In the intermountain west, seasonal precipitation extremes, combined with population growth, are creating new challenges for the management of water resources, ecosystems, and geologic hazards. This research contributes a comprehensive long-term context for a deeper understanding of past hydrologic variability, including the magnitude and frequency of drought and flood extremes and ecosystem impacts.
Statement of Problem: Water is of particular concern in the Western U.S. with the potential for future climate change leading to increasingly adverse changes in local to regional hydrologic processes. Concerns range from a decrease in availability and poorer quality of water to an increase in negative and costly extremes in drought, flood, fire, and other geologic hazards. The primary meteorological mechanisms that control Western U.S. water and climate occur within and over the Pacific Ocean, where linked oceanic and atmospheric dynamics drive atmospheric circulation patterns and associated weather. Instrumental records for the past ~100 years provide some context for precipitation patterns, but they are too short to capture the full range of known natural hydrologic and climatic variability.
Why this Research is Important: The prosperity of the American West depends on effective and strategic use of our natural water resources. By examining natural hydrologic variations over long time scales, this research provides a comprehensive context for a deeper understanding of drought and flood magnitude and frequency. This research also develops new insights into mechanisms and processes, which better inform predictions of seasonal precipitation extremes and corresponding landscape and ecosystem change.
Objective(s): This project develops past perspectives on water in the West from geologic archives in lake and wetland sediments and tree rings. Studies test hypotheses about the causes, mechanisms and impacts of past climate on a variety of hydrologic systems, including precipitation, snowpack, lakes, wetlands, glaciers, forests, and permafrost from the present day through the last glacial period, ~30,000 years ago.
Methods: Project studies utilize water isotope tracer methods and other paleoenvironmental proxies based upon sedimentology, geochemistry and paleoecological and radiometric dating methods. Research includes the development of new paleorecords in Alaska and the Rocky Mountains. Investigations of modern water isotope-climate processes are providing a deeper understanding of the hydroclimatic information that water isotope proxy records contain.
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Rocky Mountain Regional Snowpack Chemistry Monitoring Study
Drivers and Impacts of North Pacific Climate Variability
Wetlands in the Quaternary
Holocene Synthesis Project
- Overview
In the intermountain west, seasonal precipitation extremes, combined with population growth, are creating new challenges for the management of water resources, ecosystems, and geologic hazards. This research contributes a comprehensive long-term context for a deeper understanding of past hydrologic variability, including the magnitude and frequency of drought and flood extremes and ecosystem impacts.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Water isotopes refer to atoms of oxygen (O) and hydrogen (H) in water molecules (H2O) that have slightly different atomic masses due to different numbers of neutrons in their nucleus. Water is composed of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms and the different combinations of their stable isotopes have molecular masses that range from 18 to 22. Statement of Problem: Water is of particular concern in the Western U.S. with the potential for future climate change leading to increasingly adverse changes in local to regional hydrologic processes. Concerns range from a decrease in availability and poorer quality of water to an increase in negative and costly extremes in drought, flood, fire, and other geologic hazards. The primary meteorological mechanisms that control Western U.S. water and climate occur within and over the Pacific Ocean, where linked oceanic and atmospheric dynamics drive atmospheric circulation patterns and associated weather. Instrumental records for the past ~100 years provide some context for precipitation patterns, but they are too short to capture the full range of known natural hydrologic and climatic variability.
Why this Research is Important: The prosperity of the American West depends on effective and strategic use of our natural water resources. By examining natural hydrologic variations over long time scales, this research provides a comprehensive context for a deeper understanding of drought and flood magnitude and frequency. This research also develops new insights into mechanisms and processes, which better inform predictions of seasonal precipitation extremes and corresponding landscape and ecosystem change.
Objective(s): This project develops past perspectives on water in the West from geologic archives in lake and wetland sediments and tree rings. Studies test hypotheses about the causes, mechanisms and impacts of past climate on a variety of hydrologic systems, including precipitation, snowpack, lakes, wetlands, glaciers, forests, and permafrost from the present day through the last glacial period, ~30,000 years ago.
Methods: Project studies utilize water isotope tracer methods and other paleoenvironmental proxies based upon sedimentology, geochemistry and paleoecological and radiometric dating methods. Research includes the development of new paleorecords in Alaska and the Rocky Mountains. Investigations of modern water isotope-climate processes are providing a deeper understanding of the hydroclimatic information that water isotope proxy records contain.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Water isotope tracer methods utilize slight mass differences between water molecules that cause them to behave differently during evaporation and condensation during the hydrologic cycle; between gas (humidity), liquid (rain) and solid (snow). Water isotopes are preserved in geologic archives when water molecules are locked into materials from which we can later release without altering their amounts, such as lake and wetland sediments and tree-rings. With well-understood relationships between temperature, humidity and atmospheric circulation, we can reconstruct the climate conditions that existed when precipitation was formed. - Science
Below are other science projects associated with this project.
Rocky Mountain Regional Snowpack Chemistry Monitoring Study
Snowpacks collect atmospheric deposition throughout the snowfall season and offer a unique opportunity to obtain a composite sample of the chemistry of most of the annual precipitation at high elevations [> 1,800 meters]. The purpose of the snowpack network is to determine annual concentrations and depositional amounts of selected nutrients and other constituents in snow resulting from atmospheric...Drivers and Impacts of North Pacific Climate Variability
Climate model forecasts indicate an increase in extreme hydrologic events, including floods and droughts, for California and the western U.S. in the future. To better understand what the consequences of this future change in climate may be, USGS scientists are studying the frequency, magnitude, and impacts of past hydroclimate variability and extremes in the region. This project produces well...Wetlands in the Quaternary
Wetlands accumulate organic-rich sediment or peat stratigraphically, making them great archives of past environmental change. Wetlands also act as hydrologic buffers on the landscape and are important to global biogeochemical cycling. This project uses wetland archives from a range of environments to better understand how vegetation, hydrology, and hydroclimate has changed on decadal to multi...Holocene Synthesis Project
The Holocene Synthesis Project integrates a variety of information about past climate variability across the North American continent for the past ~12,000 years to characterize the spatial patterns of previous climate states, advance our understanding about mechanisms that drive natural climate variability, and improve the quality of climate models that are used to predict future climate patterns... - Data
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