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Ben Livneh

We assessed the performance of the MTCLIM scheme for estimating downward shortwave (SWdown) radiation and surface humidity from daily temperature range (DTR), as well as several schemes for estimating downward longwave radiation (LWdown), at 50 Baseline Solar Radiation Network stations globally. All of the algorithms performed reasonably well under most climate conditions, with biases and mean absolute errors generally less than 3% and 20%, respectively, over more than 70% of the global land surface. However, estimated SWdown had a bias of −26% at coastal sites, due to the ocean's moderating influence on DTR, and in continental interiors, SWdown had an average bias of −15% in the presence of snow, which was reduced...
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Estimating Future High-Mountain Snowpack to Inform Terrestrial and Aquatic Species Status Assessments, Recovery Plans, and Monitoring
One of the most visible signs of climate change is less mountain snow. In the Western U.S., deep snow has historically been a cornerstone of life for many plants and animals. For example, snow can provide denning shelter for certain species like the wolverine, and snowmelt provides dependable water to mountain streams that are home to fish like the bull trout. Yet snow losses driven by warming temperatures are already causing land and water managers to rethink whether certain species can thrive in the future. A recently completed study by this research team helped the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigate whether wolverines will have enough snow to survive in two areas of the Rocky Mountains. In June 2020,...
This paper describes a publicly available, long-term (1915–2011), hydrologically consistent dataset for the conterminous United States, intended to aid in studies of water and energy exchanges at the land surface. These data are gridded at a spatial resolution of latitude/longitude and are derived from daily temperature and precipitation observations from approximately 20 000 NOAA Cooperative Observer (COOP) stations. The available meteorological data include temperature, precipitation, and wind, as well as derived humidity and downwelling solar and infrared radiation estimated via algorithms that index these quantities to the daily mean temperature, temperature range, and precipitation, and disaggregate them...
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