Climatology of the San Francisco Bay and the Initiation of Wind Reversals along the Western United States Coast Determined from AMDAR Data

Observations from commercial aircraft through the Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay (AMDAR) automated weather reports provide a higher frequency sampling of the lower atmosphere than the twice daily radiosonde launches performed by the National Weather Service. In the San Francisco Bay area, the number of profiles from flights arriving or departing San Francisco International Airport (SFO), Oakland International Airport (OAK), and San Jose International Airport (SJC) have increased dramatically from 2001 to 2016. Low-level features in the coastal margins are difficult to simulate, so AMDAR opens up new possibilities to investigate coastal phenomena. This study uses AMDAR measurements from 2001-2016 in the bay area and focuses on three main objectives: (1) understanding the AMDAR climatology of the lower atmosphere in the bay area, (2) examining the effectiveness of AMDAR data to identify and quantify precursors to wind reversals along the central California coast, and (3) use the quantified magnitudes of the precursors to forecast wind reversals. A limiting factor in past studies of wind reversals was the lack of long-term monitoring of the lower atmosphere. While soundings from the aircraft at OAK and SFO were similar and more influenced by the marine environment, SJC had more continental features. Significant anomalies of temperature and wind occurred more than 24 hours ahead of the passage of a wind reversal. A forecast metric was developed using the anomalies, but the metric was not skillful.

Incorporating Uncertainty Into the Ranking of SPARROW Model Nutrient Yields From Mississippi/Atchafalaya River Basin Watersheds1

Excessive loads of nutrients transported by tributary rivers have been linked to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Management efforts to reduce the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico and improve the water quality of rivers and streams could benefit from targeting nutrient reductions toward watersheds with the highest nutrient yields delivered to sensitive downstream waters. One challenge is that most conventional watershed modeling approaches (e.g., mechanistic models) used in these management decisions do not consider uncertainties in the predictions of nutrient yields and their downstream delivery. The increasing use of parameter estimation procedures to statistically estimate model coefficients, however, allows uncertainties in these predictions to be reliably estimated. Here, we use a robust bootstrapping procedure applied to the results of a previous application of the hybrid statistical/mechanistic watershed model SPARROW (Spatially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes) to develop a statistically reliable method for identifying “high priority” areas for management, based on a probabilistic ranking of delivered nutrient yields from watersheds throughout a basin. The method is designed to be used by managers to prioritize watersheds where additional stream monitoring and evaluations of nutrient-reduction strategies could be undertaken. Our ranking procedure incorporates information on the confidence intervals of model predictions and the corresponding watershed rankings of the delivered nutrient yields. From this quantified uncertainty, we estimate the probability that individual watersheds are among a collection of watersheds that have the highest delivered nutrient yields. We illustrate the application of the procedure to 818 eight-digit Hydrologic Unit Code watersheds in the Mississippi/Atchafalaya River basin by identifying 150 watersheds having the highest delivered nutrient yields to the Gulf of Mexico. Highest delivered yields were from watersheds in the Central Mississippi, Ohio, and Lower Mississippi River basins. With 90% confidence, only a few watersheds can be reliably placed into the highest 150 category; however, many more watersheds can be removed from consideration as not belonging to the highest 150 category. Results from this ranking procedure provide robust information on watershed nutrient yields that can benefit management efforts to reduce nutrient loadings to downstream coastal waters, such as the Gulf of Mexico, or to local receiving streams and reservoirs

Nevada test site water-supply wells

A total of 15 water-supply wells are currently being used at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The purpose of this report is to bring together the information gleaned from investigations of these water-supply wells. This report should serve as a reference on well construction and completion, static water levels, lithologic and hydrologic characteristics of aquifers penetrated, and general water quality of water-supply wells at the NTS. Possible sources for contamination of the water-supply wells are also evaluated. Existing wells and underground nuclear tests conducted near (within 25 meters (m)) or below the water table within 2 kilometers (km) of a water-supply were located and their hydrogeologic relationship to the water-supply well determined

A versatile experimental hypothermic-hyperbaric oxygen chamber for whole organ preservation

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Terrestrial Reserve Networks Do Not Adequately Represent Aquatic Ecosystems

Las áreas protegidas son una piedra angular de la conservación y han sido diseñadas principalmente alrededor de atributos terrestres. Las especies y ecosistemas dulceacuícolas se encuentran en peligro, pero la efectividad de las áreas protegidas existentes para representar las características dulceacuícolas es poco conocida. Utilizando las aguas interiores de Michigan como un caso de prueba, cuantificamos la cobertura de cuatro atributos dulceacuícolas clave (humedales, zonas ribereñas, recarga de agua subterránea y especies raras) en las tierras conservadas y las comparamos con la representación de los atributos terrestres. Los humedales estaban incluidos en las áreas protegidas más a menudo que lo esperado por azar, pero las zonas ribereñas estuvieron insuficientemente representadas en todas las tierras protegidas (GAP1–3), particularmente en manantiales y ríos grandes. Sin embargo, las zonas ribereñas estuvieron bien representadas en las tierras con protección estricta (GAP 1–2) debido a la contribución del Programa Nacional de Ríos Silvestres y Escénicos. La representación de áreas de recarga de aguas subterráneas generalmente fue proporcional al área de la red de reservas dentro de cuencas hidrológicas, aunque un sitio importante de recarga asociado con algunos de los ríos más valiosos en Michigan estaba casi totalmente desprotegido. La representación de especies en áreas protegidas difirió significativamente entre las especies acuáticas obligadas, de humedales y terrestres, con una representación generalmente mayor para las especies terrestres y menor para las acuáticas. Nuestros resultados ilustran la necesidad de evaluar y atender la representación de los atributos dulceacuícolas dentro de las áreas protegidas y el valor de ampliar el análisis de brechas y otras evaluaciones de áreas protegidas para incluir los procesos ecosistémicos claves que son requisito para la conservación a largo plazo de especies y ecosistemas. Concluimos que las redes de áreas protegidas orientadas al medio terrestre proporcionan una red de seguridad débil para los atributos acuáticos, lo que significa que se requiere planeación y manejo complementario tanto para objetivos de conservación dulceacuícolas como terrestres.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79138/1/COBI_1460_sm_AppendixS3.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79138/2/COBI_1460_sm_AppendixS1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79138/3/j.1523-1739.2010.01460.x.pd

Systematic Conservation Planning in the Face of Climate Change: Bet-Hedging on the Columbia Plateau

Systematic conservation planning efforts typically focus on protecting current patterns of biodiversity. Climate change is poised to shift species distributions, reshuffle communities, and alter ecosystem functioning. In such a dynamic environment, lands selected to protect today's biodiversity may fail to do so in the future. One proposed approach to designing reserve networks that are robust to climate change involves protecting the diversity of abiotic conditions that in part determine species distributions and ecological processes. A set of abiotically diverse areas will likely support a diversity of ecological systems both today and into the future, although those two sets of systems might be dramatically different. Here, we demonstrate a conservation planning approach based on representing unique combinations of abiotic factors. We prioritize sites that represent the diversity of soils, topographies, and current climates of the Columbia Plateau. We then compare these sites to sites prioritized to protect current biodiversity. This comparison highlights places that are important for protecting both today's biodiversity and the diversity of abiotic factors that will likely determine biodiversity patterns in the future. It also highlights places where a reserve network designed solely to protect today's biodiversity would fail to capture the diversity of abiotic conditions and where such a network could be augmented to be more robust to climate-change impacts

A Tale of Four “Carp”: Invasion Potential and Ecological Niche Modeling

. We assessed the geographic potential of four Eurasian cyprinid fishes (common carp, tench, grass carp, black carp) as invaders in North America via ecological niche modeling (ENM). These “carp” represent four stages of invasion of the continent (a long-established invader with a wide distribution, a long-established invader with a limited distribution, a spreading invader whose distribution is expanding, and a newly introduced potential invader that is not yet established), and as such illustrate the progressive reduction of distributional disequilibrium over the history of species' invasions.We used ENM to estimate the potential distributional area for each species in North America using models based on native range distribution data. Environmental data layers for native and introduced ranges were imported from state, national, and international climate and environmental databases. Models were evaluated using independent validation data on native and invaded areas. We calculated omission error for the independent validation data for each species: all native range tests were highly successful (all omission values <7%); invaded-range predictions were predictive for common and grass carp (omission values 8.8 and 19.8%, respectively). Model omission was high for introduced tench populations (54.7%), but the model correctly identified some areas where the species has been successful; distributional predictions for black carp show that large portions of eastern North America are at risk.ENMs predicted potential ranges of carp species accurately even in regions where the species have not been present until recently. ENM can forecast species' potential geographic ranges with reasonable precision and within the short screening time required by proposed U.S. invasive species legislation