Presentations featuring:

Twila Moon

Earth & Space Sciences, University of Washington

Shih-Yu Lee

Geological Sciences, University of Michigan

Rachel McCrary

Atmospheric Sciences, Colorado State University

Vimal Mishra

Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department, Purdue University

Justin Minder

Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington

The Hydrosphere, Cryosphere, and Climate session boasted a broad selection of talks investigating connections between water within air, soil, and ice sheets and climate. The introductory talk highlighted some of the changes in the hydrosphere and cryosphere that can be confidently expected earth warms. It was argued that where strong thermodynamic constraints can be identified (such as in the case of atmospheric moisture content) we can often have confidence in climate related changes, whereas when dynamical processes dominate (such as in the case of ice sheet discharge) it is harder to make confident predictions.

   

Twila Moon presented a study of satellite imagery of length variations for over 200 Greenland outlet glaciers. Results from this work showed that a shift occurred in the location of glacier retreat on Greenland and the magnitude of tidewater versus land terminating glaciers. 

Shi-Yu Lee presented the result of simulations from general circulation model experiments testing whether tropical sea-surface temperature (SST) variations could be responsible for variations in the Laurentide Ice sheet during the last glacial cycle. Depending upon the form of the SST forcing applied, various changes in in the ice volume over North America occurred.

Rachel McCray investigated the ability of the current generation of climate models to simulate drought over the Great Plains region of the United States. She found that while the three major IPCC models studied simulate long-term drought over the region, moisture content and the relationship between hydrological variables varied considerably between the models.

Vimal Mishra utilized observations from a comprehensive water resources monitoring network to evaluate the soil moisture simulations of the Variable Infiltration Capacity hydrological model. He found variable model skill, and interesting behavior related to soil moisture persistence.

Justin Minder made use of a dataset of 7 years of high-resolution atmospheric model simulations and 4 years of precipitation gauge measurement coupled to a simple model for slope stability to explore the connections between small-scale patterns in mountain precipitation and patterns of landslide hazard. He found that climatological precipitation patterns over the Olympic Mountains of Washington State may act to cause a significant increase in landslide hazard on the windward ridges of the range.