# Presentation: 817369

## Drought and its Impacts:

**What additional information is needed?**
**Kelly  T.  Redmond**
**Western Regional Climate Center**
**Desert Research Institute**
**Reno Nevada**
**33****rd**** Annual Climate Diagnostics and Prediction Workshop**
**CLIVAR/NIDIS Drought Workshop**
**Lincoln, Nebraska 2008 October 20-24**

## 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**

## 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?)**
**Reinforcement 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)**

## In general, the most consequential 

**droughts occur in the wettest portion of the year ... though not always.**
**Temperature seasonality is nearly the same everywhere:**

## Monthly Precipitation 

**Monthly Precipitation **
**Climatologies Jan-Dec**

**www.wrcc.dri.edu/summary/sodusa.html**

## Madison Valley Seasonality Comparison Area.

**Madison Valley Seasonality Comparison Area.**

## Adapted from Phil Farnes,             Western Snow Conference, 1995.

**Adapted from Phil Farnes,             Western Snow Conference, 1995.**

## Oct-Mar             Apr-May-June

**Oct-Mar             Apr-May-June**
**Fraction of Annual Total Precipitation, by Season**
**July-Aug**

**WRCC / OSU**

## Slide 9

## K. Redmond, 2003.  p 29-48, Water and Climate in the Western United States. U Colorado Press.

**K. Redmond, 2003.  p 29-48, Water and Climate in the Western United States. U Colorado Press.**

## HCNM

**HCNM**
**Grid**
**50 km**
**Radius**
**Green**
**CRN**
**Red**
**TBD**
**Yellow**
**Survey**
**Done**
**Blue**
**In**
**prog**

## Chinle Airport, Arizona.  HCNM prospect.  View to the North, East, West, and South.

**Chinle Airport, Arizona.  HCNM prospect.  View to the North, East, West, and South.**

## 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?**

## March 10, 2004

**March 10, 2004**

- 7.5” / 170 mm

- 12” / 300 mm

- 55” / 1400 mm

- 70” / 1800 mm

## California’s Complex Water Distribution System

**California’s Complex Water Distribution System**

## “Upper Colorado”

**“****Upper Colorado”**

## Slide 17

## Slide 18

## Slide 19

## Slide 20

## Slide 21

## Lake Powell Storage Through Apr 3, 2008

**Currently  45 % full**
**Minimum: 33 % full on April 8, 2005**

## 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**

## 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 

**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 by
Gabriel Vecchi. 

www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/science.shtml |
| --- |

## Seager et al, 2007.  Average of 19 climate models.  Figure by Naomi Naik.

**Seager et al, 2007.  Average of 19 climate models.  Figure by Naomi Naik.**
**www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/science.shtml**

## ? 

**? **

**?**

**?**

**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 ?**

## 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**
**It’s not just all about precipitation.  **
**	****Temperature effects.**
**	****Other demand info:  wind, humidity, solar.**
**Sequencing often matters, often greatly.**

## Coupling of CFS (Climate Forecast System), or other numerical output, with hydrology

**Continuation of PRISM high resolution monthly maps**

##               Masked for skill.

**              ****Masked for skill.**
**All areas.**
**Monthly Nov 08 – Apr 09**

##                  Masked for skill.

**                 ****Masked for skill.**
**All areas.**
**Monthly NDJ 08 – MJJ 09**

## Seasonal Precipitation             CPC               Seasonal Temperature

**Seasonal Precipitation             CPC               Seasonal Temperature**
**Dec-Jan-Feb 2008  -  Nov-Dec-Jan 2009-10**

## Slide 32

## Role of Research and Climate Test Bed in 

**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**

##  Thank You   

** ****Thank You****   **

## Slide 35

## Panel Discussion

**Future Directions for Drought Research**
**Moderator:  Kelly Redmond**
**Panelists:**
**Jim Verdin **
**Mike Hayes**
**Siegfried Schubert**
**Kingtse Mo**

## 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****

## 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

## 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?