Research Theme: Regional Processes
Understanding the role of climate information used in regional decisions
concerning natural resources.
Why this Research Theme?
Short-term climate variability and extremes are felt within natural oundaries associated with topography, watersheds, and other geographical features that, in turn, influence and determine climate. Therefore, climate variability and extreme weather events impact very specific regional populations, economies and ecosystems.
Increasingly, the research community is being called to develop the scientific understanding necessary to deliver better tools and improved forecasting to help manage impacts of weather extremes and assist in directing natural resource use. Such prediction must cover many scales of forcing and response.
How We're Doing this Research
Regional process studies require intensive field campaigns to learn the conditions, influences, and interactions of specific topography, vegetation, latitude and cultures.
Objective
Much of CIRES research has a regional focus because it addresses a particular confluence of geography, topography, demographics, weather and climatic regimes, or other factors. This research is often rich in its diversity and establishes an essential connection between science and those it affects most, human populations.
Research
Increasingly, the research community is being called upon to develop the scientific understanding necessary to deliver improved environmental prediction and better tools with which to manage the impact of extremes in weather and climate coupled with changing land use. The challenge in this endeavor lies in the fact that such prediction must cover many scales of forcing and response. In this context, "regional scale" might range from the scale of influence of the Arctic Oscillation on the Arctic and sub-Arctic ice cover and related ecosystems down to the response of local watersheds to seasonal-to-decadal cycles of drought and flooding. Similarly, chemical constituents added to the atmosphere may influence society from urban scales to hemispheric scales. Increasingly in the United States, it is necessary that development of the understanding needed for effective air-quality management strategies be done on a regional basis. On larger scales, intercontinental transport, for example of Asian pollution or Saharan dust, can influence both regional air-quality and regional climate in North America. Further, very small-scale processes such as permafrost physics can influence large scales and long periods through changes in carbon sequestration. Such issues cross many scientific disciplines and require an integrated science approach based on improved observations, diagnosis, and modeling of regions subject to accumulating natural and anthropogenic stresses. These regional science applications within CIRES, by their very nature, resist rigid categorization but can be loosely organized with the following foci:
- Region-specific impacts of climate variability and extreme events
- Atmospheric chemical forecasting
- Regional air quality
- Intercontinental transport and chemical transformation
- Hydrological cycles in weather and climate
- High latitude regional processes
- Surface/atmosphere exchange processes
Goals
- Couple enhanced observations and research within regions characterized by a strong climate variability signal with analysis of past data and improved modeling
- Enhance understanding of the interrelationships of climate and meteorology with regional air quality
- Develop air quality prediction and forecasting capabilities
- Study high latitude regions of the Earth where atmosphere, water, ice, and land meet and are expected to result in complex responses and feedbacks to climate variability and change on local scales
- Elucidate the processes that determine the intercontinental transport of photochemical pollution and control the chemical transformation that occurs during this transport
- Observe, model, and predict the consequences of climate change and variability on hydrological variables on diverse time scales
- Improve understanding of the role that surface-atmosphere exchange plays in shaping regional climate and air-quality
- Improve the understanding of the chemical and meteorological features that determines air quality in various regions of the United States
Overview
Many of our research endeavors have a regional focus because they address a particular confluence of geography, demographics, weather and climatic regimes. These constituents include human populations ranging from those coastal megalopolises to those of the indigenous people on the margin of the Arctic Ocean, all of who must coexist with sensitive aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in a highly variable and evolving climate. Indeed, the impact of short-term climate variability and extremes is often regionally focused, influencing very specific populations, economies, and ecosystems. Specific areas of effort include:
Region-Specific Impacts of Climate Variability and Extreme Events
The impact of climate variability is regionally specific, often focused within natural boundaries associated with topography, watersheds, and/or other geographical. The goal here is to couple enhanced observations and research within regions characterized by a strong climate variability signal with analysis of past data and improved modeling. A special emphasis will be on determining factors influencing the occurrence of extreme events.
Atmospheric Chemical Forecasting
Improved forecasts of the chemical composition of the atmosphere are relevant to public health and safety issues. This topic undertakes research that contributes to the development of air quality prediction and forecasting capabilities. This research will seek to identify the natural and anthropogenic emissions that influence the formation of ozone and fine particles in urban, rural regions and coastal areas of the United States and determine the chemical and meteorological processes that control their transformation and redistribution. The research under this topic will underlie national, regional, and local efforts to evaluate and improve air quality.
Regional Air Quality
The goal of this topic is to improve the understanding of the chemical and meteorological features that determines air-quality in various regions of the United States.
Intercontinental Transport and Chemical Transformation
The aim of this research is to elucidate the processes that determine the intercontinental transport of photochemical pollution and control the chemical transformation that occurs during this transport.
Surface/Atmosphere Exchange
This goal is to improve the understanding of the role that surface-atmosphere exchange plays in shaping regional climate and air-quality. Accurately characterizing the exchange of heat, momentum, moisture, gases, and aerosols at the surface of the Earth provides one of the major challenges for the diagnoses and prediction at regional scales. Oceans cover some 70% of the globe and maintain much of the memory of past climate that is carried into the future. They constitute one of the major data voids of the Earth yet are the major supplier of moisture that eventually flows through terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems back to the ocean.
Hydrological Cycles in Weather and Climate
This objective is to better observe, model, and predict the consequences of climate change and variability on hydrological variables on time scales ranging from those of flash floods to those of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and on multiple spatial scales.
High Latitude Regional Processes
his goal is to carry out interdisciplinary studies of high latitude regions of the Earth where atmosphere, water, ice, and land meet and are expected to allow complex responses and feedbacks to climate variability and change on local scales.
More Information
For more detailed information about regional processes research at CIRES, contact Theme Leaders William Neff and/or Maggie Tolbert , or see this full text description for research linkages and plans.
