Skip to main content

Noah Knowles

thumbnail
Yolo Bypass is an ecological feature of the Bay-Delta ecosystem in California that provides floodplain habitat for spawning and rearing of Sacramento Splittail (Pogonichthys macrolepidotus) and rearing of juvenile Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) when inundated. We used outputs from 10 climate change models for two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) for greenhouse gas concentrations to assess the effects of climate change on the frequency, duration, and timing of flood flows in Yolo Bypass. We also assessed a planned notched weir modification to the primary weir that controls inflow from the Sacramento River into Yolo Bypass that has been designed to allow the bypass to be inundated at lower river...
Research Objectives: To better understand the response of watershed hydrology, freshwater management and estuaries to climate variability and change. In the estuarine component of this research, there is an emphasis on the responses of physical processes that drive ecological variability and change.
thumbnail
Understanding and Communicating the Role of Natural Climate Variability in a Changing World
Natural climate variability can obscure or enhance long-term trends in experienced weather due to climate change. This can happen temporarily on timescales of a season to several years to a decade or two. Natural variability is poorly described and attributed to specific causes, contributing to uncertainty and misunderstandings about the nature of climate change that stakeholders and resource managers attempt to anticipate. There exists, therefore, a need to clarify the magnitude and causality of natural climate variability. This connection needs to be explained for locally-experienced weather and particularly for daily extreme events, whose seasonal behavior impacts both resources and imagination. Conversely, it...
thumbnail
This data release includes data containing projections of unimpaired hydrology, reservoir storage, and downstream managed flows in the Sacramento River/San Joaquin River watershed under scenarios of future climate change generated for the CASCaDE2 project (Computational Assessments of Scenarios of Change for the Delta Ecosystem, phase 2). Code used to produce the data is also included. The dataset is produced using a multiple-model approach. First, downscaled global climate model outputs are used to drive an existing Variable Infiltration Capacity/Variable Infiltration Capacity Routing (VIC/RVIC) model of Sacramento/San Joaquin hydrology, resulting in projections of daily, unimpaired flows throughout the watershed....
thumbnail
Understanding the effects of climate change is a substantial challenge in estuarine systems because the mixing of freshwater and ocean water adds complexity to climate change projections. Such climate change projections have been conducted in the San Francisco Estuary as part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s CASCaDE Project. In this project, we assessed downscaled air temperature data from 10 Global Climate Change models under 2 Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) trajectories for greenhouse gas concentrations for three regions of the upper San Francisco Estuary: Suisun and Grizzly Bays, Suisun Marsh, and the legal Delta. We also utilized previously derived regression models to estimate future water temperatures...
ScienceBase brings together the best information it can find about USGS researchers and offices to show connections to publications, projects, and data. We are still working to improve this process and information is by no means complete. If you don't see everything you know is associated with you, a colleague, or your office, please be patient while we work to connect the dots. Feel free to contact sciencebase@usgs.gov.