By Chris Schnepf

“Nature’s Notebook” is an app that can be used to collect phenology data such as flower timing. Photo: C. Schnepf.

Trying to understand how climate is changing, and how these changes affect the crop yields, forest growth, water from melting snowpacks, and all the other parts of our natural world, is very challenging. Increasingly, some of the primary tools for understanding these phenomena are models.

One of the biggest misconceptions about models is the idea they are not based in the real world – that they are just theoretical constructs, untethered to actual measurements. There are models like that – even philosophers are playing with models these days. But most of the models used in the natural sciences depend on empirical data – measurements of things like temperature, precipitation, crop yields, tree mortality, and many other attributes. Continue reading →

By Sonia A. Hall

Irrigated pasture in Blaine County, Idaho. Water demand for irrigation is expected to start earlier in the season as the climate changes. Photo: Mark Goebel under CC BY 2.0.

Turns out that understanding how changes in climate are affecting the demand for water for irrigation in the Columbia River Basin is really important for our overall understanding of how water use and management may need to change in the future. Check out this Washington State University newsletter article on a recent study into this topic, led by AgClimate’s sometime-contributor Kirti Rajagopalan.

Reference:

Rajagopalan, K., Chinnayakanahalli, K.J., Stockle, C.O., Nelson, R.L., Kruger, C.E., Brady, M.P., Malek, K., Dinesh, S.T., Barber, M.E., Hamlet, A.F. and Yorgey, G.G., 2018. Impacts of Near‐Term Climate Change on Irrigation Demands and Crop Yields in the Columbia River Basin. Water Resources Research, 54(3), pp.2152-2182. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2017WR020954  

By Sonia A. Hall

Landscapes west and east of the 100th meridian. Left: Rangeland country in Idaho. Photo: Sonia A. Hall. Right: Soybean crops in Iowa. Photo: Parshotam Lal Tandon, under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

The contrast between the arid west—rangelands, wheat, conifer forests, irrigated agriculture—and the Midwest’s Great Plains—corn, soybean, prairies—is well known. There is a somewhat abrupt line separating arid from humid, close to the 100^th meridian. That line is now shifting, as climate change affects temperatures, precipitation, and wind patterns that control that arid-to-humid line. Take a look at a recent study from Columbia University on how the line is shifting eastward from the 100^th meridian. And you might want to start with the blog article “The 100th Meridian, Where the Great Plains Begin, May Be Shifting.”

References:

Seager, R., N. Lis, J. Feldman, M. Ting, A.P. Williams, J. Nakamura, H. Liu, and N. Henderson, 2018: Whither the 100th Meridian? The Once and Future Physical and Human Geography of America’s Arid–Humid Divide. Part I: The Story So Far. Earth Interact., 22, 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0011.1 

Seager, R., J. Feldman, N. Lis, M. Ting, A.P. Williams, J. Nakamura, H. Liu, and N. Henderson, 2018: Whither the 100th Meridian? The Once and Future Physical and Human Geography of America’s Arid–Humid Divide. Part II: The Meridian Moves East. Earth Interact., 22, 1–24, https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0012.1 

by Sonia A. Hall

Yes, more on snow… because there’s less snow. Read Nathan Gilles’s article in the Climate CIRCulator, that discusses research that found that mountains in the western United States have seen snowpack decreasing by an amount similar to the size of Lake Mead over the last 60 years.

by Sonia A. Hall

Remember 2015? That was a snow drought. Since then, researchers at CIRC (Climate Impacts Research Consortium) have been delving into snow droughts. They are part of an effort that recently released “a number of snow drought monitoring tools designed for decision makers and resource managers to monitor, plan for, and cope with snow drought and its impacts.”  Get more details through Christina Stone (NIDIS) and Nathan Gilles’s article in the Climate CIRCulator, or check it out for yourself on the Snow Drought website.

by Sonia A. Hall

Interested in better understanding climate change impacts in the Pacific Northwest? Our colleagues at CIRC (Climate Impacts Research Consortium) have recently released a report on their first seven years of research. Check out Nathan Gilles’s article on this report, that walks you through and highlights the key findings. Read Nathan’s article in the Climate CIRCulator.

by Sonia A. Hall

Wildfires in the American West are expected to respond to the paradoxical drying and greening to come. Photo: Oregon and Washington BLM under CC BY 2.0

Want to understand what carbon fertilization is, and what it could mean for the American West? Take a look at Linnia Hawkins’s (Oregon Climate Change Research Institute) post discussing research on whether the American West could become both drier and greener under climate change, which would affect wildfires. Linnia’s full article is in the Climate CIRCulator.

by Sonia A. Hall

Snow on Stevens Pass in Washington State the wet year following the 2015 snow drought. Photo: Flickr user Panchenks under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Check out Meghan Dalton’s (Oregon Climate Change Research Institute) discussion of a published article about whether the 2015 “snow drought” is a harbinger of future climate changes.  Read Meghan’s article in the Climate CIRCulator.