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Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JHM-D-16-0194.1): This study investigates the spatial and temporal variability of cloudiness across mountain zones in the western United States. Daily average cloud albedo is derived from a 19-yr series (1996–2014) of half-hourly Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) images. During springtime when incident radiation is active in driving snowmelt–runoff processes, the magnitude of daily cloud variations can exceed 50% of long-term averages. Even when aggregated over 3-month periods, cloud albedo varies by ±10% of long-term averages in many locations. Rotated empirical orthogonal functions (REOFs) of daily cloud albedo anomalies over high-elevation...
This survey was used in a study on the use of scientific information in public natural resource management planning and decision-making. This survey was intended to help staff at the Southwest Climate Science Center (SWCSC), and others in the research community, gain a more specific understanding of the kinds of decisions made by public natural resource officials and to identify how scientific information, and in particular climate information, is obtained and applied in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) natural resource decision-making processes. Aside from questions and associated information, the survey document contains page logic describing actions taken in a web-based environment.
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We performed bathymetric surveys using a shallow-water echo-sounding system (Takekawa et al., 2010, Brand et al., 2012) comprised of an acoustic profiler (Navisound 210; Reson, Inc., Slangerup, Denmark), Leica RTK GPS Viva rover, and laptop computer mounted on a shallow-draft, portable flat-bottom boat (Bass Hunter, Cabelas, Sidney, NE; Figure 7). The RTK GPS obtained high resolution elevations of the water surface (reported precision 10 cm water depth. We recorded twenty depth readings and one GPS location each second along transects spaced 100 m apart perpendicular to the nearby salt marsh. We calibrated the system before use with a bar-check plate and adjusted the sound velocity for salinity and temperature differences....
Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JHM-D-14-0236.1): Global climate model (GCM) output typically needs to be bias corrected before it can be used for climate change impact studies. Three existing bias correction methods, and a new one developed here, are applied to daily maximum temperature and precipitation from 21 GCMs to investigate how different methods alter the climate change signal of the GCM. The quantile mapping (QM) and cumulative distribution function transform (CDF-t) bias correction methods can significantly alter the GCM’s mean climate change signal, with differences of up to 2°C and 30% points for monthly mean temperature and precipitation, respectively. Equidistant quantile...
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To assess the current topography of the tidal marshes we conducted survey-grade elevation surveys at all sites between 2009 and 2013 using a Leica RX1200 Real Time Kinematic (RTK)Global Positioning System (GPS) rover (±1 cm horizontal, ±2 cm vertical accuracy; Leica Geosystems Inc., Norcross, GA; Figure 4). At sites with RTK network coverage (San Pablo, Petaluma, Pt. Mugu, and Newport), rover positions were received in real time from the Leica Smartnet system via a CDMA modem (www.lecia-geosystems.com). At sites without network coverage (Humboldt, Bolinas, Morro and Tijuana), rover positions were received in real time from a Leica GS10 antenna base station via radio link. When using the base station, we adjusted...
The impacts of different emission levels and climate change conditions to landscape-scale natural vegetation could have large repercussions for ecosystem services and environmental health. We forecast the risk-reduction benefits to natural landscapes of lowering business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions by comparing the extent and spatial patterns of climate exposure to dominant vegetation under current emissions trajectories (Representative Concentration Pathway, RCP8.5) and envisioned Paris Accord target emissions (RCP4.5). This comparison allows us to assess the ecosystem value of reaching targets to keep global temperature warming under 2°C. Using 350,719 km2 of natural lands in California, USA, and the mapped...
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We used WARMER, a 1-D cohort model of wetland accretion (Swanson et al., 2014), which is based on Callaway et al. (1996), to examine the effects of three SLR projections on future habitat composition at each study site. Each cohort in the model represents the total organic and inorganic matter added to the soil column each year. WARMER calculates annual elevation changes relative to MSL based on projected changes in relative sea level, subsidence, inorganic sediment accumulation, aboveground and belowground organic matter inputs, soil compaction, and organic matter decomposition for a representative marsh area. Cohort density, a function of soil mineral, organic, and water content, is calculated at each time step...
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Forests across the southwestern U.S. are crucial components of recreation and play an important role in state and local economies. Healthy forests also provide needed habitat for many wildlife species and contribute many other important services to our planet. “Hotter droughts” (otherwise normal droughts whose effects on ecosystems are exacerbated by higher temperatures) are an emerging climate change threat to forests with some of their earliest and strongest appearances happening in the Southwest. The Leaf to Landscape project uses California’s unusually hot drought as a potential preview of the future, allowing us to collect information that will help guide forest management in the face of a warming climate....
Abstract (from RMetS): Over the Upper Colorado River basin (UCRB), temperatures in widely used gridded data products do not warm as much as mean temperatures from a stable set of U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) stations, located at generally lower elevations, in most months of the year. This is contrary to expectations of elevation‐dependent warming, which suggests that warming increases with elevation. These findings could reflect (a) a genuine absence of elevation‐dependent warming in the region, (b) systematic non‐climatic influences on either the USHCN stations or high‐elevation stations, including known inhomogeneities related to changes in the time of observation and instrumentation, or (c) suppression...
Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL067613/full): This empirical study examines the influence of precipitation, temperature, and antecedent soil moisture on upper Colorado River basin (UCRB) water year streamflow over the past century. While cool season precipitation explains most of the variability in annual flows, temperature appears to be highly influential under certain conditions, with the role of antecedent fall soil moisture less clear. In both wet and dry years, when flow is substantially different than expected given precipitation, these factors can modulate the dominant precipitation influence on streamflow. Different combinations of temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture...
This project links climate, hydrological, and ecological changes over the next 30 years in a Great Basin watershed. In recent years, climate variability on annual and decadal time scales has been recognized as greater than commonly perceived with increasing impacts on ecosystems and available water resources. Changes in vegetation distribution, composition and productivity resulting from climate change affect plant water use, which in turn can alter stream flow, groundwater and eventually available water resources. To better understand these links, project researchers implemented two computer-based numeric models in the Cleve Creek watershed in the Schell Creek Range, east of Ely, Nevada. The application of the...
Native Americans in the Southwest United States are thought to be particularly vulnerable to climate change. Tribal resiliency to climate change can be affected by multiple climate-related threats and by tribal communities’ close reliance on natural resources for sustenance, economic development, and maintenance of cultural traditions. A scientifically rigorous assessment of such threats to Native Americans is a pressing need across southwestern landscapes. This project examined factors affecting Native American tribes, including water rights for fish and wildlife, protection of wetlands, and enhancement and recovery of the Pyramid Lake, Nevada fishery, and protection of important fish species. This project aimed...
Abstract (from AMS): The upper Colorado River basin (UCRB) is one of the primary sources of water for the western United States, and increasing temperatures likely will elevate the risk of reduced water supply in the basin. Although variability in water-year precipitation explains more of the variability in water-year UCRB streamflow than water-year UCRB temperature, since the late 1980s, increases in temperature in the UCRB have caused a substantial reduction in UCRB runoff efficiency (the ratio of streamflow to precipitation). These reductions in flow because of increasing temperatures are the largest documented temperature-related reductions since record keeping began. Increases in UCRB temperature over the past...
Abstract (from http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/WCAS-D-16-0008.1): Resource managers and decision-makers are increasingly tasked with integrating climate change science into their decisions about resource management and policy development. This often requires climate scientists, resource managers, and decision-makers to work collaboratively throughout the research processes, an approach to knowledge development that is often called “coproduction of knowledge.” The goal of this paper is to synthesize the social science theory of coproduction of knowledge, the metrics currently used to evaluate usable or actionable science in several federal agencies, and insights from experienced climate researchers and...
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California’s Central Valley is a nexus for water resources in the state, draining the Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds. Urban centers, agricultural operations, and the environment all compete for limited water, and demand is expected to only increase as the population grows and agriculture intensifies. At the same time, the water supply is projected to decrease as temperatures rise, precipitation patterns change, and the frequency of extreme droughts increases. The Central Valley also provides critical wetland habitats to migratory waterbirds, and wetland managers require information on how to best use water resources to support wildlife objectives, particularly during drought. This project seeks to...
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Climate Change threatens efforts to restore and protect the natural and cultural resources vital to the traditional ways of life of Northern California Tribes. The state has indicated the need to include Tribal science priorities and Tribal management objectives into regional planning and policy. Moreover, Governor Newsom’s recent Executive Order N-82-20 aims to combat the biodiversity and climate change crises in California using nature-based solutions. Tribes, however, are at different phases of developing climate adaptation/ resiliency plans and, in many cases, have yet to have the opportunity to align these plans with neighboring Tribes or to include Tribal science in regional and statewide plans. As a result,...
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Recently intensifying drought conditions have caused increased stress to non-native tamarisk vegetation across riparian areas of the San Carlos Apache Tribe (hereafter Tribe) and the Upper Gila River watershed in Arizona and New Mexico. This also increases wildfire risk in the area, making the removal of tamarisk vegetation a primary restoration and climate adaptation objective for the Tribe. The research from this project can improve the Tribe’s capacity to map tamarisk and other riparian vegetation, in addition to monitoring the relative condition and water stress of the vegetation in a timely manner. Specifically, the project will help identify where tamarisk is on the reservation and inform restoration actions...
Recent Warming This is an initiative to document and understand the science of recent climate warming in the region and implications for natural resources management. SW CASC researchers from Colorado State University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California-San Diego, and University of Arizona, and their partners, are identifying the extent to which temperature, wind speed, solar radiation, and humidity affect regional aridification. By improving scientific understanding of the mechanisms of aridification, the team aims to inform water management, irrigated agriculture, and the characterization of drought and wildfire risks. The team is developing papers on (a) scientific investigation...
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The fast pace of change in coastal zones, the trillions of dollars of investment in human communities in coastal areas, and the myriad of ecosystem services natural coastal environments provide makes managing climate-related risks along coasts a massive challenge for all of the U.S. coastal states and territories. Answering questions about both the costs and the benefits of alternative adaptation strategies in the near term is critical to taxpayers, decision-makers, and to the biodiversity of the planet. There is significant public and private interest in using ecosystem based adaptation approaches to conserve critical significant ecosystems in coastal watersheds, estuaries and intertidal zones and to protect man-made...
map background search result map search result map The Impact of Drought on Waterbirds and Their Wetland Habitats in California’s Central Valley San Pablo, California: Tidal Marsh Digital Elevation Model San Pablo, California: Tidal Marsh Bathymetry Digital Elevation Models SLR Projections, Bolinas, Calif., 2070-2110 Leaf to Landscape: Understanding and Mapping the Vulnerability of Forests to Hotter Droughts Evaluating Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Options for Coastal Resilience Northern California Tribal Climate Adaptation and Science Integration Research Project Mapping Riparian Vegetation Response to Climate Change on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and Upper Gila River Watershed to Inform Restoration Priorities: 1935 to Present (Phase 2) SLR Projections, Bolinas, Calif., 2070-2110 San Pablo, California: Tidal Marsh Digital Elevation Model San Pablo, California: Tidal Marsh Bathymetry Digital Elevation Models Leaf to Landscape: Understanding and Mapping the Vulnerability of Forests to Hotter Droughts Mapping Riparian Vegetation Response to Climate Change on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and Upper Gila River Watershed to Inform Restoration Priorities: 1935 to Present (Phase 2) Northern California Tribal Climate Adaptation and Science Integration Research Project The Impact of Drought on Waterbirds and Their Wetland Habitats in California’s Central Valley Evaluating Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Options for Coastal Resilience