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Future climate projections illuminate our understanding of the climate system and generate data products often used in climate impact assessments. Statistical downscaling (SD) is commonly used to address biases in global climate models (GCM) and to translate large‐scale projected changes to the higher spatial resolutions desired for regional and local scale studies. However, downscaled climate projections are sensitive to method configuration and input data source choices made during the downscaling process that can affect a projection's ultimate suitability for particular impact assessments. Quantifying how changes in inputs or parameters affect SD‐generated projections of precipitation is critical for improving...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Abstract (from Wiley): An estimate of a river's natural flow regime is useful for water resource planning and ecosystem rehabilitation by providing insight into the predisturbance form and function of a river. The natural flow regime of most rivers has been perturbed by development during the 20th century and in some cases, before stream gaging began. The temporal resolution of natural flows estimated using traditional methods is typically not sufficient to evaluate cues that drive native ecosystem function. Additionally, these traditional methods are watershed specific and require large amounts of data to produce accurate results. We present a mass balance method that estimates natural flows at daily time step...
Soil moisture depletion during the growing season can induce plant water stress, thereby driving declines in grassland fuel moisture and accelerating curing. These drying and curing dynamics and their dependencies on soil moisture are inadequately represented in fire danger models. To elucidate these relationships, grassland fuelbed characteristics and soil moisture were monitored in nine patches of tallgrass prairie under patch-burn management in Oklahoma, USA, during two growing seasons. This study period included a severe drought (in 2012), which resulted in a large wildfire outbreak near the study site. Fuel moisture of the mixed live and dead herbaceous fuels (MFM) clearly tracked soil moisture, expressed as...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Abstract (from American Meteorological Society): We developed a blended (or hybrid) interactive course—Managing for a Changing Climate—that provides a holistic view of climate change. The course results from communication with university students and natural and cultural resource managers as well as the need for educational efforts aimed at the public, legislators, and decision-makers. Content includes the components of the physical climate system, natural climate variability, anthropogenic drivers of climate change, climate models and projections, climate assessments, energy economics, environmental policy, vulnerabilities to climate hazards, impacts of climate change, and decision-making related to climate adaptation...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
The U.S. Great Plains is known for frequent hazardous convective weather and climate extremes. Across this region, climate change is expected to cause more severe droughts, more intense heavy rainfall events, and subsequently more flooding episodes. These potential changes in climate will adversely affect habitats, ecosystems, and landscapes as well as the fish and wildlife they support. Better understanding and simulation of regional precipitation can help natural resource managers mitigate and adapt to these adverse impacts. In this project, we aim to achieve a better precipitation downscaling in the Great Plains with the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model and use the high quality dynamic downscaling results...
We have developed an online, interactive course to provide an integrative understanding climate change called “managing for a changing climate”. Content includes the components of the physical climate system, the range of natural climate variability, external drivers of climate change such as anthropogenic contributions of greenhouse gases, climate models and projections, climate assessments, economics, policy, and vulnerability, and impacts and decision making. Over 50 short videos (3-10 min) have been created with expert guests from a variety of academic, government, and industry institutions. The course has been offered as a freely available for anyone worldwide three times with over 1000 total registrants; and...
Led by members of the South Central Climate Science Center (SC CSC) consortium, this project developed and implemented a professional development training for graduate students, postdocs, and early career environmental professionals conducting climate-related research associated with the south-central U.S. The project built upon the successes and feedback from a similar training conducted in June 2014. The training (1) introduced a new cohort of early career researchers to the goals, structure, and unique research-related challenges of the SC CSC and its place within the U.S. Department of the Interior and the larger CSC network, offering them insight into how their research fits into the broader research priority...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation; Tags: Early Career, South Central CASC
Drought indices are widely used for drought quantification. The objective of this study is to introduce a hybrid drought index, the Precipitation Evapotranspiration Difference Condition Index (PEDCI), and to compare its performance in Oklahoma to existing drought indices. The PEDCI is based on a simple water balance model, which accounts for the difference between water supply (precipitation) and water demand (potential evapotranspiration). While it is similar in this respect to the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and the Palmer Drought Severity Index, it uses a different method to normalize the index in time and space which was inspired by Vegetation Condition Index. The performance...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
Abstract (from Science Direct): Agricultural drought is characterized by low soil moisture levels that negatively affect agricultural production, but in situ soil moisture measurements are largely absent from indices commonly used to describe agricultural drought. Instead, many indices incorporate weather-derived soil moisture estimates, which is necessary, in part, because the relationships between in situ soil moisture and agricultural-drought impacts are not well quantified. Our objective was to use in situ soil moisture data from monitoring networks in Oklahoma and West Texas to identify a soil moisture-based agricultural drought index that is (i) strongly related to crop-yield anomaly across networks, (ii)...
Abstract (from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-017-3534-z): Annual precipitation in the largely agricultural South-Central United States is characterized by a primary wet season in May and June, a mid-summer dry period in July and August, and a second precipitation peak in September and October. Of the 22 CMIP5 global climate models with sufficient output available, 16 are able to reproduce this bimodal distribution (we refer to these as “BM” models), while 6 have trouble simulating the mid-summer dry period, instead producing an extended wet season (“EW” models). In BM models, the timing and amplitude of the mid-summer westward extension of the North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH) are realistic,...
Tribal nations are at the forefront of adaptation to climate change in the United States, because of their reliance upon the natural environment to sustain traditional ways of life yet the current lack of training and resources to respond to climate change impacts remains a challenge. Working with the South Central Climate Science Center (SC CSC), our team of climate scientists and anthropologists worked with tribal professionals in Louisiana and New Mexico to increase their basic knowledge of climate science, connect them with tools to assess their communities’ vulnerabilities, and helped them build their skills to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies. Our team held biweekly conference calls in consultation...
The South-Central U.S. is home to diverse climates and ecosystems, strong agricultural and energy sectors, and fast-growing urban areas. All share a critical need for water, which is becoming an increasingly scarce resource across the region as aquifers are overdrawn and populations grow. Understanding what brings rain to this region, and how the timing and amount of precipitation may be affected by climate change, is essential for effective water planning and management. However, currently available information on long-term precipitation trends for the South Central region is often perceived to be irrelevant to community planners and water managers, due to multiple factors including mismatches between the time...
The Rio Grande/Bravo is an arid river basin shared by the United States and Mexico, the fifth-longest river in North America, and home to more than 10.4 million people. By crossing landscapes and political boundaries, the Rio Grande/Bravo brings together cultures, societies, ecosystems, and economies, thereby forming a complex social-ecological system. The Rio Grande/Bravo supplies water for the human activities that take place within its territory. While there have been efforts to implement environmental flows (flows necessary to sustain riparian and aquatic ecosystems and human activities), a systematic and whole-basin analysis of these efforts that conceptualizes the Rio Grande/Bravo as a single, complex social-ecological...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation