Climate Information Needs for the

National Park Service in the Southern Sierra Nevada

Kelly Redmond

Laura Edwards

Western Regional Climate CenterDesert Research Institute

Reno Nevada

Climate, Ecosystems, and Resources in Eastern CaliforniaBishop CA, 2008 November 5-8

www.wrcc.dri.edu/nps

32 Networks. 32 Climate Inventory Reports. www.wrcc.dri.edu/nps

SIEN Project Objectives

• Assess the suitability of existing weather and climate data for foreseeable operational, monitoring, and research efforts. Park units: Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Devils Postpile. = SIEN: Sierra Nevada Network

• Summarize results and implications of climate model projections for SIEN park units, and their uncertainties.

• Analyze ability of existing weather station network to monitor the average regional climate and temporal and spatial climate variability across the SIEN region.

• Identify high priority weather stations for SIEN and provide recommendations on best ways to maintain these sites over the long term

• Identify and prioritize additional instrumentation that SIEN should consider adding to existing sites.

• Identify / prioritize potential locations for new / augmented weather stations that would fill gaps in monitoring.

• Provide recommendations on data management options and dissemination pathways for climate data and data products to managers, public and research community.

From Westmap(PRISM-derived)

Yosemite HQ vs Yosemite South Entrance TMAX

Figure 44. Residual from Double Mass analysis for monthly mean minimum temperature using candidate station Yosemite Park Headquarters and four reference stations, Hetch Hetchy (green), Calaveras Big Trees (blue), Cherry Valley Dam (red), and Auburn (black). Vertical black dashed lines indicate intervals where three or more stations detect an inhomogeneity.

Tmin. Double mass, Yosemite Park HQ versus Hetch Hetchy, Calaveras Big Trees, Cherry Valley Dam, and Auburn.

Yosemite Park HQ Tmax Yosemite South Entrance Tmax

Tmax Tmin

Metadata graphics for daily coop data. Yosemite Park HQ.

Temperature

First third of century2011-2040 “2025”

Winter

Spring

Summer

Autumn

3 scenarios

Thanks to John Abatzoglou

Temperature

Second third of century2041-2070 “2055”

Winter

Spring

Summer

Autumn

3 scenarios

Thanks to John Abatzoglou

Temperature

Third third of century2071-2100 “2085”

Winter

Spring

Summer

Autumn

3 scenarios

Thanks to John Abatzoglou

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

Average of 19 climate models.

2007.

Figure byGabriel Vecchi.

www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/scienc

e.shtml

Precipitation

First third of century2011-2040 “2025”

Winter

Spring

Summer

Autumn

3 scenarios

Thanks to John Abatzoglou

Precipitation

Second third of century2041-2070 “2055”

Winter

Spring

Summer

Autumn

3 scenarios

Thanks to John Abatzoglou

Correlation analysiscomments

Several types of summaries And presentations available.

Sierra Nevada12 MonthsThru September 2007

Winter of 2007-2008

A potential analogfor climate change

???

Water YearOct-SepPrecip

SouthCoastalCalifornia

1895/96thru2006/07

Main conclusions

Restore the NWS Coop Station at Yosemite Valley to good qualityAppears to be happening as of August-September 2008

Better high elevation monitoring needed

Benchmark stations in each NPS park unit

Correlation analysisPrecipitation

West-side generally well correlatedWestside-eastside modest correlationsGood north-south relations on the west side

TemperatureModest west-side to eastside correlationsMonthly and seasonal, and elevational, differences

Much of east portion of Sequoia / Kings Canyon is undersampled,but, remote, snowy, high, hard to access

Main conclusions

Well-maintained RAWS stations provide good quality data

Retain a few manual stations

Unofficial Tuolumne Ranger Station data very good quality. Continue with this site.

Freezing levels are rising, though not the same way in all seasonsHook to methods to portray this

Leveraging (often mutual) will be needed to site and maintain stations

Access to data is available, is improving, but still needs more emphasis

Thank You