Author
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Hanson, Clayton |
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JOHNSON, GREG - USDA-ARS |
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Submitted to: Society for Range Management Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 2/14/1997 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Rangeland and natural resource management decisions require a variety of climatic information that can be used for specific applications such as hydrologic modeling, forage yield estimates, frost free periods, etc. Often weather and climate data requirements are greater than the available information because climatic records are either unavailable or very short. To address the need for readily-available climate data for specific locations, a new, stochastic climate simulation model has been developed which delivers accurate time series of daily or higher temporal resolution weather data. The model, known as GEM (Generation of weather Elements for Multiple applications), was built upon stochastic climate modeling work by several ARS researchers over the past 20 years. At present, GEM delivers a daily time series of maximum and minimum temperature, precipitation amount, and solar radiation. Major improve- ments to GEM now under development include: (1) a method of spatially distributing the necessary parameters for GEM which means representative weather scenarios can be developed for any location, even in regions where no long-term climatic data exists; (2) methods for generation of other weather elements, such as wind and humidity; and (3) methods of temporally desegregating daily values into hourly or finer time steps. |
