1995: Impacts of Climate Change

Research by students from City College of New York, Columbia University, and Spellman College

Summer 1995 Objectives

Determine how hydrological conditions vary over the United States within and between drought/flood years.

Methods: Gather monthly precipitation, temperature, and potential evaporation (aerodynamic and Penman) output from the SI95 GCM drought and flood runs. Calculate Palmer and SDDI drought indices with different PET formulations over the U.S. for the runs; compare spatial variability and severity. Map output. Compare to observed drought indices.

Determine crop responses to drought and flood years.

Methods: Obtain monthly maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation anomalies from the SI95 GCM drought and flood runs. Apply anomalies to daily time series of crop input data and simulate crop responses for the corn belt, comparing drought and flood years. Run crop models with observed daily data. Compare model simulations run with observed climate inputs, and those run with model output to observed crop yield data.

Determine potential impacts of sea-level rise on selected vulnerable areas of eastern U.S.

Methods: Gather topographic and population data, and storm frequency recurrence intervals. Prepare set of sea-level rise scenarios. Calculate areas inundated and population at risk for sea-level scenarios.

Determine relationships of storm track data and crop yield and water stress for wheat in the Great Plains.

Methods: Obtain storm track data for years of overlap with daily data (1951-1980). Run model for sites in Kansas and Nebraska. Simulate crop yields for the timeseries, and compare simulated crop yield and water stress with storm track data. Compare observed and simulated crop yields.