Climate Commons^™

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 …

Weather And Climate Summary And Forecast: January 2019 Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report provides a summary of the weather and climate forecast for January 2019. 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.

Creative Citizen Science Illuminates Complex Ecological Responses To Climate Change, Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, Amanda S. Gallinat, Richard B. Primack

Biology Faculty Publications

Climate change is causing the timing of key behaviors (i.e., phenology) to shift differently across trophic levels and among some interacting organisms (e.g., plants and pollinators, predators and prey), suggesting that interactions among species are being disrupted (1, 2). Studying the phenology of interactions, however, is difficult, which has limited researchers’ ability to zero in on changes in specific interactions or on the consequences of mismatches. In PNAS, Hassall et al. (3) use a combination of citizen science techniques to investigate the effects of climate change on dozens of specific interactions. They focus on a Batesian mimicry complex involving stinging …

Applications Of Satellite Data In Analyses Of Surface Pm2.5, Minghui Diao, Frank R. Freedman, Sen Chiao, Isa Cruz, Ana Rivera, Mohammad Z. Al-Hamdan, Akula Venkatram

Faculty Publications, Meteorology and Climate Science

Fine particulate is among the most harmful air pollutants for human health. There is ongoing interest in developing reliable methods to estimate PM2.5 concentrations 1) at unmonitored locations and 2) at finer horizontal resolution for improved health risk assessment and public health tracking.We aim to develop an efficient system that can reliably estimate PM2.5 at unmonitored locations and at finer horizontal resolution at important locations.• MODIS aerosol optical depth (AOD) provides an input for particulate levels at unmonitored locations in methods used to construct regional PM2.5 fields.• Dispersion model fields can be fused into portions of these regional fields for …

Vintage Report 2018: 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 2018. A relatively mild and dry winter set the stage for a 2018 growing season that was highlighted by a cool spring, a summer with low heat stress but high drought stress along with numerous regional fires, and a glorious October. The moderately cool spring led to a late start to the growing season with an average bud break of April 17th delayed by 5-10 days compared to average. However, a warm May through August brought plant growth timing to near …

2019 January - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Reports

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Skill Of The Improved Treatment Of Riverine Freshwater In The Community Earth System Model Relative To A New Salinity Climatology, Qiang Sun, Michael M. Whitney, Frank O. Bryan, Yu-Heng Tseng

Department of Marine Sciences

Recent studies have explored the sensitivity of global ocean model simulations to the treatment of riverine freshwater and the representation of estuarine processes via an estuary box model (EBM) applied within CESM. This study builds on these efforts by assessing the model skill score relative to a new salinity climatology. The new climatology averages the original observational data of the World Ocean Database directly onto the CESM ocean-component tracer-grid cells without spatial interpolation, smoothing, or other gap-filling techniques to mitigate coastal ocean salinity bias present in the World Ocean Atlas. The mean squared error (MSE) for coastal upper ocean salinity …

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- January 2019, Natalie Umphlett, Rezaul Mamood, Warren Pettee, Gannon Rush, Crystal J. Stiles

Prairie Post: Quarterly Newsletter of the High Plains Regional Climate Center

Inside this issue:

Message from the director........................................1

Staff spotlight...........................1

Year in review............................2

Drought THIRA toolkit...........3

Product highlight....................4

Update on regional climate conditions..................................4

Other HPRCC news.................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

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 …

The Evolution, Propagation, And Spread Of Flash Drought In The Central United States During 2012, Jeffrey B. Basara, Jordan I. Christian, Ryann A. Wakefield, Jason A. Otkin, Eric H. Hunt, David P. Brown

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

During 2012, flash drought developed and subsequently expanded across large areas of the Central United States (US) with severe impacts to overall water resources and warm-season agricultural production. Recent efforts have yielded a methodology to detect and quantify flash drought occurrence and rate of intensification from climatological datasets via the standardized evaporative stress ratio (SESR). This study utilizes the North American Regional Reanalysis and applied the SESR methodology to quantify the spatial and temporal development and expansion of flash drought conditions during 2012. Critical results include the identification of the flash drought epicenter and subsequent spread of flash drought conditions …

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. …

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #4: Neighborhood Flooding And Flood Insurance, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

[Introductory paragraph]

Respondents were asked whether or not they own or are in the process of buying their home, rent, or have some other arrangement. Similar to past years, the majority of residents reported that they own or are in the process of buying their home (66.8%), marking the second highest percentage in the past five years, only behind last year’s percentage of 67.7. Another 28.6 percent indicated that they rent, while only 2.8 percent reported having another arrangement.

Odu Receives $3 Million For Resilience From Philanthropist Joan Brock, Noell Saunders

News Items

No abstract provided.

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 …

Looking Past, Looking Forward: America's National Parks, Archaeology And Climate Change, Rachel Marie Blumhardt

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

America’s National Parks are rich with cultural history, flora, fauna and some of nature’s most impressive landscapes. As climate change continues to accelerate, these parks and their cultural and natural resources are being threatened. In this project, I will present a colorful, informational booklet that concentrates on 4 specific parks: Yellowstone National Park, National Park of American Samoa, Glacier Bay National Park and Mesa Verde National Park. I will focus on the archaeology and cultural significance of these parks, while also examining the ways that climate change is putting these, and other associated assets of the parks, at risk. I …