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Improving Understanding of Climate Extremes in the Southwestern United States

San Luis water reservoir

Drought-impacted San Luis Reservoir, CA. Credit: Cynthia Mendoza (USDA)

Project Information

Principal Investigator(s):

  • Erica Fleishman (University of California, Davis)

Co-Investigator(s):

  • Kelly Redmond (Desert Research Institute)
  • Jonathan Overpeck (University of Arizona)
  • Daniel R Cayan (USGS Branch of Regional Research, Western Region)
  • Michael Dettinger (US Geological Survey and Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
  • Mark Schwartz (University of California, Davis)
  • Alexander Gershunov (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
  • Britta Daudert (Desert Research Institute)

Fiscal Year: 2014

Overview 

In the southwestern United States, droughts of 10 or more years are projected to become more frequent by 2100. It also is projected that there will be fewer wet days per year, with more precipitation falling on those wet days. Such climatic extremes can strongly affect wild animals and plants, ecosystems, and humans. In the Southwest, more frequent and intense storms may negatively affect protected species in coastal salt marshes; changes in the timing and amount of precipitation could lead to increases in fuel loads; and increasingly humid heat waves could lead to higher incidence of heat-related illness among visitors to national parks.
 
This project is improving understanding of climate extremes and their potential effects in the Southwest. Researchers are assessing a suite of models that project future global climate and determining which of those models best represent climate patterns and extremes in the Southwest. Researchers are then downscaling the best models, a process that allows the models to be used for regional analyses, and projecting past and future extreme temperature and precipitation. The downscaled climate data are then being fed into a hydrologic model, the results of which can be used to assess future water availability and the probability of floods and droughts. Additionally, data on projected regional climate and climate extremes is being made available through an online interactive platform.
 
This project will advance scientific capacity to project climate extremes in the Southwest. The results will provide more-accurate estimates of future climate, which will inform management of natural resources and preparation of human communities for extreme conditions.

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