Climate Commons^™

Droughtscape, Fall 2019, Cory Matteson

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

Contents

From the Director

Quarterly drought summary

Quarterly drought impacts

Ranchers delayed response to drought

Drought Monitor celebrates 20 years

Drought Monitor state impact tables

Directorcontributesto U.N.droughtproject

Updated Drought Risk Atlas

New fact sheet lists recovery resources

Droughtscape, Summer 2019, Cory Matteson

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

Contents

From the Director

Quarterly drought summary

Quarterly drought impacts

NDMC welcomes African visitors

Ready for Drought game debuts

U.S. Virgin Islands added to USDM

Australian programmer visits NDMC

Upcoming events

Partnerships with NDMC extended

Umphlett Qci June 2019, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Soil Moisture Conditions

Delayed/Prevented Planting

Impacts to Cattle

Damage to Infrastructure

Temperature

Precipitation

Development Of Digital Bathymetry Maps For Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo Using Sonar And Remote Sensing Techniques, Michael Piasecki, Mahrokh Moknatian, Fred Moshary, Jorge Gonzalez

Publications and Research

This article presents an improved algorithm for optimization and development of a digital bathymetric model (DBM) for Lake Azuei (LA) (Haiti) and Lake Enriquillo (LE) (Dominican Republic) using the ANUDEM method. Both sonar data and contour lines of the lakes’ layout extracted using Landsat imagery were compiled for bathymetry development. We show that the performance of the ANUDEM method was strongly dependent on the density and irregularity of the spatial distribution of the data. Changing the resolution of the output grids and deriving auxiliary topographically corrected contours improved the ANUDEM performance and minimized the systematic errors of the method. Statistical …

Establishing Relationships Between Drought Indices And Wildfire Danger Outputs: A Test Case For The California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System, Daniel J. Mcevoy, Mike Hobbins, Timothy J. Brown, Kristin Vander Molen, Tamara Wall, Justin L. Huntington, Mark D. Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Relationships between drought indices and fire danger outputs are examined to (1) incorporate fire risk information into the National Integrated Drought Information System California–Nevada Drought EarlyWarning System and (2) provide a baseline analysis for application of drought indices into a fire risk management framework. We analyzed four drought indices that incorporate precipitation and evaporative demand (E0) and three fire indices that reflect fuel moisture and potential fire intensity. Seasonally averaged fire danger outputs were most strongly correlated to multi-scalar drought indices that use E0 (the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)) at approximately annual …

Droughtscape, Spring 2019, Cory Matteson

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

Contents

From the Director

Wet and cool conditions bring drought relief to the West

Notable numbers from Q1

Drought impact summary, 1st quarter 2019

New research examines drought effects on state recreation areas

At Ethiopian space science workshop, NDMC climatologist sees promise in preparing for drought

U.S.- affiliated Pacific Islands now part of U.S. Drought Monitor

Water conservation tips for drought, flood and other disasters

Upcoming events

Precipitation Trends Across The Commonwealth Of Virginia (1947 – 2016), Michael J. Allen, Thomas R. Allen

Virginia Journal of Science

Water is an important resource for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Too much water increases runoff, disrupt transportation networks, and contributes to school closures. Too little water may adversely impact agricultural operations. To improve climate-related information to Virginia citizens, this study assesses means and changes in precipitation across the Commonwealth of Virginia (1947 – 2016). Using daily station-level precipitation data from the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN), descriptive statistics were calculated for 43 locations in terms of total precipitation (inches decade^-1), precipitation days (x>0”), and heavy precipitation days (x>1.0”). On average, locations showed an overall increase in …

Earth Observation And Climate Services For Food Security And Agricultural Decision Making In South And Southeast Asia, Faisal M. Qamer, Tsegaue Tadesse, Mir Matin, Walter L. Ellenburg, Benjamin Zaitchik

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Deliberations on new developments in the use of Earth observation for agriculture and food security in South and Southeast Asia gathered 120 participants to discuss i) agricultural and hydrological drought monitoring and early warning systems, ii) crop mapping and yield estimation, and iii) risk financing and agrometeorological advisory services.

Umphlett Qci March 2019, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature Anomalies

Plains Snowpack

Agriculture

Energy

Transportation

Temperature

Precipitation

Building A High-Resolution Vegetation Outlook Model To Monitor Agricultural Drought For The Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia, Yared Bayissa, Tsegaye Tadesse, Getachew B. Demisse

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

To reduce the impacts of drought, developing an integrated drought monitoring tool and early warning system is crucial and more effective than the crisis management approach that is commonly used in developing countries like Ethiopia. The overarching goal of this study was to develop a higher-spatial-resolution vegetation outlook (VegOut-UBN) model that integrates multiple satellite, climatic, and biophysical input variables for the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin. VegOut-UBN uses current and historical observations in predicting the vegetation condition at multiple leading time steps of 1, 3, 6, and 9 dekades. VegOut-UBN was developed to predict the vegetation condition during the main …

Spatial Heterogeneity Of Temporal Shifts In Extreme Precipitation Across India, Manas Khan, Francisco Munoz-Arriola, Rehana Shaik, Penny Greer

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

When analyzing trends and patterns of extreme precipitation, one can easily generalize the shifts caused by external climate forcings and map a single temporal shift of annual precipitation. However, the complexity of a changing environment evidences spatially distributed shifts particularly those of extreme precipitation which are essential in planning and designing enterprises and, ultimately, in managing infrastructure across scales. The goal of this study is to characterize the spatial heterogeneity of shifts in the increasing pace of extreme events over India. The study has a two-part hypothesis: (1) the number of grid cells with significant trends in annual precipitation (P), …

Assessing The Evolution Of Soil Moisture And Vegetation Conditions During A Flash Drought–Flash Recovery Sequence Over The South-Central United States, Jason A. Otkin, Yafang Zhong, Eric D. Hunt, Jeff Basara, Mark Svoboda, Martha C. Anderson, Christopher Hain

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

This study examines the evolution of soil moisture, evapotranspiration, vegetation, and atmospheric conditions during an unusual flash drought–flash recovery sequence that occurred across the south-central United States during 2015. This event was characterized by a period of rapid drought intensification (flash drought) during late summer that was terminated by heavy rainfall at the end of October that eliminated the extreme drought conditions over a 2-week period (flash recovery). A detailed analysis was performed using time series of environmental variables derived from meteorological, remote sensing, and land surface modeling datasets. Though the analysis revealed a similar progression of cascading effects in …

Soil Moisture Monitoring Using Remote Sensing Data And A Stepwise-Cluster Prediction Model: The Case Of Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia, Getachew Ayehu, Tsegaye Tadesse, Berhan Gessesse, Yibeltal Yigrem

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

In this study, a residual soil moisture prediction model was developed using the stepwise cluster analysis (SCA) and model prediction approach in the Upper Blue Nile basin. The SCA has the advantage of capturing the nonlinear relationships between remote sensing variables and volumetric soil moisture. The principle of SCA is to generate a set of prediction cluster trees based on a series of cutting and merging process according to a given statistical criterion. The proposed model incorporates the combinations of dual-polarized Sentinel-1 SAR data, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and digital elevation model as input parameters. In this regard, two …

Socioecological Determinants Of Drought Impacts And Coping Strategies For Ranching Operations In The Great Plains, Tonya Haigh, Walter H. Schacht, Cody L. Knutson, Alexander J. Smart, Jerry Volesky, Craig R. Allen, Michael Hayes, Mark E. Burbach

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

In Great Plains rangelands, drought is a recurring disturbance. Ranchers in this region expect to encounter drought but may not be adequately prepared for it. Efforts to encourage drought preparednesswould benefit froma better understanding of the conditions under which managers make decisions to minimize the impacts of drought.We tested the direct andmoderating roles of the drought hazard and the social-ecological context on drought impacts and response. This study was conducted with ranchers in western and central South Dakota and Nebraska following the drought that began in 2012. We surveyed ranchers regarding the effects of the drought and their responses and …

Ua66/8/2 Ogden College Of Science & Engineering Geography & Geology Centers & Institutes, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Centers and Institutes administered by the Geography & Geology Department. Including:

• Center for Cave & Karst Studies
• Center for Local Government Services
• Hoffman Environmental Research Institute
• Kentucky Climate Center
• Resources Management Institute
• Small Public Water System Technology Center

Carbon Dioxide Measurement In Irish Blanket Peatlands: An Assessment Of Pool-Soil Flux Variability, Mariya Radomski, Alan Gilmer, Vivienne Byers, Eugene Mcgovern

Articles

Peatlands have been recognised as having a significant role in the mediation of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels with direct implications for global climate change. Longitudinal in situ measurement systems for CO2 concentrations in blanket peatland ecosystems are difficult to implement where the nature of terrestrial–aquatic connectivity and hydrodynamics have a significant effect on the carbon cycle. The need for greater data on CO2 concentrations and flux monitoring in these settings has been well recognised. However, applying the most appropriate monitoring approach presents a special challenge. This paper sets out the development of a direct method for field based longitudinal …

Role Of Sea Surface Temperatures In Forcing Circulation Anomalies Driving U.S. Great Plains Pluvial Years, Paul X. Flanagan, Jeffrey B. Basara, Jason C. Furtado, Elinor R. Martin, Xiangming Xiao

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

In the U.S. Great Plains (GP), diagnosing precipitation variability is key in developing an understanding of the present and future availability of water in the region. Building on previous work investigating U.S. GP pluvial years, this study usesERAtwentieth century (ERA-20C) reanalysis data to investigate key circulation anomalies driving GP precipitation anomalies during a subset of GP pluvial years (called in this paper Pattern pluvial years). With previous research showing links between tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies and GP climate variability, this study diagnoses the key circulation anomalies through an analysis of SSTs and their influence on the atmosphere. …

Influence Of Land Cover And Soil Moisture Based Brown Ocean Effect On An Extreme Rainfall Event From A Louisiana Gulf Coast Tropical System, Udaysankar S. Nair, Eric Rappin, Emily Foshee, Warren Smith, Roger A. Pielke Sr., Rezaul Mahmood, Jonathan L. Case, Clay B. Blankenship, Marshall Shepherd, Joseph A. Santanello, Dev Niyogi

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Extreme flooding over southern Louisiana in mid-August of 2016 resulted from an unusual tropical low that formed and intensified over land. We used numerical experiments to highlight the role of the ‘Brown Ocean’ effect (where saturated soils function similar to a warm ocean surface) on intensification and it’s modulation by land cover change. A numerical modeling experiment that successfully captured the flood event (control) was modified to alter moisture availability by converting wetlands to open water, wet croplands, and dry croplands. Storm evolution in the control experiment with wet antecedent soils most resembles tropical lows that form and intensify over …

The Total Solar Eclipse Of 2017: Meteorological Observations From A Statewide Mesonet And Atmospheric Profiling Systems, Rezaul Mahmood, Megan Schargorodski, Eric Rappin, Melissa Griffin, Patrick Collins, Kevin Knupp, Andrew Quilligan, Ryan Wade, Kevin Cary, Stuart Foster

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

A total solar eclipse traversed 37 the continental United States on August 21, 2017. It 38 was the first such event in 99 years and provided a rare opportunity to observe the atmospheric response from a variety of instrumented observational platforms. This paper discusses the high quality observations collected by the Kentucky Mesonet (www.kymesonet.org), a research-grade meteorological and climatological observation network consisting of 72 stations and measuring air temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, solar radiation, wind speed, and wind direction. The network samples the atmosphere, for most variables, every three seconds and then calculates and records observations every five minutes. During …

Irrigation Impacts On Minimum And Maximum Surface Moist Enthalpy In The Central Great Plains Of The Usa, Tianyi Zhang, Rezaul Mahmood, Xiaomao Lin, Roger A. Pielke Sr.

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Agricultural activities notably alter weather and climate including near-surface heat content. However, past research primarily focused on dry bulb temperature without considering the role of water vapor (dew point temperature) on surface air heat content. When using dry bulb temperature trends to assess these changes, for example, not including concurrent trends in absolute humidity can lead to errors in the actual rate of warming or cooling. Here we examined minimum and maximum surface moist enthalpy, which can be expressed as “equivalent temperature.” Using hourly climate data in the Central Great Plains (Nebraska and Kansas) from 1990 to 2014, the averages …

Enhancing Acis Maps: Increasing Usability Through A Gis Portal, Natalie Umphlett, Warren Pettee, Bill Sorensen, Crystal J. Stiles

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

The High Plains Regional Climate Center (HPRCC) is one of six NOAA Regional Climate Centers (RCCs) in the United States that aims to provide timely climate data and information to the public for cost-effective decision-making. As part of a three-tiered approach to climate services, the RCCs address needs on the national, regional, state, and local scales for a variety of sectors including agriculture, energy, natural resource management, research, transportation, and water resources. Working together, the RCCs develop and disseminate a wide range of valueadded climate products and services.

One of the HPRCC’s most popular products is the Applied Climate Information …

Conducting A Drought-Specific Thira (Threat And Hazard Identification And Risk Assessment): A Powerful Tool For Integrating All-Hazard Mitigation And Drought Planning Efforts To Increase Drought Mitigation Quality, Elliot Wickham, Deborah J. Bathke, Tarik Abdel-Monem, Tonya K. Bernadt, Denise Bulling, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Crystal J. Stiles, Nicole Wall

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

In the United States, drought is the second costliest natural disaster, which leads to the need for increased drought mitigation efforts over time. However, drought planning has lagged behind other hazard mitigation efforts, which is likely due to the lack of a national drought planning policy. Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requires all jurisdictions have a hazard mitigation plan (HMP) to receive pre-disaster mitigation funds, drought has only recently been a requirement in HMPs. In 2012, Nebraska witnessed its worse drought in recent history, which exposed the gaps in drought planning effectiveness at all jurisdictional levels. To address …

Droughtscape, Winter 2019, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

From the Director

Drought intensified in California and Nevada, eased elsewhere

Year in Review: Drought spread and intensified in the West; record precipitation in the East

Drought impact summary for 4th quarter 2018

Drought impact summary 2018

Five states began drought plan updates in 2018

New web-based form makes submitting drought observations easier

FEMA risk assessment process tailored for drought

Upcoming events

Hydroclimate Drivers And Atmospheric Dynamics Of Floods, Nasser Najibi

Dissertations and Theses

Our preliminary survey showed that most of the recent flood-related studies did not formally explain the physical mechanisms of long-duration and large-peak flood events that can evoke substantial damages to properties and infrastructure systems. These studies also fell short of fully assessing the interactions of coupled ocean-atmosphere and land dynamics which are capable of forcing substantial changes to the flood attributes by governing the exceeding surface flow regimes and moisture source-sink relationships at the spatiotemporal scales important for risk management. This dissertation advances the understanding of the variability in flood duration, peak, volume, and timing at the regional to the …

Impacts Of Climate Change On Water Balance Components In The Central Appalachian Mountains, Usa, Brandi Anne Gaertner

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research investigated the impact of climate and land cover on water balance components including evapotranspiration and runoff in the mountainous central Appalachian region of the United States. The first studyanalyzed trends in climatologic, hydrologic, and growing season length variables, identified the important variables effecting growing season length changes, and evaluated the influence of a lengthened growing season on increasing evapotranspiration trends. The results showed that growing season length has increased, on average, by ~22 days and evapotranspiration has increased ~12 mm. The second study quantified long-term historical and future climate trends, evaluated water balance sensitivity to change, and quantified …

Umphlett Qci Dec 2018, Natalie A. Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Mountain Snowpack

Water Resources and Drought

Agriculture

Temperature

Precipitation

Droughtscape, Fall 2018, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

From the director

Drought greatly improves in Southern Plains and South

Texas, Missouri, and Colorado logged late-summer impacts

Memory, remote sensing and a new research methodology

Navigating the U.S. Drought Monitor

Planners discuss the barriers to effective drought mitigation planning

Exploring climate issues from a county management perspective

Strategic Framework for Drought Risk Management and Enhancing Resilience in Africa

Mena global policy forum looks from data to mitigation

About us

State-by-state drought classification table developed by NDMC graduate student

Umphlett Qci Sept 2018, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Drought

Water Resources

Agriculture

Temperature

Precipitation

Climate-Informed Environmental Inflows To Revive A Drying Lake Facing Meteorological And Anthropogenic Droughts, Aneseh Alborzi, Ali Mirchi, Hamed Moftakhari, Iman Mallakpour, Sara Alian, Ali Nazemi, Elmira Hassanzadeh, Omid Mazdiyasni, Samaneh Ashraf, Kaveh Madani, Hamid Norouzi, Marzi Azarderakhsh, Ali Mehran, Mojtaba Sadegh, Andrea Castelletti, Amir Aghakouchak

Publications and Research

The rapid shrinkage of Lake Urmia, one of the world's largest saline lakes located in northwestern Iran, is a tragic wake-up call to revisit the principles of water resources management based on the socio-economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The overarching goal of this paper is to set a framework for deriving dynamic, climate-informed environmental inflows for drying lakes considering both meteorological/climatic and anthropogenic conditions. We report on the compounding effects of meteorological drought and unsustainable water resource management that contributed to Lake Urmia's contemporary environmental catastrophe. Using rich datasets of hydrologic attributes, water demands and withdrawals, as well …

Droughtscape, Summer 2018, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

From the director

Drought expands and intensifies

Dry down fuels fires

Tweeting #drought18

MOISST and NSMN

Caribbean planning progress

Drought observer network study

MENA teams report progress

NDMC global outreach

Climate hub workshop

On the horizon