Weather & Climate
Hot Topic Brief - Weather and Climate
Grant-Kohrs Ranch 2007 Water Year Annual Climate Report
Importance/Issues
The Weather and Climate protocol addresses a single ROMN vital sign: Weather and Climate. The protocol will be implemented in all six ROMN parks (with buff ers based on watersheds and/or ecoregion boundaries), but is currently on hold as regional and national examples are developed.
Weather and climate are primary drivers of almost all physical and ecological processes in the ROMN. Climate controls ecosystem fluxes of energy and matter as well as the geomorphic and biogeochemical processes that underlie the distribution and structure of ROMN ecosystems. Climatic effects are particularly notable in the strong zonation and steep elevation gradients displayed by vegetation types in the larger parks that extend from montane up to alpine zones (GLAC, GRSA, ROMO). Archival proxy records on glacial ice, lake sediments, tree rings, and fossil corals show that the earth’s climate has varied significantly over timescales from months to millennia. Studies using combinations of instrumental records and paleoproxies confirm, however, that global climate changed rapidly during the twentieth century, and that the speed of those changes exceeded that of most previous fluctuations.
These global-scale drivers and stressors, both natural and anthropogenic, will inevitably affect each ROMN park’s ecological systems in the short and long term. It is important that ROMN park managers are able to understand climate variations at multiple spatial and temporal scales that allow for both the characterization of climate and an understanding of how other ecological systems vary. Removing the climate signal clarifies the underlying changes in other network vital signs. Our primary approach to the Weather and Climate vital sign will be to use data from current, ongoing monitoring programs (e.g., NPS and NOAA–NWS) to achieve an understanding of the connections between climate and park resource conditions and other ROMN vital signs.
Preliminary Monitoring Objectives
- Describe daily status and temporal pattern in minimum, average, and maximum temperature and accumulated precipitation from established weather stations in and near each ROMN park.
- Describe daily status and temporal pattern in daily, park-level indices of minimum, average, and maximum temperature and accumulated precipitation (by averaging data across all appropriate weather stations in and near each ROMN park).
- Describe monthly status and temporal pattern in precipitation, minimum and maximum temperatures, and dewpoint using the Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model from the PRISM Group at Oregon State University) for each ROMN park.
- Describe bi-weekly status and trends in snow cover (including snow depth and snow–water equivalent) using the Snow Data Assimilation System (SNOWDAS) dataset of the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center for each ROMN park.
- Describe monthly status and trends in appropriate drought indices from NOAA for each ROMN park.
- Determine monthly status and trends in atmospheric and oceanic division indices relevant to important climatological and ecological processes for each ROMN park.
Potential Measures
Protocol Development and Status
Contact Information
Mike Britten
Natural Resources Program Center
1201 Oakridge Drive, Suite 200
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Phone: (970)267-2150
Mike_Britten@nps.gov