Climate Commons^™

Lsuhsc Facilities Biweekly Update: August 2011, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates: 2011

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates from August 12 and 26, 2011.

These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.

From Sustainability To Resilience: How Best To Communicate Great Challenges?, Wolfgang Brauner

Education for Sustainability Summer Institute

No abstract provided.

Do Wind Turbines Affect Weather Conditions?: A Case Study In Indiana, Meghan F. Henschen, Brittany Herrholtz, Lacey Rhudy, Kathryn Demchak, Brian Doogs, Joshua Holland, Erik Larson, Johnny Martin, Matthew Rudkin

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Wind turbines are becoming increasingly widespread in the United States as the world looks for cleaner sources of energy. Scientists, policymakers, and citizens have strong opinions regarding the positive and negative effects of wind energy projects, and there is a great deal of misinformation about wind energy circulating on the Web and other media sources. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how the rotation of hundreds of turbines can influence local weather conditions within a wind farm and in the surrounding areas. This experiment measures temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, …

Droughtscape, Summer 2011, Kelly Smith

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

New NDMC Website

Drought May Improve in Southeast and Southwest

Impacts Summary: Fire, Crop Loss and More

International Activities

NDMC Launches Ranch Planning Tool

Serving Data to Order

Workshop Builds Drought Planning Community

Identifying Changes In Climatic Trends And The Fingerprints Of Landuse And Landcover Changes In The High Plains Of The Usa, Denis Mutiibwa

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Human activities such as conversion of natural ecosystem to croplands and urban-centers, deforestation and afforestation impact biophysical properties of land surface such as albedo, energy balance, and surface roughness. Alterations in these properties affect the heat and moisture exchanges between the land surface and atmospheric boundary layer. The objectives of this research were; (i) to quantitatively identify the High plains’ regional climate change in temperatures over the period 1895 to 2006, (ii) detect the signatures of anthropogenic forcing of LULC changes on the regional climate change of the High Plains, and (iii) examine the trends in evolving regional latent heat …

Old Dominion University Climate Change And Sea Level Rise Initiative, Summer Update 2011, Larry P. Atkinson (Editor)

CCSLRI Newsletters

Summer 2011 Newsletter of the Old Dominion University Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative

Lsuhsc Facilities Daily Updates: July 2011, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Daily Updates: 2011

LSUHSC Facilities Daily Updates from July 2011.

These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.

Lsuhsc Facilities Biweekly Update: July 2011, Lsuhsc Property And Facilities Management

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates: 2011

LSUHSC Facilities Biweekly Updates from July 1, 15 and 29, 2011.

These updates describe damage and a timeline of repairs at the LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans campus due to Hurricane Katrina which made landfall August 29, 2005.

Building An Enhanced Drought Early Warning System (Dews): Tools And Services For Decision Support, Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Outline

• About the NDMC
• Drought Early Warning System (DEWS) Overview
• Tools (USDM, DIR, Atlas, VegDRI, + EPC/DRC)
• NDMC and the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS)
• Toward a Global Drought Early Warning System (NIDIS)
• Toward a Global Drought Early Warning System (GDEWS)
• Summary
• Q&A

Analyzing Past And Predicting Future Drought With Comprehensive Drought Indices For Arkansas-Red River Basin, Lu Liu, Yang Hong, James E. Hocker

2011 Symposium on Data-Driven Approaches to Droughts

This study is intended to examine the past drought and predict future drought scenarios for Arkansas-Red River Basin with comprehensive drought indices ranging from meteorology, hydro-meteorology to hydrology. In this proceeding, we present some early results and analysis with the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Historical climate data within the 1900-2009 timeframe were archived to derive the drought indices calculations. The projected A2, A1B climate data modules from 16 statistically downscaled Global Climate Models (GCM) were applied in drought occurrence frequency and affected area prediction. The results from the SPI and PDSI show that …

Building An Enhanced Drought Early Warning System (Dews): Tools And Services For Decision Support, Mark Svoboda

2011 Symposium on Data-Driven Approaches to Droughts

Perhaps no other hazard lends itself as well to the need for a diligent early warning system (DEWS) than drought. Droughts typically evolve slowly, but have the potential to cover very large areas compared to hazards like hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, which have a much smaller geographic footprint. The U.S. took first steps in 2006 toward developing coordinated and integrated DEWS through the creation of the National Integrated Drought Information System, or NIDIS. More recently, the National Drought Mitigation Center (http://drought.unl.edu) has been working with NIDIS and other international parties (WMO, GEO, United Nations, etc.) with a goal of developing …

Droughts In The 21st Century And Beyond, Vijay P. Singh, Chris Funk, Jim Angel, Mark Svoboda

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Drought: Science

• Characterization
• Mechanisms
• Modelings
• Prediction and Forecasting

Drought Monitoring

• Measurement
• Mapping
• Space
• Time
• Data Sharing
• Updating

Monitoring Drought Across Many Scales, Chris Funk

2011 Symposium on Data-Driven Approaches to Droughts

Monitoring drought across many scales Chris Funk As gas and food prices increase while per capita harvested area decreases, drought and disruptions in food availability exert more and more pressure on the political and economic stability of ‘frailed’ states. Improved drought monitoring across many spatial and temporal time scales has therefore become increasingly important. As this need mounts, so have our capacities to observe and understand the earth’s climate. Relatively new satellite systems, such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, allow us to watch the earth at scales of ~100 meters. Improved rainfall retrievals give us more timely and accurate …

Exploring The Link Between Droughts And Atmospheric Aerosol Loading, Umarporn Charusombat, Dev Niyogi

2011 Symposium on Data-Driven Approaches to Droughts

Are higher atmospheric aerosol levels and droughts related? To address this question, we explore the relation between atmospheric aerosol loading and droughts using insitu and satellite observations over different urban/rural settings and heterogeneous drought conditions. A related objective was to report on the relationship and the variability between aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieved from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and insitu particular matter (PM2.5 and PM10) over different land use. Daily measurement of PM2.5 and PM10 data were retrieved from seven EPA air quality monitoring stations in Indiana: Virgo, Lake and Clark County in urban area, Marion, Know and …

Monitoring Drought In The Midwest, Steve Hilberg

2011 Symposium on Data-Driven Approaches to Droughts

Climate monitoring is one component of the mission of the Regional Climate Centers, and the Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) has created web pages to provide near real-time monitoring of the weather and climate of the Midwest. A dedicated drought monitoring page was developed by the MRCC to provide a snapshot of current moisture conditions in the region using a number of specialized maps and products. Users are able to drill down to state and local conditions and impacts through links to the respective state climate offices and water resources agencies.

A Modified Standardized Precipitation Index For Drought Monitoring, Brent Mcroberts, John Nielsen-Gammon

2011 Symposium on Data-Driven Approaches to Droughts

The SPI Blend is a modified Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) created for use in a newly developed, high-resolution drought monitoring tool, assessing drought using precipitation data on multiple time scales. Unlike the traditional SPI, the SPI Blend uses a linear weighting system that places a higher importance on recent precipitation within a time period. At each time scale, the MPE precipitation data are divided into several periods and the precipitation total from the most recent period is given the highest weight, with a linear decrease in the weights for succeeding periods. The high-resolution (4 km) precipitation data are obtained daily …

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

Slides: Thinking The Unthinkable, Lawrence J. Macdonnell

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

Presenter: Lawrence J. MacDonnell, University of Wyoming College of Law

7 slides

Filling The Gap: Commonsense Solutions For Meeting Front Range Water Needs: Executive Summary, Western Resource Advocates, Trout Unlimited, Colorado Environmental Coalition (U.S.)

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

8 pages.

"February 2011"

Presented by Drew Beckwith, Water Policy Manager, Western Resource Advocates, on June 10th at Clyde O. Martz Summer Conference 2011, Navigating the Future of the Colorado River Basin

Full report available at: http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/gap

Materials For Presentation: The Disappearing Colorado River, Lawrence J. Macdonnell

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

7 pages.

"Western Economics Forum, Fall 2010"