31 years of hourly spatially distributed air temperature, humidity, and precipitation amount and phase from Reynolds Critical Zone Observatory

Kormos, Patrick R.; Marks, Danny; Havens, S.; Hedrick, A. R.; Lohse, Kathleen A.; Sandusky, Micah; Kahl, Annelen; Garen, David C.

doi:10.5194/essd-10-1197-2018

Cited by 17 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The dataset includes measurements of soil temperature and moisture that support studies of the interactions between the atmosphere and the ground surface. The dataset spans a time period in which conditions were warmer than previous years of record in the RCEW (Nayak et al, 2010;Kormos et al, 2017), possibly representing what can be expected as regional climate warming advances. Our objective is to provide this high spatiotemporal resolution dataset to study short-term variations at intra-event, intra-annual, and interannual scales, and we plan to continue these observations to assess long-term climatic trends at the sensitive rain-to-snow transition zone.…”

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confidence: 99%

Eleven years of mountain weather, snow, soil moisture and streamflow data from the rain–snow transition zone – the Johnston Draw catchment, Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed and Critical Zone Observatory, USA

Godsey

Marks

Kormos

et al. 2018

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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Abstract. Detailed hydrometeorological data from the rain-to-snow transition zone in mountain regions are limited. As the climate warms, the transition from rain to snow is moving to higher elevations, and these changes are altering the timing of downslope water delivery. To understand how these changes impact hydrological and biological processes in this climatologically sensitive region, detailed observations from the rain-to-snow transition zone are required. We present a complete hydrometeorological dataset for water years 2004 through 2014 for a watershed that spans the rain-to-snow transition zone (https://doi.org/10.15482/usda.adc/1402076). The Johnston Draw watershed (1.8 km 2 ), ranging from 1497 to 1869 m in elevation, is a sub-watershed of the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed (RCEW) in southwestern Idaho, USA. The dataset includes continuous hourly hydrometeorological variables across a 372 m elevation gradient, on north-and south-facing slopes, including air temperature, relative humidity, and snow depth from 11 sites in the watershed. Hourly measurements of incoming shortwave radiation, precipitation, wind speed and direction, soil moisture, and soil temperature are available at selected stations. The dataset includes hourly stream discharge measured at the watershed outlet. These data provide the scientific community with a unique dataset useful for forcing and validating hydrological models and will allow for better representation and understanding of the complex processes that occur in the rain-to-snow transition zone.

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confidence: 99%

Eleven years of mountain weather, snow, soil moisture and streamflow data from the rain–snow transition zone – the Johnston Draw catchment, Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed and Critical Zone Observatory, USA

Godsey

Marks

Kormos

et al. 2018

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

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“…Rescaling inputs from 50‐ to 100‐m grid cell has negligible effects on estimation of snow variables (Sohrabi, ; Winstral, Marks, & Gurney, ). Spatially distributed data were obtained by interpolation using detrended elevation (vertical) and distance (horizontal) Kriging method (Garen & Marks, ; Kormos et al, ). More details about the interpolation methodology for different meteorological variables are described below.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of temporal resolution of meteorological inputs for process‐based snow modelling

Sohrabi

Tonina

Benjankar

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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Accurate snow accumulation and melt simulations are crucial for understanding and predicting hydrological dynamics in mountainous settings. As snow models require temporally varying meteorological inputs, time resolution of these inputs is likely to play an important role on the model accuracy. Because meteorological data at a fine temporal resolution (~1 hr) are generally not available in many snow‐dominated settings, it is important to evaluate the role of meteorological inputs temporal resolution on the performance of process‐based snow models. The objective of this work is to assess the loss in model accuracy with temporal resolution of meteorological inputs, for a range of climatic conditions and topographic elevations. To this end, a process‐based snow model was run using 1‐, 3‐, and 6‐hourly inputs for wet, average, and dry years over Boise River Basin (6,963 km2), which spans rain dominated (≤1,400 m), rain–snow transition (>1,400 and ≤1,900 m), snow dominated below tree line (>1,900 and ≤2,400 m), and above tree line (>2,400 m) elevations. The results show that sensitivity of the model accuracy to the inputs time step generally decreases with increasing elevation from rain dominated to snow dominated above tree line. Using longer than hourly inputs causes substantial underestimation of snow cover area (SCA) and snow water equivalent (SWE) in rain‐dominated and rain–snow transition elevations, due to the precipitation phase mischaracterization. In snow‐dominated elevations, the melt rate is underestimated due to errors in estimation of net snow cover energy input. In addition, the errors in SCA and SWE estimates generally decrease toward years with low snow mass, that is, dry years. The results indicate significant increases in errors in estimates of SCA and SWE as the temporal resolution of meteorological inputs becomes coarser than an hour. However, use of 3‐hourly inputs can provide accurate estimates at snow‐dominated elevations. The study underscores the need to record meteorological variables at an hourly time step for accurate process‐based snow modelling.

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“…The Murphy Creek Watershed is part of a network of research sub-watersheds in the larger Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed (23 900 ha, RCEW) administered by the US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Northwest Watershed Research Center (USDA-ARS-NWRC; Slaughter et al, 2001). RCEW comprises the Reynolds Creek Critical Zone Observatory (RCEW-CZO) and is extensively instrumented to support research on a wide range of hydrologic phenomena, soil erosion processes, soil carbon storage and flux, fire impacts, and changes in vegetation (Hanson, 2001;Pierson et al, 2001aPierson et al, , 2009Nayak et al, 2010;Chauvin et al, 2011;Marks et al, 2013;Williams et al, 2016b;Godsey et al, 2018;Kormos et al, 2018). Our specific study area, the Murphy Creek Experimental Watershed (MCEW), is defined as the watershed area contributing to the south fork of Murphy Creek immediately upstream of the USDA-ARS-NWRC Murphy Creek Weir (43°15′ 20.2″ N latitude, 116°49′ 10.3″ W longitude, 1390 m MSL; Figure 1).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Interaction of wind and cold‐season hydrologic processes on erosion from complex topography following wildfire in sagebrush steppe

Vega

Williams

Brooks

et al. 2020

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Wildfire is a natural component of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) steppe rangelands that induces temporal shifts in plant community physiognomy, ground surface conditions, and erosion rates. Fire alteration of the vegetation structure and ground cover in these ecosystems commonly amplifies soil losses by wind‐ and water‐driven erosion. Much of the fire‐related erosion research for sagebrush steppe has focused on either erosion by wind over gentle terrain or water‐driven erosion under high‐intensity rainfall on complex topography. However, many sagebrush rangelands are geographically positioned in snow‐dominated uplands with complex terrain in which runoff and sediment delivery occur primarily in winter months associated with cold‐season hydrology. Current understanding is limited regarding fire effects on the interaction of wind‐ and cold‐season hydrologic‐driven erosion processes for these ecosystems. In this study, we evaluated fire impacts on vegetation, ground cover, soils, and erosion across spatial scales at a snow‐dominated mountainous sagebrush site over a 2‐year period post‐fire. Vegetation, ground cover, and soil conditions were assessed at various plot scales (8 m2 to 3.42 ha) through standard field measures. Erosion was quantified through a network of silt fences (n = 24) spanning hillslope and side channel or swale areas, ranging from 0.003 to 3.42 ha in size. Sediment delivery at the watershed scale (129 ha) was assessed by suspended sediment samples of streamflow through a drop‐box v‐notch weir. Wildfire consumed nearly all above‐ground live vegetation at the site and resulted in more than 60% bare ground (bare soil, ash, and rock) in the immediate post‐fire period. Widespread wind‐driven sediment loading of swales was observed over the first month post‐fire and extensive snow drifts were formed in these swales each winter season during the study. In the first year, sediment yields from north‐ and south‐facing aspects averaged 0.99–8.62 t ha−1 at the short‐hillslope scale (~0.004 ha), 0.02–1.65 t ha−1 at the long‐hillslope scale (0.02–0.46 ha), and 0.24–0.71 t ha−1 at the swale scale (0.65–3.42 ha), and watershed scale sediment yield was 2.47 t ha−1. By the second year post fire, foliar cover exceeded 120% across the site, but bare ground remained more than 60%. Sediment yield in the second year was greatly reduced across short‐ to long‐hillslope scales (0.02–0.04 t ha−1), but was similar to first‐year measures for swale plots (0.24–0.61 t ha−1) and at the watershed scale (3.05 t ha−1). Nearly all the sediment collected across all spatial scales was delivered during runoff events associated with cold‐season hydrologic processes, including rain‐on‐snow, rain‐on‐frozen soils, and snowmelt runoff. Approximately 85–99% of annual sediment collected across all silt fence plots each year was from swales. The high levels of sediment delivered across hillslope to watershed scales in this study are attributed to observed preferential loading of fine sediments into swale channels by aeolian processes in ...

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31 years of hourly spatially distributed air temperature, humidity, and precipitation amount and phase from Reynolds Critical Zone Observatory

Cited by 17 publications

References 21 publications

Eleven years of mountain weather, snow, soil moisture and streamflow data from the rain–snow transition zone – the Johnston Draw catchment, Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed and Critical Zone Observatory, USA

Eleven years of mountain weather, snow, soil moisture and streamflow data from the rain–snow transition zone – the Johnston Draw catchment, Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed and Critical Zone Observatory, USA

Role of temporal resolution of meteorological inputs for process‐based snow modelling

Interaction of wind and cold‐season hydrologic processes on erosion from complex topography following wildfire in sagebrush steppe

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