HR: 1340h
AN: U53A-0702    [Abstracts]
TI: Climate Mapping Challenges in Mountainous Regions
AU: * Daly, C
EM: daly@coas.oregonstate.edu
AF: Spatial Climate Analysis Service, Oregon State University, 326 Strand Agriculture Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 United States
AU: Gibson, W P
EM: gibson@coas.oregonstate.edu
AF: Spatial Climate Analysis Service, Oregon State University, 326 Strand Agriculture Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 United States
AU: Taylor, G H
EM: taylor@coas.oregonstate.edu
AF: Spatial Climate Analysis Service, Oregon State University, 326 Strand Agriculture Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 United States
AU: Doggett, M K
EM: mdoggett@coas.oregonstate.edu
AF: Spatial Climate Analysis Service, Oregon State University, 326 Strand Agriculture Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331 United States
AB: Mountainous regions encompass some of the most complex climates in the world. The presence of major topographic features, sometimes interacting with coastal effects, creates a myriad of spatially complex precipitation and temperature regimes. Typically, only a small number of these regimes are well-represented by surface observations. Therefore, producing accurate climate maps for these regions can be quite challenging. PRISM, a knowledge-based climate mapping system, was originally developed in 1991 to map precipitation in the mountainous western United States. Since then, it has been both generalized and refined to model more climate variables and address more climatological processes, and its use has expanded worldwide. Model improvements have come primarily as a result of lessons learned through repeated applications of the model and peer-review of the results. This paper will survey some of the major climatological processes driving temperature and precipitation patterns in mountainous regions, and how PRISM accommodates these processes. These include elevational gradients, rain shadows, coastal influences, temperature inversions, cold air drainage, and the varying orographic effectiveness of terrain features. Specific case studies will be drawn from Oregon, California, Colorado, and other locations.
UR: http://www.ocs.oregonstate.edu/prism/
DE: 9350 North America
DE: 4805 Biogeochemical cycles (1615)
DE: 3210 Modeling
DE: 1655 Water cycles (1836)
DE: 1863 Snow and ice (1827)
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting