Climate change in the semiarid prairie of southwestern Saskatchewan: Temperature, precipitation, wind, and incoming solar energy

2000 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. W. Cutforth
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Wind Speed ◽  
Solar Energy ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Average Maximum ◽  
Key Words Climate Change

Long-term weather data were analyzed to study annual as well as seasonal climate change within an approximately 15 000-km2 area in the semiarid prairie near Swift Current, SK. The climate of the study region has changed over the past 50 yr. Annually, average maximum (Tmx) and minimum (Tmn) air temperatures have increased – rainfall amounts and the number of rainfall events (≥0.5 mm) have increased since the late 1960s-early 1970s; incoming solar energy has decreased, and wind speed has decreased since the early 1970s. Seasonally, for January through April (JFMA), both Tmx and Tmn have increased, the number of rainfall events has increased since the early 1970s, snowfall amounts and the number of snowfall events (≥0.5 cm) have decreased; the number of precipitation events (≥0.5 mm) has decreased, incoming solar energy has decreased, and wind speed has decreased since the early 1970s. For May through August (MJJA), Tmn has increased, incoming solar energy has decreased, and wind speed has decreased since the mid-1970s. For September through December (SOND), the number of rainfall events has increased since the early 1970s and wind speed has decreased. Since 1950, JFMA has become drier and, relative to JFMA, SOND has become wetter. Generally, JFMA has experienced the largest change in climate, whereas SOND has experienced the least climate change. Precipitation amounts and events were negatively correlated with increasing Tmx, suggesting a future decrease in precipitation amounts for southwestern Saskatchewan if global warming continues. Key words: Climate change, semiarid prairie, temperature, precipitation, wind, solar energy

Advances in the data rescue and digitization of historical wind speed observations in Sweden: the WINDGUST project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Engström ◽  
Cesar Azorin-Molina ◽  
Lennart Wern ◽  
Sverker Hellström ◽  
Christophe Sturm ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Wind Speed ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
The 1960S

<p>Here we present the progress of the first work package (WP1) of the project “Assessing centennial wind speed variability from a historical weather data rescue project in Sweden” (WINDGUST), funded by FORMAS – A Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (ref. 2019-00509); previously introduced in EGU2019-17792-1 and EGU2020-3491. In a global climate change, one of the major uncertainties on the causes driving the climate variability of winds (i.e., the “stilling” phenomenon and the recent “recovery” since the 2010s) is mainly due to short availability (i.e., since the 1960s) and low quality of observed wind records as stated by the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).</p><p>The WINDGUST is a joint initiative between the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) and the University of Gothenburg aimed at filling the key gap of short availability and low quality of wind datasets, and improve the limited knowledge on the causes driving wind speed variability in a changing climate across Sweden.</p><p>During 2020, we worked in WP1 to rescue historical wind speed series available in the old weather archives at SMHI for the 1920s-1930s. In the process we followed the “Guidelines on Best Practices for Climate Data Rescue” of the World Meteorological Organization. Our protocol consisted on: (i) designing a template for digitization; (ii) digitizing papers by an imaging process based on scanning and photographs; and (iii) typing numbers of wind speed data into the template. We will report the advances and current status, challenges and experiences learned during the development of WP1. Until new year 2020/2021 eight out of thirteen selected stations spanning over the years 1925 to 1948 have been scanned and digitized by three staff members of SMHI during 1,660 manhours.</p>

scholarly journals Long-Term (2001–2020) Nutrient Transport from a Small Boreal Agricultural Watershed: Hydrological Control and Potential of Retention Ponds

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2731
Author(s):  
Sari Uusheimo ◽  
Tiina Tulonen ◽  
Jussi Huotari ◽  
Lauri Arvola
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Total Nitrogen ◽  
Total Phosphorus ◽  
Nutrient Loading ◽  
Nitrogen Loading ◽  
Agricultural Watershed ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Pond System ◽  
Daily Weather Data

Agriculture contributes significantly to phosphorus and nitrogen loading in southern Finland. Climate change with higher winter air temperatures and precipitation may also promote loading increase further. We analyzed long-term nutrient trends (2001–2020) based on year-round weekly water sampling and daily weather data from a boreal small agricultural watershed. In addition, nutrient retention was studied in a constructed sedimentation pond system for two years. We did not find any statistically significant trends in weather conditions (temperature, precipitation, discharge, snow depth) except for an increase in discharge in March. Increasing trends in annual concentrations were found for nitrate, phosphate, and total phosphorus and total nitrogen. In fact, phosphate concentration increased in every season and nitrate concentration in other seasons except in autumn. Total phosphorus and total nitrogen concentrations increased in winter as well and total phosphorus also in summer. Increasing annual loading trend was found for total phosphorus, phosphate, and nitrate. Increasing winter loading was found for nitrate and total nitrogen, but phosphate loading increased in winter, spring, and summer. In the pond system, annual retention of total nitrogen was 1.9–4.8% and that of phosphorus 4.3–6.9%. In addition, 25–40% of suspended solids was sedimented in the ponds. Our results suggest that even small ponds can be utilized to decrease nutrient and material transport, but their retention efficiency varies between years. We conclude that nutrient loading from small boreal agricultural catchments, especially in wintertime, has already increased and is likely to increase even further in the future due to climate change. Thus, the need for new management tools to reduce loading from boreal agricultural lands becomes even more acute.

scholarly journals A Modified Method to Generate Typical Meteorological Years from the Long-Term Weather Database

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haixiang Zang ◽  
Qingshan Xu ◽  
Pengwei Du ◽  
Katsuhiro Ichiyanagi
Keyword(s):  
Relative Humidity ◽  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Solar Energy ◽  
Atmospheric Pressure ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Global Solar Radiation ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Radiation Data ◽  
Modified Method

A modified typical meteorological year (TMY) method is proposed for generating TMY from practical measured weather data. A total of eleven weather indices and novel assigned weighting factors are applied in the processing of forming the TMY database. TMYs of 35 cities in China are generated based on the latest and accurate measured weather data (dry bulb temperature, relative humidity, wind velocity, atmospheric pressure, and daily global solar radiation) in the period of 1994–2010. The TMY data and typical solar radiation data are also investigated and analyzed in this paper, which are important in the utilizations of solar energy systems.

scholarly journals Evaluation of climate change impacts on extreme rainfall events characteristics using a synoptic weather typing-based daily precipitation downscaling model

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 388-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamed Tavakolifar ◽  
Ebrahim Shahghasemi ◽  
Sara Nazif
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Daily Precipitation ◽  
Extreme Event ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Extreme Rainfall ◽  
Extreme Rainfall Events ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Rainfall Events ◽  
Synoptic Weather Typing

Climate change has impacted all phenomena in the hydrologic cycle, especially extreme events. General circulation models (GCMs) are used to investigate climate change impacts but because of their low resolution, downscaling methods are developed to provide data with high enough resolution for regional studies from GCM outputs. The performance of rainfall downscaling methods is commonly acceptable in preserving average characteristics, but they do not preserve the extreme event characteristics especially rainfall amount and distribution. In this study, a novel downscaling method called synoptic statistical downscaling model is proposed for daily precipitation downscaling with an emphasis on extreme event characteristics preservation. The proposed model is applied to a region located in central Iran. The results show that the developed model can downscale all percentiles of precipitation events with an acceptable performance and there is no assumption about the similarity of future rainfall data with the historical observations. The outputs of CCSM4 GCM for two representative concentration pathways (RCPs) of RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 are used to investigate the climate change impacts in the study region. The results show 40% and 30% increase in the number of extreme rainfall events under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively.

scholarly journals The catastrophic thermokarst lake drainage events of 2018 in northwestern Alaska: fast-forward into the future

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (12) ◽  
pp. 4279-4297
Author(s):  
Ingmar Nitze ◽  
Sarah W. Cooley ◽  
Claude R. Duguay ◽  
Benjamin M. Jones ◽  
Guido Grosse
Keyword(s):  
Climate Model ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Optical Remote Sensing ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Drainage Rate ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Lake Drainage

Abstract. Northwestern Alaska has been highly affected by changing climatic patterns with new temperature and precipitation maxima over the recent years. In particular, the Baldwin and northern Seward peninsulas are characterized by an abundance of thermokarst lakes that are highly dynamic and prone to lake drainage like many other regions at the southern margins of continuous permafrost. We used Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and Planet CubeSat optical remote sensing data to analyze recently observed widespread lake drainage. We then used synoptic weather data, climate model outputs and lake ice growth simulations to analyze potential drivers and future pathways of lake drainage in this region. Following the warmest and wettest winter on record in 2017/2018, 192 lakes were identified as having completely or partially drained by early summer 2018, which exceeded the average drainage rate by a factor of ∼ 10 and doubled the rates of the previous extreme lake drainage years of 2005 and 2006. The combination of abundant rain- and snowfall and extremely warm mean annual air temperatures (MAATs), close to 0 ∘C, may have led to the destabilization of permafrost around the lake margins. Rapid snow melt and high amounts of excess meltwater further promoted rapid lateral breaching at lake shores and consequently sudden drainage of some of the largest lakes of the study region that have likely persisted for millennia. We hypothesize that permafrost destabilization and lake drainage will accelerate and become the dominant drivers of landscape change in this region. Recent MAATs are already within the range of the predictions by the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning (UAF SNAP) ensemble climate predictions in scenario RCP6.0 for 2100. With MAAT in 2019 just below 0 ∘C at the nearby Kotzebue, Alaska, climate station, permafrost aggradation in drained lake basins will become less likely after drainage, strongly decreasing the potential for freeze-locking carbon sequestered in lake sediments, signifying a prominent regime shift in ice-rich permafrost lowland regions.

Exploration of Climate Change Effects on Shifting Potato Seasons, Yields and Water Use Employing NASA and National Long-Term Weather Data

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayten Kubra Yagiz ◽  
Mustafa Cakici ◽  
Nazlican Aydogan ◽  
Seher Omezli ◽  
Bayram Ali Yerlikaya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Climate Change Effects

scholarly journals A Consistent Methodology to Evaluate Temperature and Heat Wave Future Projections for Cities: A Case Study for Lisbon

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Rocha ◽  
Susana C. Pereira ◽  
Carolina Viceto ◽  
Rui Silva ◽  
Jorge Neto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Heat Wave ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Maximum Temperature ◽  
Present Climate ◽  
Average Maximum ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Average Maximum Temperature ◽  
Accumulated Temperature

Heat waves are large-scale atmospheric phenomena that may cause heat stress in ecosystems and socio-economic activities. In cities, morbidity and mortality may increase during a heat wave, overloading health and emergency services. In the face of climate change and associated warming, cities need to adapt and mitigate the effects of heat waves. This study suggests a new method to evaluate heat waves’ impacts on cities by considering some aspects of heat waves that are not usually considered in other similar studies. The method devises heat wave quantities that are easy to calculate; it is relevant to assessing their impacts and permits the development of adaptation measures. This study applies the suggested method to quantify various aspects of heat waves in Lisbon for future climate projections considering future mid-term (2046–2065) and long-term (2081–2100) climates under the RCP8.5 greenhouse emission scenario. This is achieved through the analysis of various regional climate simulations performed with the WRF model and an ensemble of EURO-CORDEX models. This allows an estimation of uncertainty and confidence of the projections. To evaluate the climate change properties of heat waves, statistics for future climates are compared to those for a reference recent climate. Simulated temperatures are first bias corrected to minimize the model systematic errors relative to observations. The temperature for mid and long-term futures is expected to increase relative to the present by 1.6 °C and 3.6 °C, respectively, with late summer months registering the highest increases. The number of heat wave days per year will increase on average from 10, in the present climate, to 38 and 63 in mid and long-term climates, respectively. Heat wave duration, intensity, average maximum temperature, and accumulated temperature during a heat wave will also increase. Heat waves account for an annual average of accumulated temperature of 358 °C·day in the present climate, while in the mid and long-term, future climates account for 1270 °C·day and 2078 °C·day, respectively. The largest increases are expected to occur from July to October. Extreme intensity and long-duration heat waves with an average maximum temperature of more than 40 °C are expected to occur in the future climates.

On the population dynamics of the Eucalypt-defoliating sawfly Perga affinis affinis Kirby (Hymenoptera)

1969 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 113 ◽  
Author(s):  
PB Carne
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
New South ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Subsequent Generation ◽  
Study Region ◽  
South Wales ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Causes Of Mortality ◽  
Very High

Changes of the abundance of the sawfly P. a. affinis were recorded during eight successive years in a study region extending from the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales to north-eastern Victoria. The influences and processes which affected mortality and reproduction in populations of the sawfly are described, and their contributions to the observed fluctuations of abundance in the study region are discussed. The major causes of mortality were desiccation, fungal disease, and parasitism. The main parasites were tachinids (Froggattimyia spp.) and a trigonalid (Taeniogonalos venatoria Riek). A variable proportion of the prepupae entered a diapause which persisted for 2 or more years. Although extended diapause ensured the survival of the subspecies during seasons unfavourable for its active stages, only a small proportion of the prepupae involved survived to emerge as adults. The consequences of very high numbers were: increased incidence of desiccation mortality and of extended diapause, and a decrease of the fecundity of the subsequent generation. Due to the benefits which accrued from colonial behaviour, survival of the larvae was greater at moderately high than at low densities. These density-regulating mechanisms of the life system of the sawfly operated conspicuously only at very high and very low densities. In the eastern portion of the study region, fluctuations of abundance were closely synchronized in all sites. These fluctuations could be interpreted in terms of changing environmental favourability during successive seasons. Analysis of weather data showed that departures from long-term average temperatures and rainfalls were correlated throughout the region. However, sawfly numbers fluctuated erratically in the western subregion, the changes of density there often being at variance with those consistent throughout the eastern subregion. Parasitism by T. venatoria, which was often very severe in the western subregion, was the only process recognized that was likely to be responsible for the differences observed.

scholarly journals Analysis of Long-Term Measured Exterior Air Temperature in Zilina

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Jurasova
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Temperature Measurement ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Experimental Laboratory ◽  
Weather Stations ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract The climate change assumes nowadays on significance. Weather data may be available on various time scales – long-term, minutes, hours, days, periods, years. Measurements of air temperature are realized for a long time. Data in Slovakia are available from few weather stations of Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMI). For long-term and wide-ranging measurement of various parameters this can be complicated and expensive. This paper is focused on temperature measurement near the experimental laboratory. Estimation of daily, monthly and yearly mean temperatures is done in different ways. Results from experimental temperature measurement, in a way of selection of unusual extremes are presented. Shorter recording intervals describe the temperature courses in a more pertinent way.

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