California Nevada Applications Program

California Nevada Applications Program (CNAP) &
The California Climate Change Center (CCCC)

Climate information for California and Nevada decision makers

Funded by the NOAA Office of Global Programs and

California Energy Commission

CNAP is a NOAA/OGP Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) member

Read the latest on the CNAP BLOG

References
Contacts/Personnel
2010 Annual Report
Conferences
Letters from CNAP Collaborators

Our partner sites:
California Nevada Climate Data Archive
California Climate Change Portal

The importance of warm season warming to western U.S. streamflow changes

(a) Change in annual streamflow (%) obtained when the temperature in the indicated month is increased by 1 ^oC. (b) Monthly temperature change (2050-2099 average minus 1950-1999 average) projected by an ensemble of 16 global climate models using the SRES A2 climate change scenario and statistical downscaling [Maurer et al., 2007]. Values are averaged over the Colorado, Columbia, North and South Sierra basins.

CNAP researchers recently published an article examining how western U.S. streamflow may change during the warm season. They found the warm season climate warming will be a key driver of annual streamflow changes in four major river basins of the western U.S., as shown by hydrological model simulations using fixed precipitation and idealized seasonal temperature changes based on climate projections with SRES A2 forcing. Warm season (April-September) warming reduces streamflow throughout the year; streamflow declines both immediately and in the subsequent cool season. Cool season (October-March) warming, by contrast, increases streamflow immediately, partially compensating for streamflow reductions during the subsequent warm season.

Please click here for the article

CNAP contributes to recently released archive of bias corrected and downscaled climate and hydrology projections

CNAP researchers have worked closely with several groups (noted in the above logo) to create an archive of fine spatial-resolution translations of climate projections over the US via two downscaling techniques (BCSD and BCCA) and these translations have been used to drive hydrologic projections. The archive is meant to provide access to climate and hydrologic projections at spatial and temporal scales more relevant to some of the watershed and basin-scale decisions facing water managers and planners dealing with climate change.

http://gdo-dcp.ucllnl.org/downscaled_cmip3_projections/
Please click above to fully explore this resource

About CNAP

Previous Special Topics
Please click here for previous special topics

Tioga Pass
Please visit
http://tenaya.ucsd.edu/tioga
for the latest image.

Dry spell for much of California and Nevada

Percent of normal precipitation for January 2012. Image from Western Regional Climate Center (http://www.wrcc.dri.edu).

Find more about recent weather and the upcoming weeks on our CNAP weather page:
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/cnap/cnap_weather.html

Record or near-record dry conditions continued during January 2012 over much of the California/Nevada region. Reno, Nevada, was an exception with their first month above normal precipitation since June of 2011. Other sites were well below normal: Las Vegas 1% of normal, Fresno 63% of normal, San Diego 20% of normal, and San Jose 30% of normal. An index of 8 Sierra Nevada stations reported values at 53% of normal since October of 2011.

La Niña returns for winter 2011/2012: California and Nevada implications
Recent animation of weekly Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies
La Niña conditions have returned to the tropical Pacific. Find out more about these conditions, the forecast and what La Niña means to the winter weather in California and Nevada. *Please click here for more information*

CNAP/CCCC Research

Heat Waves over California and Nevada: Signal of an Increasing Trend

Southern California Marine Layer Clouds

Does the future hold more floods for California's Sierra Nevada?

CNAP researchers recently published an article examining a potential increase in flooding over California's Sierra Nevada. Using streamflow as simulated from downscaled global climate models, the researchers examined possible changes in annual maximum 3-day flood magnitudes and frequencies. They found statistically significant increases in flood magnitude for the later part of this century.

Click here for personal use copy of full article

AR^kStorm: Extreme winter storm scenario for California

CNAP researchers have been involved in a USGS MultiHazards Demonstration Project effort to develop and provide considerable detail for a scenario that would help emergency managers to plan and prepare for the something like the worst winter storm you can think of for California. The result was a scenario that has been labelled the "ARkStorm" and a paper describing the process and resulting scenario has come out in the journal Natural Hazards (Please click here for a personal use copy)

Figure 1 from article:
Composite SSM/I satellite image of vertically integrated water vapor (g cm^-2; color bar at bottom) constructed from polar-orbiting swaths in the 12 h prior to 10 am UTC 14 October 2009. The atmospheric river indicated here channeled water vapor from a decaying typhoon over the western North Pacific, across nearly the entire width of the ocean basin, to deposit copious rains over the central coast of California

Read more on our AR^kStorm web page

2008 Climate Action Team Report

Wildfire Forecasts

Our Changing Climate: Assessing the Risks to California

Climate Science and the CALFED Bay-Delta Program

Climate and Wildfire in the western United States

San Diego 2050 Changing Climate Report

From climate-change spaghetti to climate-change distributions for 21st Century California

Climate and Human Health

INFORM: Integrated Forecast and Management; increasing water-use efficiency

Climate/Ground-Water Simulations for the Ventura Ground-Water Basin

Recent webcam image of the Merced River at Happy Isles (USGS)

Happy Isles (Merced River) Webcam USGS has opened a new Happy Isles gage house in Yosemite Valley. CNAP researchers Mike Dettinger and Dan Cayan fought diligently for this new site. The site features a webcam showing the station and the merced River as it enters Yosemite Valley. The old gage house (circa 1915) can be seen in the background on daytime images.

For more information from this site including the latest gage readings and snaps/animations of recent days please click below:
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/webcams/happyisles/

Scripps Hydroclimate Weather Observations

San Diego Forecast

California/Nevada Current Radar

Western Infrared Image

Current southern California Santa Ana Conditions are indicated by the color of the button to the right
RED = YES Meteorological parameters indicate Santa Ana conditions are occurring
GREEN = NO Meteorological parameters indicate Santa Ana conditions are NOT occurring
Click here for more information

Western Regional Climate Center

IRI Forecasts

ECPC Forecasts

SIO Weather Page

Data Resources

Reading Room

Recent articles of interest to climate and climate change

PACLIM 2009
PACLIM XXIV talks and posters

MTNCLIM 2010
MTNCLIM 2010 was held June 2010 in Blue River, Oregon

Climate Variability and CALFED

Climate Studies and Events

Links

Forecast Resources

Mosquitos! A good catch!
Read more about CNAP/CCCC research linking mosquito abundance to climate

Thank you for visiting the California Nevada Applications Program/California Climate Change Center website!

CNAP/CCCC is directed from the Climate Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California - San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0224
Phone: (858) 534-4507; FAX: (858) 822-2028

Last update: 3 February 2012
Please direct any comments or questions to:

Mary Tyree

This website was prepared by Mary Tyree partially under award NA17RJ1231 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or the Department of Commerce.

Folsom Dam; built 1955-1956
Read more about CNAP/CCCC project INFORM: Integrated Forecast and Management; increasing water-use efficiency for northern California reservoirs