Selecting the optimal fine-scale historical climate data for assessing current and future hydrological conditions

High-resolution historical climate grids are readily available and frequently used as inputs for a wide range of regional management and risk assessments including water supply, ecological processes, and as baseline for climate change impact studies that compare them to future projected conditions. Because historical gridded climates are produced using various methods, their portrayal of landscape conditions differ, which becomes a source of uncertainty when they are applied to subsequent analyses. Here we tested the range of values from five gridded climate datasets. We compared their values to observations from 1,231 weather stations, first using each dataset’s native scale, and then after each was rescaled to 270-meter resolution. We inputted the downscaled grids to a mechanistic hydrology model and assessed the spatial results of six hydrological variables across California, in 10 ecoregions and 11 large watersheds in the Sierra Nevada. PRISM was most accurate for precipitation, ClimateNA for maximum temperature, and TopoWx for minimum temperature. The single most accurate dataset overall was PRISM due to the best performance for precipitation and low air temperature errors. Hydrological differences ranged up to 70% of the average monthly streamflow with an average of 35% disagreement for all months derived from different historical climate maps. Large differences in minimum air temperature data produced differences in modeled actual evapotranspiration, snowpack, and streamflow. Areas with the highest variability in climate data, including the Sierra Nevada and Klamath Mountains ecoregions, also had the largest spread for Snow Water Equivalent (SWE), recharge and runoff.

Comparing the Köppen-Geiger, Feddema, and UNEP Climate Classifications: An Application to Iran

This study introduces the climates of Iran defined by Köppen-Geiger, Feddema’s, and UNPEP classifications that applied to a high-resolution ground-based gridded data set relative to the 1985–2017 period. Ten Köppen-Geiger climate types were found for Iran, from which Bwh, Bsk, Csa, Bsh, and Bwk cumulatively account for more than 98% of the territory. Likewise, from 36 possible Feddema’s climate types, Iran possesses fifteen climate types from which the Dry Cool, Semiarid Torrid, Semiarid Hot, Semiarid Warm, Dry warm, Semiarid Cool, and Moist Cool climates collectively occupied approximately 93% of the country. Similarly, arid, semi-arid, humid, and sub-humid UNEP climate types characterized more than 98% of Iran. A few other vertically stratified climates appeared at the highlands of Iran just because of changes in elevation and slope aspects of the mountains. The combined effect of topography and vicinity to sea also creates very distinct climate types in northern Iran. The climate maps of the three used methods reflect the joint effects of topography, latitudinal variation, and land/sea surface contrast on the climate of Iran. A pairwise comparison made between the three classifications showed a satisfactory agreement between the three schemes in representing the main climate types of Iran.

Climate maps as instruments for urban planning

There has been a significant increase in studies on climatic mapping linked to urban planning, with the spatialized distribution of urban microclimates, in order to guide municipal actions, aiming at environmental comfort. In this research, various climatic studies have been reviewed so as to develop maps for climate analysis and to draw up recommendations on the use and occupation of land. Climatic classification was adapted for topoclimates, through the overlapping of layers and by attributing heat accumulation values to the base layers. In the city of Recife, fourteen microclimates were identified, categorized into coastal, plain and hillside macrozones. The neighborhoods of Boa Vista and Soledade presented eight microclimates, synthetized into three classes of heat accumulation, which were predominantly high, chiefly in areas of densification, and verticalization. The recommendations aim to assist in urban management, so as to act more precisely in the critical areas, and thereby, as a result of reviewing the urban parameters, provide guidelines for more effective projects on both urban and architectural scales.

Towards Cooperative Global Mapping of the Ionosphere: Fusion Feasibility for IGS and IRI with Global Climate VTEC Maps

Recommendations of the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) Workshop 2017 in Taoyuan City, Taiwan and International GNSS Service (IGS) Workshop 2018 in Wuhan, China included establishment of an ionosphere mapping service that would fuse measurements from two independent sensor networks: IGS permanent GNSS receivers providing the vertical total electron content (VTEC) measurements and ionosondes of the Global Ionosphere Radio Observatory (GIRO) that compute the bottomside vertical profiles of the ionospheric plasma density. Using available GAMBIT software at GIRO, we introduced new VTEC products to its data roster: previously unavailable global average (climate) maps of VTEC and slab thickness based on climatological capabilities of IRI. Incorporation of the VTEC and τ maps into the GAMBIT Explorer environment provided data analysts with nearly 10-year history of the reference average VTEC records and opened access to the GAMBIT toolkit for evaluation and validation of the τ computations. This result is the first step towards establishing an infrastructure and the data workflow to provide GAMBIT users with the low latency and consistent quality and usability of the ionospheric weather-climate specifications. Combination of IGS-provided VTEC and GIRO-provided peak density of F2 layer NmF2 allows ground-based evaluation of the equivalent slab thickness τ, a derived property of the near-Earth plasma that characterizes the skewness of its vertical profile up to the GNSS spacecraft altitudes.

FORAGE POTENTIAL AND ADAPTATION OF Alysicarpus vaginalis IN BALI PROVINCE

Climate change that has hit the world requires to make adaptation efforts so that agricultural productivity can be maintained. Alysicarpus vaginalis is one of the local variety forage that can grow in a various of environmental conditions. In this regard, a survey research has been carried out to study various types of local forages throughout Bali. The aim of the research is to obtain forages that have superior properties and can be developed in various regions in Bali. The survey sampling location refers to a map prepared specifically for that by overlaying a map of soil types, land use maps, and climate maps. Based on the results of the survey, several species of local forages that have superior characteristics have been found. One of them is Alysicarpus vaginalis plant as a forage superior, Alysicarpus vaginalis forage production as much as 46,302 kg DM ha-1 with 0.21% botanical composition. Keywords: Alysicarpus vaginalis, superior legumes, tropical forage