Drought and its Impacts:

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Drought and its Impacts What additional
information is needed? Kelly T.
Redmond Western Regional Climate Center Desert
Research Institute Reno Nevada 33rd Annual
Climate Diagnostics and Prediction
Workshop CLIVAR/NIDIS Drought Workshop Lincoln,
Nebraska 2008 October 20-24
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Issues Drought fundamentally involves the
concept of a water budget Supply minus
Demand Drought as accumulated Supply minus
Demand Need status of components of the water
balance Supply components Demand
components Ideally, everywhere in space, at the
necessary resolution Past, present, future
Drought is defined by its impacts A Working
Definition of Drought (very hard to avoid this
approach) Insufficient water to meet needs
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Subjective / Objective Issue What does
objective mean? An objective process is one
that brings all relevant information to bear
- RSP discussion There are many ground truths
at once There are many droughts
simultaneously This approach is more
complicated, but more useful What is the purpose
of the Drought Monitor? Drought as a human
construct (is there natural drought?) Reinforce
ment of this notion in presentations by Dave
Stooksbury Tom Pagano Andrea Ray None of the
foregoing decreases the need for quantitative
measures of water inputs, outputs, storage
(human and natural)
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In general, the most consequential droughts
occur in the wettest portion of the year though
not always. Temperature seasonality is nearly
the same everywhere
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Monthly Precipitation Climatologies Jan-Dec
www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/sodusa.html
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Madison Valley Seasonality Comparison Area.
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Adapted from Phil Farnes, Western
Snow Conference, 1995.
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Oct-Mar Apr-May-June Fraction of
Annual Total Precipitation, by Season July-Aug
WRCC / OSU
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K. Redmond, 2003. p 29-48, Water and Climate in
the Western United States. U Colorado Press.
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HCNM Grid 50 km Radius Green CRN Red TBD Yello
w Survey Done Blue In prog
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Chinle Airport, Arizona. HCNM prospect. View to
the North, East, West, and South.
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How to describe and depict drought when large
spatial variations are present How to depict and
describe drought when large time lags are
present Different sectors simultaneously
affected differently by same situation How to
describe multiple simultaneous situations at
once Users and sectors are not monolithic.
Many flavors and nuances. These matter, if
information is to be usable. Small relative
impacts in large states vs large impacts in
small states Major players versus minor players
(in absolute or relative terms?) California as a
kind of Drought Depiction Test Bed How large a
Soil Moisture monitoring system is needed?
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March 10, 2004
70 / 1800 mm
55 / 1400 mm
12 / 300 mm
7.5 / 170 mm
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Californias Complex Water Distribution System
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Upper Colorado
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Lake Powell Storage Through Apr 3, 2008
Currently 45 full Minimum 33 full on April
8, 2005
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Lake Powell Elevation Through Apr 5, 2008
Water level on Apr 5, 2008 was 3590.34 ft,
-109.66 ft below full. Minimum level on April
8, 2005 was 3555 ft, -145 ft below full.
Source www.usbr.gov/uc/water/index.htl
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R. Seager, M.F. Ting, I.M. Held, Y. Kushnir, J.
Lu, G. Vecchi, H.-P. Huang, N. Harnik, A.
Leetmaa, N.-C. Lau, C. Li, J. Velez, N. Naik,
2007. Model Projections of an Imminent Transition
to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern North
America. Science, DOI 10.1126/science.1139601
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Seager et al, 2007. Average of 19 climate
models. Figure by Naomi Naik. www.ldeo.columbia.
edu/res/div/ocp/drought/science.shtml
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?
Is the current Southwest drought a
once-or-twice-a-century drought like those of the
past 500 years
?
?
or
a harbinger of things to come, a different type
of drought that we have not observed before ?
?
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Physical aspects Better forecasts in the 1-4
week range Better forecasts in the 2-10 year
range Drought properties in Eastern US versus
Western US A few months versus multiple years or
decades How quickly can we get into
drought? Timing of supply and demand Its not
just all about precipitation. Temperature
effects. Other demand info wind, humidity,
solar. Sequencing often matters, often greatly.
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Coupling of CFS (Climate Forecast System), or
other numerical output, with hydrology Continuati
on of PRISM high resolution monthly maps
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Masked for skill. All
areas. Monthly Nov 08 Apr 09
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Masked for skill. All
areas. Monthly NDJ 08 MJJ 09
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Seasonal Precipitation CPC
Seasonal Temperature Dec-Jan-Feb 2008 -
Nov-Dec-Jan 2009-10
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• Role of Research and Climate Test Bed in
• NIDIS Colorado River Pilot Project
• Enhanced Reservoir Operations on Upper Colorado
  River and Lake Mead
• Including improved forecast info for Upper
  Colorado River Basin
• - Improved operations of Colorado Big Thompson
  Project
• Drought impacts on ecosystem and recreation
  management

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Thank You
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Panel Discussion Future Directions for Drought
Research Moderator Kelly Redmond Panelists Ji
m Verdin Mike Hayes Siegfried Schubert Kingtse
Mo
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• Role of Research and Climate Test Bed in
• NIDIS Colorado River Pilot Project
• Enhanced Reservoir Operations on Upper Colorado
  River
• and Lake Mead
• Including improved forecast info for Upper
  Colorado River Basin
• - Improved operations of Colorado Big Thompson
  Project
• Drought impacts on ecosystem and recreation
  management
• Other aspects of drought research to assist NIDIS
• Physical understanding
• Sponsors need to be satisfied that their needs
  are being addressed

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NIDIS pilot study (Kingtse Mo)

• Data
• Survey of data sets available
• Archive at one place so people can easily
  download
• Monitoring
• Calibration and Verification of NLDAS
• Bring together operational people and
  researchers
• Forecasts
• Mechanisms to include local information
• Reliability of the forecasts

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Questions (from Siegfried Schubert Panel)

• To what extent can we simulate past droughts in
  AMIP-style simulations?
• Do models agree on the important drivers and
  sources (e.g. oceans, soil moisture) of drought?
  Do they agree on the regions where droughts may
  be predictable?
• To what extent are the simulated physical
  mechanisms consistent with observations?
  (seasonality, links to different ocean basins,
  role of land/atmosphere coupling, LLJ, weather,
  connections to ENSO, PDV, NAO etc.)
• To what extent do coupled models simulate
  realistic droughts?
• Do they produce realistic links to SST
  variability?
• Do they produce realistic distributions of
  drought (spatial distributions and temporal
  statistics)
• Are the current (AR4) IPCC runs of sufficient
  quality to be used to assess the role of
  human-induced forcings (as compared to natural
  variability) in drought?
• What are the prospects for useful seasonal to
  multi-year drought predictions?
• Current capabilities of coupled model simulations
  of interannual to decadal variability? ENSO,
  PDO, AMO, MOC, etc
• How can attribution studies help advance drought
  research and provide important information to
  decision-makers?
• What is our plan to develop a suite of regional
  drought forecasts?