. Anthropogenically caused increases of greenhouse gas emissions is a significant culprit to this problem. Although the obvious problems such as cars, industry, and urbanism garnish a significant amount of the criticism, natural sources such as wetlands are also beginning to contribute to this issue. This is becoming increasingly significant as wetlands shift from being sinks of greenhouse gases to becoming sources as various anthropogenic impacts, including global warming itself, begin to affect the health of the wetlands. The aim of this project is to look at four common types …

Umphlett Qci Dec 2013, Natalie A. Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Soil Moisture

September Flooding in Colorado

Early October Blizzard

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook

Impacts Of Climate Changes On The Spatiotemporal Distribution Of Precipitation In The Western United States, Peng Jiang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Precipitation in the Intermountain West is characterized by its great variability in both spatial and temporal distributions. Moreover, the spatiotemporal distribution of the precipitation is changing due to the climate changes. In this dissertation, three studies are conducted to investigate the multi-scale temporal variability of precipitation, the performance of current climate models on this variability, the influence of large-scale ocean oscillations on heavy precipitation, and the impact of human induced global warming on storm properties.

The first study is to examine the performance of current climate models on the simulation of the multi-scale temporal variability determined from the observed station …

Examining The Relationship Between Drought Development And Rapid Changes In The Evaporative Stress Index, Jason A. Otkin, Martha C. Anderson, Christopher Hain, Mark D. Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

In this study, the ability of a new drought metric based on thermal infrared remote sensing imagery to provide early warning of an elevated risk for drought intensification is assessed. This new metric, called the rapid change index (RCI), is designed to highlight areas undergoing rapid changes in moisture stress as inferred from weekly changes in the evaporative stress index (ESI) generated using the Atmosphere–Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) surface energy balance model. Two case study analyses across the central United States revealed that the initial appearance of negative RCI values indicative of rapid increases in moisture stress preceded the introduction …

Droughtscape, Fall 2013, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

Director’s report

Kansas community drought planning workshop November 5

Drought impacts webinars

Drought outlook and summary

Late summer drought brings more agricultural impacts

Plans help ranchers weather drought

NDMC contributions to U2U project

Drought Management Database archives strategies

QuickDRI will help spot flash droughts

NDMC Co-Hosts NASA workshop

Wilhite leads Integrated Drought Management Program work

Speaking of drought

Managing #Drought tweet chat transcript

Updated USDM website

Climate Change On The Prairie: A Basic Guide To Climate Change In The High Plains Region - Update, Lincoln, Ne

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Global Climate Change

Climate Change in the United States

Historical Climate Trends in the High Plains Region

Historical Climate Trends in the High Plains Region

High Plains Region Update: 2010-2012

New Tool: Climate Impact Reporter

Climate Change Projections and Possible Impacts

Climate Change Projections and Possible Impacts

Droughtscape, Summer 2013, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

Director’s report

July 25 webinar: Drought management database, NIDIS update

Republican River Basin workshops July 31, August 1

Summer climate outlook, spring summary

Spring impacts: wildfire, water, agriculture and business

Data help managers assess Nebraska groundwater declines after drought of 2012

Tadesse helps Mexico with Veg-DRI concept

Visiting scholar explores remote sensing of drought in forests

U.S. Drought Monitor Forum photo recap, details online

Workshop helps New Mexico ranchers cope with drought

Alabama’s new drought plan

National Drought Forum report

Drought Impacts Community of Practice report

Toward Global Drought Early Warning Capability: Expanding International Cooperation For The Development Of A Framework For Monitoring And Forecasting, Will Pozzi, Justin Sheffield, Robert Stefanski, Douglas Cripe, Roger Pulwarty, Jürgen V. Vogt, Richard R. Heim Jr., Michael J. Brewer, Mark Svoboda, Rogier Westerhoff, Albert I. J. M. Van Dijk, Benjamin Lloyd-Hughes, Florian Pappenberger, Micha Werner, Emanuel Dutra, Fredrik Wetterhall, Wolfgang Wagner, Siegfried Schubert, Kingtse Mo, Margaret Nicholson, Lynette Bettio, Liliana Nunez, Rens Van Beek, Marc Bierkens, Luis Gustavo Goncalves De Goncalves, João Gerd Zell De Mattos, Richard Lawford

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

The need for a global drought early warning framework. Drought has had a significant impact on civilization throughout history in terms of reductions in agricultural productivity, potable water supply, and economic activity, and in extreme cases this has led to famine. Every continent has semiarid areas, which are especially vulnerable to drought. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has noted that average annual river runoff and water availability are projected to decrease by 10%–13% over some dry and semiarid regions in mid and low latitudes, increasing the frequency, intensity, and duration of drought, along with its associated impacts. The sheer …

The Missing Piece: Drought Impacts Monitoring Report From A Workshop In Tucson, Az March 5-6, 2013, Kirsten Lackstrom, Amanda Brennan, Daniel Ferguson, Mike Crimmins, Lisa Darby, Kirstin Dow, Keith Ingram, Alison Meadow, Henry Reges, Mark Shafer, Kelly Helm Smith

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Based on a shared interest to better understand the impacts of drought and the potential utility of using drought impacts reporting as a tool for monitoring conditions, researchers from the Carolinas RISA (Dow, Lackstrom, and Brennan), the Climate Assessment for the Southwest (Crimmins and Ferguson), and the Southwest Climate Science Center (Meadow) decided to convene a workshop in Tucson in March 2013. The primary goal was to assemble a small group of university and agency scientists involved with drought impacts monitoring to discuss opportunities and barriers associated with drought impacts reporting, recommend best practices for implementing a drought impacts reporting …

The Evaluation Of Water Storage In Death Valley Using Grace Satellite Data, Maile Sweigart

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As drought conditions spread across the United States, concerns over water supplies, water use, and water management policies are growing and possible contributing environmental factors are continually being scrutinized. This thesis examines Death Valley as an analog for Southern Nevada and utilizes NASA EOS data, combined with ancillary climate data, to assess the effect of decadal climate variability on groundwater storage in the Death Valley area. Historical climate data, combined with satellite imagery observations, were compiled and calculated for analyses. Conclusions derived from statistical analyses infer trends between GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite data and fluctuating levels of …

Examining Rapid Onset Drought Development Using The Thermal Infrared–Based Evaporative Stress Index, Jason A. Otkin, Martha C. Anderson, Christopher Hain, Iliana E. Mladenova, Jeffrey B. Basara, Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Reliable indicators of rapid drought onset can help to improve the effectiveness of drought early warning systems. In this study, the evaporative stress index (ESI), which uses remotely sensed thermal infrared imagery to estimate evapotranspiration (ET), is compared to drought classifications in the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) and standard precipitation-based drought indicators for several cases of rapid drought development that have occurred across the United States in recent years. Analysis of meteorological time series from the North American Regional Reanalysis indicates that these events are typically characterized by warm air temperature and low cloud cover anomalies, often with high winds …

Droughtscape, Spring 2013, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

Director’s report

First quarter climate summary and outlook

Impacts: Crop indemnities set records in 2012; water conflicts escalating

International meeting recommends countries have drought policies

NDMC plays key role in international drought policy meeting

EDEN and VOAD guide helps build community drought capacity

Svoboda, other experts and policymakers focus on food and water security

New Mexico ranching workshop set for May 29 in Socorro

Ranch planning updates: archived webinars, new publications

Tune in to the US Drought Monitor Forum, April 16-18

Archived webinar looks at using drought simulations in planning

CoCoRaHS WxTalk on drought

An Intercomparison Of Drought Indicators Based On Thermal Remote Sensing And Nldas-2 Simulations With U.S. Drought Monitor Classifications, Martha C. Anderson, Christopher Hain, Jason Otkin, Xiwu Zhan, Kingtse Mo, Mark Svoboda, Brian Wardlow, Agustin Pimstein

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Comparison of multiple hydrologic indicators, derived from independent data sources and modeling approaches, may improve confidence in signals of emerging drought, particularly during periods of rapid onset. This paper compares the evaporative stress index (ESI)—a diagnostic fast-response indicator describing evapotranspiration (ET) deficits derived within a thermal remote sensing energy balance framework—with prognostic estimates of soil moisture (SM), ET, and runoff anomalies generated with the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS). Widely used empirical indices based on thermal remote sensing [vegetation health index (VHI)] and precipitation percentiles [standardized precipitation index (SPI)] were also included to assess relative performance. Spatial and …

Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions From A Waste Lagoon, Arturo I. Quintanar, Rezaul Mamood, Nanh Lovanh, Justin M. Rawley, Evi Becerra-Acosta, John H. Loughrin

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

A cost-effective approach was used to investigate the relationship between emission of the greenhouse gases (GHG), namely, CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O and energy fluxes from a swine waste lagoon. Energy fluxes were calculated using the Penman method. The energy fluxes showed a diurnal pattern as expected of such fluxes. We found that air temperature and latent energy, lagoon surface temperature and solar radiation, as well as air temperature and wind speed can be used to predict for CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O emissions, respectively. Comparison of observed and predicted …