Climate Engine: Cloud Computing and Visualization of Climate and Remote Sensing Data for Advanced Natural Resource Monitoring and Process Understanding

Huntington, Justin L.; Hegewisch, Katherine C.; Daudert, B.; Morton, Charles; Abatzoglou, John T.; McEvoy, Daniel J.; Erickson, Tyler

doi:10.1175/bams-d-15-00324.1

Cited by 259 publications

(166 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Increasing R s values (combined with weakening winds from Figure and Table ) can explain the observed slight temperature change in irrigated areas in a period when CR‐estimated ET rates were also increasing during 1981–2007. A general R s increase in the Central Valley over the modeling period is further supported by the Climate Engine (http://app.climateengine.org/) data visualization site (Huntington et al, ). The dropping R n values during 1981–2007 are then the result of increasing thermal radiation from the land surface due to insolation‐driven elevated surface temperatures further boosted by failing winds.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evapotranspiration Trends (1979–2015) in the Central Valley of California, USA: Contrasting Tendencies During 1981–2007

Szilágyi

Józsa

2018

Water Resources Research

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Trends in monthly evapotranspiration (ET) rates across three watersheds covering the Central Valley in California were calculated by the latest calibration‐free version of the complementary relationship of evaporation for 1979–2015. While a recent study concluded that ET rates of the irrigated fields in the Central Valley were declining in 1981–2007, here an ET trend of about 2.6 ± 12 mm per decade was found over the same period in spite of a drop in precipitation (−22 ± 30 mm per decade) and ET rates (−9.5 ± 10 mm per decade) for the rest of the watersheds, none of them statistically significant. After 2007, the precipitation decline accelerated causing a sharp drop in both irrigated and nonirrigated ET rates across the watersheds. Observations from the California Irrigation Management Information System support the present findings: Under increasing air temperatures, both dew point temperature and relative humidity values increased (at a statistically significant rate) during 1983–2007, while they reversed afterwards, in agreement with the estimated sharp irrigation ET trend decline for the remainder of the study period. Actual (in this case over irrigated fields) and reference ET rates complement each other, that is, they express opposite tendencies, as was demonstrated with California Irrigation Management Information System data, yielding a statistically significant plot‐scale irrigation ET rate increase of 31 to 41 (±17) millimeters per decade for 1983–2007 in accordance with a similar drop in reference ET rates of −28 to −50 (±16) millimeters per decade, depending on whether published monthly or daily values (aggregated to monthly ones after leaving out spurious measurements) were employed.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evapotranspiration Trends (1979–2015) in the Central Valley of California, USA: Contrasting Tendencies During 1981–2007

Szilágyi

Józsa

2018

Water Resources Research

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“…In this study, we demonstrate a transferrable approach for understanding and monitoring responses of meadow ecosystems to climate variability using remote‐sensing‐based indicators and a water balance model. Platforms such as Google Earth Engine (Gorelick et al, ) and cloud‐computing applications such as Climate Engine (http://climateengine.org/; Huntington et al, ) have provided free access to—and highly efficient processing of—climate and remotely sensed information that can be used to quantify ecological sensitivities to climate and monitor other drivers of change ranging from site specific (e.g., Hausner et al, ) to regional (as demonstrated in this study) scales.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Landsat satellite imagery has proven to be an effective and efficient data source for monitoring key ecological attributes of meadows and riparian systems over extensive areas and time periods (Ager & Owens, ; Cartwright & Johnson, ; Cohen & Goward, ), including above‐ground biomass, which relates to vegetation structure, function and composition, and vegetation water content. Recent advances in cloud computing (Gorelick et al, ) now permit efficient application of algorithms across the Landsat satellite image archive for long‐term monitoring of groundwater dependent ecosystems with respect to climate and management (Dauwalter, Fesenmyer, Miller, & Porter, ; Hausner et al, ; Huntington et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial patterns of meadow sensitivities to interannual climate variability in the Sierra Nevada

et al. 2019

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Conservation of montane meadows is a high priority for land and water managers given their critical role in buffering the effects of climate variability and their vulnerability to increasing temperatures and evaporative demands. Recent advances in cloud computing have provided new opportunities to examine ecological responses to climate variability over the past few decades and at large spatial scales. In this study, we characterized the sensitivities (magnitude and direction of the slope) of meadow vegetation responses to interannual variations in climate. We calculated sensitivity as the regression slope between a 31‐year (1985–2016) time series of Landsat‐derived vegetation indices characterizing late‐season vegetation vigour and water balance variables from the Basin Characterization Model. We identified April 1 snowpack as the climate variable the majority of meadows were most sensitive to. We assessed how vegetation sensitivities to snowpack varied with hydrogeomorphic context (e.g., climate, geology, soils, watershed geometry, and land cover) across the Sierra Nevada mountain range using factor analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the hydrogeomorphic data and multiple linear regression to model sensitivity responses. We found that meadow sensitivities to snowpack varied with long‐term average meadow climate, indicators of watershed subsurface water storage capacity, and indicators of meadow vegetation composition. Alpine and subalpine meadows with high average annual precipitation but limited catchment subsurface storage exhibited the largest sensitivities. Our results provide a novel regional perspective on spatial patterns of meadow sensitivities to climate variability and the landscape‐scale hydrogeomorphic factors that influence late‐season water availability in meadow ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada.

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“…Thus, changes in snowpack affect the timing and volume of run‐off. Rising winter air temperatures reduce snowpack by decreasing the fraction of precipitation that falls as snow (Huntington et al, ). It can also cause snowmelt to occur earlier in the season.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing rivers under changing environmental and societal boundary conditions, Part 2: Expected compared with experienced conditions at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs

Patterson

Tchamkina

Doyle

2019

River Research & Apps

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Reservoirs are critical infrastructure typically built to function as designed for 50 to 100 years. The majority of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs are more than 50 years old. The environmental, societal, and regulatory conditions surrounding the reservoir, that is, the reservoir's expected conditions, shaped its design. Many of these expectations assumed a future similar to the past. However, recent decades have experienced warming climates, cyclical changes in precipitation, the introduction of new regulations, and populations concentrating in urban environments. The design documents for nine U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were obtained to compare the expected conditions when reservoirs were authorized with the conditions experienced since the reservoir began operating. In some instances, we found large differences between expectations and reality. Average precipitation at Philpott, NorthCarolina was 15% less than expected whereas the sedimentation rate at Redmond, Kansas was twice the expected rate. Reservoirs can adapt to changing conditions by updating water control plans, which has occurred at five of these reservoirs in the last decade. Reallocations are sometimes needed to address more significant changes. For example, Redmond has reallocated storage space due to higher than expected sedimentation, and Falls, North Carolina is seeking reallocation due to higher than expected population growth and water demand. As conditions change, controversies and litigation around Corps reservoir management will likely continue.This highlights the importance of clearly documenting changing conditions through consistent and ongoing data collection and analysis to facilitate adapting reservoir operations in a timely manner, thereby minimizing controversy.

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Climate Engine: Cloud Computing and Visualization of Climate and Remote Sensing Data for Advanced Natural Resource Monitoring and Process Understanding

Cited by 259 publications

References 33 publications

Evapotranspiration Trends (1979–2015) in the Central Valley of California, USA: Contrasting Tendencies During 1981–2007

Evapotranspiration Trends (1979–2015) in the Central Valley of California, USA: Contrasting Tendencies During 1981–2007

Spatial patterns of meadow sensitivities to interannual climate variability in the Sierra Nevada

Managing rivers under changing environmental and societal boundary conditions, Part 2: Expected compared with experienced conditions at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs

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