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John Zak

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South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center Consortium - Hosted by The University of Oklahoma (2019-2024)
The South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) strives to provide actionable science, tools, and information to decision makers in order to address climate change and variability. In this effort, the South Central CASC supports actionable science through multi-institutional and stakeholder driven approaches to assessing the impacts of climate on natural and cultural resources. The South Central CASC is hosted by the University of Oklahoma with six consortium partners: Texas Tech University, The Chickasaw Nation, The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Louisiana State University, Oklahoma State University, and University of New Mexico. During the period of 2019 – 2024, the South Central CASC consortium will strive...
While we collect and monitor soil temperatures within natural and managed ecosystems across the Southern High Plains (SHP), we do not have a clear understanding of how soil temperature parameters are linked to ecosystem services, soil health and sustainability under increasing climate variability and increasing drought severity. Understanding how management decisions will either create positive or negative feedback loops with respect to soil temperature dynamics may be critical for developing sound conservation and soil management practices. As much of the SHP is privately owned and is managed either under intensive row cropping systems, any drought mitigation efforts and practices that influence and promote soil...
Precipitation amounts and frequencies are major regulators of soil heat-load profiles as the interval between rainfall events allows for increased heat storage during cloudless periods. The extreme drought of 2011 and the subsequent Flash Drought that occurred in summer, 2012, developed in part due to soil temperature dynamics across the landscape of the Southern High Plains. The negative impacts of highly variable soil temperatures on ecosystem process can be easily seen in family gardens. Most gardeners across the SHP realize that mulching has a beneficial impact on the success of any gardening effort as mulch reduces the heat storage of the soil thereby providing for a more stable temperature while also reducing...
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