scholarly journals Climate Variability and Water Infrastructure: Historical Experience in the Western United States

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeynep Hansen ◽  
Gary Libecap ◽  
Scott Lowe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Water Infrastructure ◽  
Historical Experience

Influence of winter season climate variability on snow-precipitation ratio in the western United States

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (9) ◽  
pp. 3175-3190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Safeeq ◽  
Shraddhanand Shukla ◽  
Ivan Arismendi ◽  
Gordon E. Grant ◽  
Sarah L. Lewis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Precipitation Ratio ◽  
Snow Precipitation

Effects of Temperature and Precipitation Variability on Snowpack Trends in the Western United States*

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (21) ◽  
pp. 4545-4561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan F. Hamlet ◽  
Philip W. Mote ◽  
Martyn P. Clark ◽  
Dennis P. Lettenmaier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Snow Water Equivalent ◽  
Decadal Variability ◽  
Precipitation Variability ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Infiltration Capacity ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Decadal Scale

Abstract Recent studies have shown substantial declines in snow water equivalent (SWE) over much of the western United States in the last half century, as well as trends toward earlier spring snowmelt and peak spring streamflows. These trends are influenced both by interannual and decadal-scale climate variability, and also by temperature trends at longer time scales that are generally consistent with observations of global warming over the twentieth century. In this study, the linear trends in 1 April SWE over the western United States are examined, as simulated by the Variable Infiltration Capacity hydrologic model implemented at 1/8° latitude–longitude spatial resolution, and driven by a carefully quality controlled gridded daily precipitation and temperature dataset for the period 1915–2003. The long simulations of snowpack are used as surrogates for observations and are the basis for an analysis of regional trends in snowpack over the western United States and southern British Columbia, Canada. By isolating the trends due to temperature and precipitation in separate simulations, the influence of temperature and precipitation variability on the overall trends in SWE is evaluated. Downward trends in 1 April SWE over the western United States from 1916 to 2003 and 1947 to 2003, and for a time series constructed using two warm Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) epochs concatenated together, are shown to be primarily due to widespread warming. These temperature-related trends are not well explained by decadal climate variability associated with the PDO. Trends in SWE associated with precipitation trends, however, are very different in different time periods and are apparently largely controlled by decadal variability rather than longer-term trends in climate.

Writing Time in Metaphors

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Entire System ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Space Race ◽  
Do So

Coherence of place often exists alongside irregularities in time in cycles, and chapter three turns to cycles linked by temporal markers. Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (1950) follows a linear chronology and describes the exploration, conquest, and repopulation of Mars by humans. Conversely, Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine (1984) jumps back and forth across time to narrate the lives of interconnected families in the western United States. Bradbury’s cycle invokes a confluence of historical forces—time as value-laden, work as a calling, and travel as necessitating standardized time—and contextualizes them in relation to anxieties about the space race. Erdrich’s cycle invokes broader, oppositional conceptions of time—as recursive and arbitrary and as causal and meaningful—to depict time as implicated in an entire system of measurement that made possible the destruction and exploitation of the Chippewa people. Both volumes understand the United States to be preoccupied with imperialist impulses. Even as they critique such projects, they also point to the tenacity with which individuals encounter these systems, and they do so by creating “interstitial temporalities,” which allow them to navigate time at the crossroads of language and culture.

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