Progress 08/15/12 to 08/14/15
Outputs
Target Audience:
Nothing Reported
Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral participation in all phases of the project including co-authorship and presentation at professional society events. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The climatologic and research network sites data are available in near real time on the project's web site. Publications are available on or linked to via the Program's web site, and additionally through the scientific peer review process and presentations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The climatological network maintained a data collection rate of at least 95% across the network, despite some challenges. These include loss of personnel and/or their availability at remote sites, due to staffing cutbacks and/or funding reductions at the universities and agencies which host sites. This causes lengthy delays (outages) before someone can get to the site and provide troubleshooting assistance. In addition, the 'rural call completion' problem is impacting the more remote sites, causing additional loss of data collection. To reduce the impact of these issues we are actively converting to Internet connectivity using a mini-computer array, with 14 sites converted to date. Future work involves expanding this connectivity using wireless and cellular technologies. We have been successful keeping instruments in good repair and replace instruments as needed. During this reporting period we removed the site in Saskatchewan, Canada when the Canadian government decided to close their monitoring site in Regina (plus others throughout their nation) as a cost-cutting measure. We still maintain a site at their Environment Canada headquarters in Toronto, plus the site in New Zealand and 34 climatological and 3 long-term research stations scattered throughout USA. The clear sky algorithm data product has been refined, resulting in much better in-situ Langley calibrations, providing more accurate data. The UV-B server received a major upgrade for increased reliability, shorter wait times, and capability to serve the more sophisticated data and modeling products. The crop effects research and climate-crop modeling components continue to jointly progress toward the goal of the Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System, which is structured around the five crops of cotton, corn, soybean, wheat and rice, and also includes developing an economic module for agricultural impacts. The climate-crop modeling section has essentially completed development, evaluation and publication of the cotton module for the Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System, showing a -/+10% correlation between measured and modeled yields. Significant progress has been made incorporating satellite and other remote sensing datasets into the climate-crop interface of the climate model (CWRF) and the crop model (GOSSYM). Work on modules for the other four crops is on-going. Researchers at the University of Maryland report the improved CWRF is state-of-the-science model capable of ensemble prediction and system optimization for general applications at a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. These advances justify initial release of CWRF for community use (http://cwrf.umd.edu). Additional research explores using the DayCent-Photo model in climate-crop modeling efforts, enhancing the solar UV radiation module to simulate dry, high UV, environments. Within the crop effects research section, researchers at Mississippi State University, using computer-controlled outdoor growth chambers (SPAR), have successfully developed growth, yield and other parameters associated with cotton (with/without UV-B stress) which are input variables into crop modeling algorithms. Crops grow slowly, only a few parameters can be studied during any growing season, so it takes years to accumulate data for all necessary parameters. Similar work continues with the other four crops. One study assessed effects of UV-B irradiation on physiology, life history, DNA and behavior of blind non-pigmented soil-dwelling collembolan Folsomia candida. Adult F. candida were reared in darkness and exposed to light with no UV-B, low UV-B or high UV-B. Though F. candida avoided light when given the option, animals were more likely to venture into lighted regions with no UV-B and experienced higher mortality rates than in regions with high or low UV-B. Eggs were laid preferentially in the dark, with fewer total eggs observed in habitat with the highest UV-B. DNA repair was not evident in animals that returned to the dark after a brief intense UV-B irradiation. Spatiotemporal correlation analyses found increasing trend of UV-B closely related to declining trend of total ozone over the US between 1980 and 2002, though annual fluctuations of UV-B were not completely coincident with changes in total ozone. Although UV-B and total cloud amount did decrease in some local areas, increasing trend of aerosols was offset by decrease in total ozone over the same time period. Northern areas with decreased UV-B were highly associated with areas of increased total cloud amount and aerosol index. Total ozone reduction fueled increasing UV-B trend, whereas increase in aerosols and total cloud amount resulted in concurrent, collective fluctuations at the peak of total ozone reduction. In the past 22 years, while ozone decreased and aerosols increased across the US, UV-B decrease in northern states was consistent with an increase in aerosols and total cloud amount. To some extent, trend characteristics of UV-B over the US between 1980 and 2002 were simultaneously affected by such dominant factors as total ozone and by such auxiliary factors as aerosol and total cloud amount. Climate change impact resulting in higher total cloud amount in northern states might result in lower UV-B in the future. Changes in weather conditions will have substantial impacts on agricultural production and productivity. Among environmental stresses, drought and temperature are the two most important affecting crop production globally. Quantitative functional relationships between temperature and fiber quality are needed to improve predictive capability of cotton models. In one study, temperature effects on cotton growth and development and fiber quality parameters were quantified under optimum water and nutrient conditions under a sunlit environment similar to field conditions. Fiber parameters of interest to the textile industry were altered by temperature. Optimum temperature for fiber length was 22°C and declined at the low and high temperatures, with decline in fiber length at high temperatures greater than at low temperature. Fiber strength increased linearly with temperature. The resulting improved cotton models provide for optimizing production decisions such as planting dates for maximum yield and optimum fiber quality and also assist natural resource management and policy decisions with respect to cotton production. Distributions of invasive species are commonly predicted with species distribution models using statistical relationships between observed species presence data and climate data. One study used ?eld observations, climate station data, and Maximum Entropy species distribution models for 13 invasive plant species in the US, and then compared the models with inputs from a General Circulation Model (GCM) and a downscaled Regional Climate Model (RCM). Also compared were species distributions based on either GCM or RCM models for the present (1990-1999) to the future (2046-2055). RCM species distribution models replicated observed distributions remarkably better than GCM models for all invasive species under current climate. Correlative species distribution models based solely on species presence and climatic factors at coarse scales are a ?rst step in forecasting effects of climate change on species distributions. When combined with a careful long-term monitoring program, preliminary species distribution models are essential for identifying potential leading and trailing edges of invasions, and the dominant environmental factors associated with species presence, abundance, and persistence. Future research will focus on these many interacting factors at ?ner spatial scales.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Gao, Z., J. Ning, R. Shi, W. Gao. 2013. Analysis trends of ultraviolet B fluxes in the continental US with USDA and TOMS data. Proc. SPIE 8869, Remote Sensing and Modeling of Ecosystems for Sustainability X, 88690I (September 24, 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2021250
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Liu, S., X.Z. Liang, W. Gao, T.J. Stohlgren. 2014. Regional climate model downscaling may improve the prediction of alien plant species distributions. Frontiers of Earth Science, 8(4): 457-471, DOI: 10.1007/s11707-014-0457-4
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Lokhande, S. and K.R. Reddy. 2014. Quantifying Temperature Effects on Cotton Reproductive Efficiency and Fiber Quality, Agronomy Journal, 106:12751282 doi:10.2134/agronj13.0531
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Progress 08/15/13 to 08/14/14
Outputs
Target Audience:
Nothing Reported
Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral participation in all phases of the project including co-authorship and presentation at professional society events. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The climatologic and research network sites data are available in near real time on the project's web site. Publications are available on or linked to via the Program's web site, and additionally through the scientific peer review process and presentations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We plan to continue the progress resulting from 20 years of diligent project management: maintain a high-quality data collection network and enhance the state-of-the-art climate-crop modeling ensemble for use by decision makers. This entails the continuation of collaborations with Mississippi State University, supported by UVMRP, for use of their computer-controlled outdoor growth chambers to parameterize the growing conditions of the five crops (cotton, corn, soybean, wheat, and rice) selected for the Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System. Plus continue the collaborations with the University of Maryland, supported by UVMRP, for use of their supercomputing resources to restructure and recode the climate-crop models that are vital to development of the Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System, including economic impacts. For the climatological network, continue with periodic visits to our instrument sites to perform necessary maintenance and refresh the collaborations with site operators and data users, both of which are necessary to preserve a very high data collection rate.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The climatological network maintained a data collection rate of at least 95% across the entire network, and has continued to repair and replace instruments as needed. Since 1992 the UVMRP has been operating the only remaining network of nationwide surface monitoring of UV-B irradiance. The crop effects research and climate-crop modeling components have continued to jointly make progress toward the goal of the Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System, which is structured around the five crops of cotton, corn, soybean, wheat and rice. In addition, work is continuing on development of the Regional Climate–Weather Research and Forecasting model CWRF. The goal of the CWRF development has been to achieve a regional modeling system that can be applied seamlessly to weather forecast and climate prediction as well as to climate impacts assessment at regional–local scales. The CWRF has been built on three main principles, emphasizing: 1) an extension of WRF to capitalize on the broad community efforts for all weather forecast functionalities while enhancing credible climate prediction capabilities; 2) a capability to use a grand ensemble of alternative schemes for key physical processes and their interactions to improve predictive skills through optimization against observations while providing robust uncertainty estimates; and 3) a service capability to provide impact-relevant information, including terrestrial hydrology, coastal ocean, crop growth, ecosystem, air quality, and water quality. The resulting CWRF is the state-of-the-science model that incorporates a comprehensive collection of interactive physics configurations fully exchangeable and capable of ensemble prediction and system optimization for general applications at a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. The advances in both physics formulations and predictive skills documented above justify the initial release of CWRF for community use (http://cwrf.umd.edu). One study assessed the effects of UV-B irradiation on the physiology, life history, DNA, and behavior of the blind non-pigmented soil-dwelling collembolan Folsomia candida (Willem). In three sets of controlled laboratory studies, adult F. candida were reared in darkness and exposed to light with no UV-B (?ltered), low UV-B or high UV-B (weighted irradiance energy of 3.12 mW/m2 and 22.1 mW/m2, respectively). Study I investigated UV-B impacts on mortality, egg viability, and egg development time of F. candida under continual exposure. Study II assessed the movement patterns, mortality, egg production and fecundity of adult F. candida in response to UV-B exposure within choice environments. Study III determined the degree of UV-B induced DNA damage (thymine dimer formation) on F. candida and sub- sequent DNA repair. Continuous irradiation resulted in increased mortality, under high and low UV-B conditions compared to controls. Consistent with other studies on the impact of light on collembola, we found that F. candida avoided light when given the option. Though preferring darkness, animals were more likely to venture into lighted regions with no UV-B (?ltered) and experienced higher mortality rates than in regions with high or low UV-B. Eggs were laid preferentially in the dark, with fewer total eggs observed in the habitat with the highest UV-B. We further demonstrated that UV-B induced the formation of thymine dimers in a dose dependent manner. DNA repair was not evident in animals that had returned to the dark after a brief intense UV-B irradiation. These ?ndings indicate that UV-B exposure and exposure to longer wavelengths of light has both lethal and sub-lethal effects on F. candida that can adversely affect its survival. UVMRP is continuing work to develop and add an economic modeling module to assess the effects of changing crop environmental conditions and estimate potential crop losses for various regions and nationally. This component is examining factors such as: 1) altered management regimes, 2) overall losses in US cotton production, 3) changes in numbers of cotton producers, 4) effects on cotton processing industries, 5) impacts on rural communities that rely on cotton crops, 6) implications of changing policies such as water use, and 7) the counterbalancing economic impacts of improved crop varieties or other efficiency advances.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Liang, X.-Z. M. Xu, X. Yuan, T. Ling, H.I. Choi, F. Zhang, L. Chen, S. Liu, S. Su, F. Qiao, Y.X. He, J.X.L. Wang, K.E. Kunkel, W. Gao, E. Joseph, V. Morris, T.-W. Yu, J. Dudhia, and J. Michalakes., 2012 Regional ClimateWeather Research and Forecasting Model. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 93, 13631387, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00180.1
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Guy W. Beresford, Greg Selby, John C Moore., 2013, Lethal and sub-lethal effects of UV-B radiation exposure on the collembolan Folsomia candida (Willem) in the laboratory. Pedobiologia - International Journal of Soil Biology, 56 (2013) 8995
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Progress 08/15/12 to 08/14/13
Outputs
Target Audience:
Nothing Reported
Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral participation in all phases of the project including co-authorship and presentation at professional society events. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The climatologic and research network sites data are available in near real time on the project’s web site. Publications are available on or linked to via the Program’s web site, and additionally through the scientific peer review process and presentations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We plan to continue the progress resulting from 20 years of diligent project management: maintain a high-quality data collection network and enhance the state-of-the-art climate-crop modeling ensemble for use by decision makers. This entails the continuation of collaborations with Mississippi State University, supported by UVMRP, for use of their computer-controlled outdoor growth chambers to parameterize the growing conditions of the five crops (cotton, corn, soybean, wheat, and rice) selected for the Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System. Plus continue the collaborations with the University of Maryland, supported by UVMRP, for use of their supercomputing resources to restructure and recode the climate-crop models that are vital to development of the Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System, including economic impacts. For the climatological network, continue with periodic visits to our instrument sites to perform necessary maintenance and refresh the collaborations with site operators and data users, both of which are necessary to preserve a very high data collection rate.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The climatological network maintained a data collection rate of at least 95% across the entire network, and has continued to repair and replace instruments as needed. The crop effects research and climate-crop modeling components have continued to jointly make progress toward the goal of the Integrated Agricultural Impact Assessment System, which is structured around the five crops of cotton, corn, soybean, wheat and rice. Researchers at Mississippi State University, supported by UVMRP, evaluated the need for changing farm management practices in this era of global climate change. Climate change is all about increased temperatures, altered precipitation regimes and more recurrent frequency of extreme events which will likely induce a geographical shift of major field crops farming. The practices of ecological (organic) agriculture, diversity farming, optimization of farm mechanization and reduction of post-harvest losses become the key components for maintaining farm productivity. Of these, diversity farming is the single most important modern technology to achieve food security in a changing climate. Recent research on large-scale rice farming demonstrated that simple agronomic measures such as mixing varieties reduced the severity of rice blast (a major disease of rice) by 94% and increased yield by 89%, and reported that disease-susceptible rice varieties planted with resistant varieties had an 89% greater yield than when they were grown as monoculture. Genetic diversity within a field provides not only a buffer against losses caused by environmental change, pests and diseases but also the resilience needed for reliable and stable long-term food production. Variety mixtures that are tolerant to drought and flood not only increase productivity but also prevent soil erosion and desertification, increase soil organic matter and help stabilize slopes. Benefits for farmers include reducing the need for costly pesticides, receiving price premiums for valued traditional varieties and improving dietary diversity and health. Even if adaptation to climate changes does not imply an entirely new mix of crops, many producers will benefit from new crops and varieties as they diversify their production portfolios to stabilize their revenue in the face of more volatile conditions. However, climate risks are only one aspect influencing farmers’ decisions, which involve many other socioeconomic and market considerations. Diversifying farm activities and income sources with fundamental changes in farm structures and additional investments may become necessary. Many environmental factors, such as stratospheric ozone, aerosols, and clouds, may affect ultraviolet (UV) irradiance. One recent study analyzed ultraviolet-B fluxes in the Continental US to investigate a potential association between UV-B radiation and total cloud amount, ozone, and aerosols simultaneously. Spatiotemporal correlation analyses were conducted with a geographic information system (GIS) using data collected from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP). Although the increasing trend of UV-B was closely related to the declining trend of total ozone over the US between 1980 and 2002, annual fluctuations of UV-B were not completely coincident with changes in total ozone. Given that the cloud optical thickness is an important factor when retrieving the UV Index using TOMS data, such annual fluctuations of UV-B were caused by some additional effects such as aerosols and total cloud amount. The overall ozone reduction led to an increase in UV-B, as the increasing aerosols and changes in total cloud amount resulted in concurrent, collective fluctuations at the peak of the increasing trend in UV-B. Although the UV-B and total cloud amount did decrease in some local areas, the increasing trend of aerosols was offset by the decrease in total ozone over the same time period. The northern areas with decreased UV-B (the northern parts of the Pacific West, Mountain, West North Central, and East North Central regions) were highly associated with areas of increased total cloud amount and aerosol index. The total ozone reduction fueled the increasing UV-B trend, whereas increases in aerosols and total cloud amount resulted in concurrent, collective fluctuations at the peak of the total ozone reduction. Findings indicate that in the past 22 years, while ozone decreased and aerosols increased across the US, the UV-B decrease in the northern states was consistent with an increase in aerosols and total cloud amount. Therefore, to some extent, the trend characteristics of UV-B over the US between 1980 and 2002 were simultaneously affected by such dominant factors as total ozone and by such auxiliary factors as aerosol and total cloud amount. Climate change impact resulting in higher total cloud amount in the northern states might result in lower UV-B in the future.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Singh, R.P. and K.R. Reddy. 2013. Impact of climate change and farm management. Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability 1: 53-72
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Gao, Z.Q., W. Gao, N.B. Chang. 2012. Spatial Statistical Analyses of Global Trends of Ultraviolet B Fluxes in the Continental United States. GIScience & Remote Sensing, 49(5): 735754
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