Climate Commons^™

06 Climatology Of The U.S. Inter-Mountain West, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Robert R. Gillies

Modern Climatology

The Inter-Mountain West (IMW) of North America is a region that lies between the Rocky Mountains to the east and the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to the west (Fig. 1). The climate of the IMW is generally semi-arid but this varies by location and elevation. An estimated 50- 80% of the IMW’s streams and rivers are fed by mountain snowpack (Marks and Winstral 2001), while the majority of the streams and rivers flow into desert sinks or closed-basin lakes such as the Great Salt Lake (Fig. 1). These streams and rivers create some agriculturally productive areas in the otherwise dry …

05 The South American Monsoon System: Climatology And Variability, Viviane B.S. Silva, Vernon E. Kousky

Modern Climatology

A typical Monsoon System is characterized by a reversal in the low-level wind direction between summer and winter seasons, and distinct wet (summer) and dry (winter) periods. The changes in low-level atmospheric circulation are related to changes in the thermal contrast between oceans and continents. During summer, the air over continents is warmer and more convectively unstable than air over adjacent oceanic regions. Consequently, lower pressure occurs over land and higher pressure occurs over nearby oceanic areas. This pressure pattern causes low-level moist air to converge onto the land, resulting in precipitation, especially during the late afternoon and evening hours. …

04 Thunderstorm And Lightning Climatology Of Australia, Yuriy Kuleshov

Modern Climatology

Thunderstorms are spectacular but hazardous weather phenomena and the associated lightning and wind gusts can be very hazardous to people, buildings, and industry and utility assets. The thunderstorm hazards in Australia are in most respects similar to those in other countries, but some are worthy of special comment. In some instances, the effects of lightning initiated bushfires are so extreme that they are classified as natural disasters. The wildfires started by lightning are known locally in Australia as bushfire and grass fires, and these can cause extensive damage and loss of life. The ignition is caused by the lightning current …

02 Indian Monsoon Depression: Climatology And Variability, Jin-Ho Yoon, Wan-Ru Huang

Modern Climatology

The monsoon climate is traditionally characterized by large amount of seasonal rainfall and reversal of wind direction (e.g., Krishnamurti 1979). Most importantly this rainfall is the major source of fresh water to various human activities such as agriculture. The Indian subcontinent resides at the core of the Southeast Asian summer monsoon system with the monsoon trough extended from northern India across Indochina to the Western Tropical Pacific (WTP). Large fraction of annual rainfall occurs during the summer monsoon season, i.e., June – August1, with two distinct maxima. One is located over the Bay of Bengal with rainfall extending northwestward into …

Modern Climatology - Full Text, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, Robert R. Gillies

Modern Climatology

Climatology, the study of climate, is no longer regarded as a single discipline that treats climate as something that fluctuates only within the unchanging boundaries described by historical statistics. The field has recognized that climate is something that changes continually under the influence of physical and biological forces and so, cannot be understood in isolation but rather, is one that includes diverse scientific disciplines that play their role in understanding a highly complex coupled “whole system” that is the Earth’s climate. The modern era of climatology is echoed in this book. On the one hand it offers a broad synoptic …

11 Climate Change: Is It More Predictable Than We Think?, Rafail V. Abramov

Modern Climatology

The global climate systemties togethermany physical variables, such as flow velocity, density, pressure, temperature, to name a few. The core equations of the climate system are the primitive evolution equations of the atmosphere and ocean (Lions et al., 1992a;b; 1993a;b; 1995; Majda, 2003), which directly involve the flow velocity (or, alternatively, streamfunction and vorticity), density and pressure. To incorporate the effects of other relevant physical processes which supply the energy to or draw it from the motion of the flow, the primitive equations are coupled to other physical processes through temperature, water vapor, ocean surface pressure, and other variables. The …

Global Variations Of Hdo And Hdo/H2o Ratios In The Upper Troposphere And Lower Stratosphere Derived From Ace-Fts Satellite Measurements, William J. Randel, Elisabeth Moyer, Mijeong Park, Eric Jensen, Peter Bernath

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

High-quality satellite observations of water and deuterated water in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier transform spectrometer (ACE-FTS) are used to map global climatological behavior. Spatial and temporal variability in these data suggest that convection plays a significant role in setting water vapor isotopic composition in these regions. In many instances, enhancements in HDO/H₂O (i.e., δD) are closely tied to patterns of climatological deep convection and uncorrelated with water vapor, although convection appears to have different isotopic effects in different locations. The ACE-FTS data reveal seasonal variations in the tropics …

Anthropogenic Climate Change And Allergic Diseases, James Blando, Leonard Bielory, Viann Nguyen, Rafael Diaz, Hueiwang Anna Jeng

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Climate change is expected to have an impact on various aspects of health, including mucosal areas involved in allergic inflammatory disorders that include asthma, allergic rhinitis, allergic conjunctivitis and anaphylaxis. The evidence that links climate change to the exacerbation and the development of allergic disease is increasing and appears to be linked to changes in pollen seasons (duration, onset and intensity) and changes in allergen content of plants and their pollen as it relates to increased sensitization, allergenicity and exacerbations of allergic airway disease. This has significant implications for air quality and for the global food supply.

Visualization Facility At Unlv Gis And Remote Core Lab, Haroon Stephen

NSTec UNLV Symposium

Outline

• About GIS/RS Lab
• Visualization Facility
• Research Areas
• Summary

Public Knowledge About Polar Regions Increases While Concerns Remain Unchanged, Lawrence C. Hamilton, Matthew J. Cutler, Andrew P. Schaefer

Carsey Publications

The authors of this brief conduct the first comparative analysis of the polar questions that were part of the National Opinion Research Center's 2006 and 2010 General Social Survey. Developed by scientists at the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs, these questions covered topics such as climate change, melting ice and rising sea levels, and species extinction. The authors report that the public's knowledge about the north and south polar regions significantly improved between 2006 and 2010--before and after the International Polar Year. In addition, respondents who know more about science in general, and polar facts specifically, tend to …

The New Hampshire Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Fund: Year 3 (July 2011-June 2012) Evaluation, Matthew Magnusson, Cameron P. Wake

The Sustainability Institute Publications

The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Fund (GHGERF) was created by the New Hampshire legislature in 2008 and has been administered by the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission (PUC). The purpose of the Fund was to support energy efficiency, energy conservation, and demand response programs to reduce New Hampshire’s greenhouse gas emissions. Funding was derived from the State’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cooperative effort by nine northeastern states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the electric power sector via a cap and trade program. As of June 2012, RGGI auctions have resulted in revenues to New …

The Arctic Game, Sarah E. Nuernberger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since outsiders first visited the Arctic, they have believed in man's ability to conquer the region. Today's Arctic conquest is not one of heroic exploration, but rather one of ownership and exploitation. This paper illustrates contestation in the Arctic through the metaphor of a game, with attendant prizes, players, and rules. It focuses on how to prevent the future destruction of the Arctic given the interactions of the Arctic's landscape, prizes, players, and current management frameworks. In the wake of renewed resource exploitation and escalating climate change impacts, the current frameworks and mindsets are inadequate to support the precarious balance …

Climate Divisions For Alaska Based On Objective Methods, Peter A. Bieniek, Uma S. Bhatt, Richard L. Thoman, Heather Angeloff, James Partain, John Papineau, Frederick Fritsch, Eric Holloway, John E. Walsh, Christopher Daly, Martha Shulski, Gary Hufford, David F. Hill, Stavros Calos, Rudiger Gens

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Alaska encompasses several climate types because of its vast size, high-latitude location, proximity to oceans, and complex topography. There is a great need to understand how climate varies regionally for climatic research and forecasting applications. Although climate-type zones have been established for Alaska on the basis of seasonal climatological mean behavior, there has been little attempt to construct climate divisions that identify regions with consistently homogeneous climatic variability. In this study, cluster analysis was applied to monthly-average temperature data from 1977 to 2010 at a robust set of weather stations to develop climate divisions for the state. Mean-adjusted Advanced Very …

Drought Monitoring: Historical And Current Perspectives, Michael J. Hayes, Mark D. Svoboda, Brian D. Wardlow, Martha C. Anderson, Felix Kogan

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Drought is a normal, recurring feature of climate throughout the world, with characteristics and impacts that can vary from region to region. Figure 1.1 illustrates the regular occurrence of drought within the United States between 1895 and 2010 with approximately 14% of the country, on average (plotted by black dotted line), experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions during any given year. Drought conditions can persist in a region for several years, as occurred in the United States in the 1930s, 1950s, and early 2000s, and tree ring and other proxy records confirm that multiple-year droughts are part of the long-term …

Future Opportunities And Challenges In Remote Sensing Of Drought, Brian D. Wardlow, Martha C. Anderson, Justin Sheffield, Bradley D. Doorn, James P. Verdin, Xiwu Zhan, Matthew Rodell

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

The value of satellite remote sensing for drought monitoring was first realized more than two decades ago with the application of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) for assessing the effect of drought on vegetation, as summarized by Anyamba and Tucker (2012, Chapter 2). Other indices such as the Vegetation Health Index (VHI) (Kogan, 1995) were also developed during this time period and applied to AVHRR NDVI and brightness temperature data for routine global monitoring of drought conditions. These early efforts demonstrated the unique perspective that global imagers like AVHRR could provide …

Microwave Remote Sensing Of Soil Moisture Science And Applications, Son V. Nghiem, Brian D. Wardlow, David Allured, Mark Svoboda, Doug Lecomte, Matthew Rosencrans, Steven K. Chan, Gregory Neumann

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Soil moisture is a fundamental link between global water and carbon cycles and has major applications in predicting natural hazards such as droughts and floods (National Research Council, 2007). From precipitation data, soil wetness can be estimated by hydrological land-surface models. In the United States, preliminary precipitation data are based on measurements gathered from many active stations nationwide each month, and it takes 3–4 months to assemble final, quality-controlled data. In the western United States, some climate divisions may have no stations reporting in a particular month or may lack first- or second-order stations, and significant blockages by mountains limit …

Drought Triggers And Declarations: Science And Policy Considerations For Drought Risk Management, Linda Courtenay Botterill, Michael J. Hayes

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

This paper explores the value of triggers and declarations in the management of drought, bringing together two disciplinary perspectives, those of the public policy scholar and the climate scientist. These two perspectives highlight the complexity of the development and use of triggers in drought risk management by drawing on the experience of the United States, which has the most sophisticated system of drought triggers in the world, and that of Australia that has the most developed and longest standing national drought policy based on principles of risk management. The paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of triggers in managing drought, …

Interannual And Spatial Impacts Of Phenological Transitions, Growing Season Length, And Spring And Autumn Temperatures On Carbon Sequestration: A North America Flux Data Synthesis, Chaoyang Wu, Alemu Gonsamo, Jing Ming Chen, Werner A. Kurz, David T. Price, Peter M. Lafleur, Rachhpal S. Jassal, Danilo Dragoni, Gil Bohrer, Christopher M. Gough, Shashi B. Verma, Andrew E. Suyker, J. William Munger

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Understanding feedbacks of ecosystem carbon sequestration to climate change is an urgent step in developing future ecosystem models. Using 187 site-years of flux data observed at 24 sites covering three plant functional types (i.e. evergreen forests (EF), deciduous forests (DF) and non-forest ecosystems (NF) (e.g., crop, grassland, wetland)) in North America, we present an analysis of both interannual and spatial relationships between annual net ecosystem production (NEP) and phenological indicators, including the flux-based carbon uptake period (CUP) and its transitions, degree-day-derived growing season length (GSL), and spring and autumn temperatures. Diverse responses were acquired between annul NEP and these indicators …

A Synoptic Perspective Of The Record 1-2 May 2010 Mid-South Heavy Precipitation Event, Joshua D. Durkee, Lee Campbell, Kyle Berry, Dustin Jordan, Gregory Goodrich, Rezaul Mahmood, Stuart Foster

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

During 1–2 May 2010, a series of strong thunderstorms led to 41, 57, and 43 tornado, severe wind, and severe hail reports, respectively, across portions of the southern United States. In addition to severe weather, these storms also distributed recordsetting rainfall amounts across the mid-South region, which contributed to historic flooding across portions of central and western Kentucky and Tennessee (Fig. 1). This heavy precipitation event was sampled by multiple surface observational networks, including (but not limited to) 48 research-grade automated stations from the Kentucky Mesonet (www.kymesonet .org), first-order automated stations from the National Weather Service (NWS; www.ncdc.noaa.gov /oa/ncdc.html), and …

Thermal-Based Evaporative Stress Index For Monitoring Surface Moisture Depletion, Martha C. Anderson, Christopher R. Hain, Brian D. Wardlow, Agustin Pimstein, John R. Mecikalski, William P. Kustas

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

The standard suite of indicators currently used in operational drought monitoring reflects anomalous conditions in several major components of the hydrologic budget—representing deficits in precipitation, soil moisture content, runoff, surface and groundwater storage, snowpack, and streamflow. In principle, it is useful to have a diversity of indices because drought can assume many forms (meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, and socioeconomic), over broad ranges in timescale (weeks to years), and with varied impacts of interest to different stakeholder groups. Farmers, for example, may be principally interested in soil moisture deficits, river forecasters will focus on streamflow fluctuations, and water managers will be concerned …