
Joseph BarsugliUniversity of Colorado Boulder | CUB · Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)
Joseph Barsugli
Doctor of Philosophy
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108
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Publications (108)
As climate attribution studies have become more common, routine processes are now being established for attribution analysis following extreme events. This study describes the prototype process being developed through a collaboration across National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including monitoring tools as well as observational a...
Robust projections and predictions of climate variability and change, particularly at regional scales, rely on the driving processes being represented with fidelity in model simulations. Consequently, the role of enhanced horizontal resolution in improved process representation in all components of the climate system continues to be of great intere...
Extreme precipitation events are projected to increase in frequency across much of the land‐surface as the global climate warms, but such projections have typically relied on coarse‐resolution (100–250 km) general circulation models (GCMs). The ensemble of HighResMIP GCMs presents an opportunity to evaluate how a more finely resolved atmosphere and...
Future global increases in the duration and severity of hydrologic drought present an emerging challenge for water resource management. However, projected changes to drought within global climate models are often complex, including potentially co‐occurring changes to the timing, duration, and severity of drought. Here, we apply a storyline approach...
NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) has generated a 100‐member ensemble of atmospheric model simulations from 1979 to present using the Global Forecast System version 15 (GFSv15) with FV3 dynamical core. The intent of this study is to document a development in an infrastructure capability with a focus to demonstrate the quality of these new simula...
In fall 2022 the Task Force organized a two-part workshop on Leveraging Earth System Science and Modeling to Inform Civil Engineering Design focused on three climatic hazards and one region of relevance to engineering practice. Part I of the workshop addressed extreme temperature and intense rainfall, and part II addressed straight-line winds and c...
A cooling trend in summer (May–August) daytime temperatures since the mid-twentieth century over the central United States contrasts with strong warming of the western and eastern United States. Prior studies based on data through 1999 suggested that this so-called warming hole arose mainly from internal climate variability and thus would likely di...
Assessing changes in future aridity requires an understanding of variations in the atmospheric demand for water. Such assessments are often driven by estimations of potential evapotranspiration (ETP) and/or reference evapotranspiration (ET0), yet no comprehensive and validated estimate of these climate metrics exists to date from the Coupled Model...
NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) has generated a 100-member ensemble of Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) simulations from 1979 to present using the GFSv15 with FV3 dynamical core. The intent of this study is to document a development in an infrastructure capability with a focus to demonstrate the quality of these new simulations...
We identify physical factors leading to extreme wet winters over the contiguous U.S. and examine whether preconditions operated during winter 2019 (December 2018 to February 2019) when record precipitation occurred that led to billion-dollar flood disasters along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Models and observations are used to determine the...
Observed United States trends in the annual maximum 1-day precipitation (RX1day) over the last century consist of 15% - 25% increases over the East and 10% decreases over the Far West. This heterogeneous trend pattern departs from comparatively uniform observed increases in precipitable water over the contiguous U.S. Here we use an event attributio...
Future reduction in mountain snowpack due to anthropogenic climate change poses a threat to many snow‐adapted species worldwide. Mountain topography exerts a strong control on snowpack not only due to elevation but also through the effect of slope and aspect on the surface energy balance. We develop high‐resolution projections of snowpack in order...
Monthly tropical sea surface temperature (SST) data are used as predictors to make statistical forecasts of cold season (November-March) precipitation and temperature for the contiguous United States. Through the use of the “combined-lead sea surface temperature” (CLSST) model, predictive information is discovered not just in recent SSTs but also f...
Loss of sunlight-reflecting snow spurs evaporation and ebbs river flow
Both infrastructure and the primary and secondary effects of climate change on river hydrology and water temperature can affect salmonid populations and other NOAA trust species. Management actions, including those proscribed in fish passage design and the design and operation of hydropower dams, provide the opportunity to build resilience to clima...
Upper Colorado River basin streamflow has declined by roughly 20% over the last century of the instrumental period, based on estimates of naturalized flow above Lees Ferry. Here we assess factors causing the decline and evaluate the premise that rising surface temperatures have been mostly responsible. We use an event attribution framework involvin...
Global and national climate assessments are comprehensive, authoritative sources of information about observed and projected climate changes and their impacts on society. These assessments follow well-known, accepted procedures to create credible, legitimate, salient sources of information for policy- and decision-making, build capacity for action,...
Understanding Historical Changes in the Flow of the Colorado River; Boulder, Colorado, 24–25 September 2018
This report is an attachment to the comments of the NOAA National Marine Fisheries service on the Brookfield White Pine Hydro, LLC’s Notice of Intent to File a License Application to FERC and Filing of Pre-Application Document for the Hiram Project (P - 2530)
Forecasts by mid-2015 for a strong El Niño during winter 2015/16 presented an exceptional scientific opportunity to accelerate advances in understanding and predictions of an extreme climate event and its impacts while the event was ongoing. Seizing this opportunity, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initiated an El Niño Ra...
Overview: This study is a fine-scale assessment of snow extent and depth for two areas within and surrounding Glacier and Rocky Mountain National Parks. The analysis was done for both the recent past, using MODIS satellite-based remote sensing, and in historic simulations and projections of future snowpack using a high-resolution hydrologic model....
Several studies have projected increases in drought severity, extent and duration in many parts of the world under climate change. We examine sources of uncertainty arising from the methodological choices for the assessment of future drought risk in the continental US (CONUS). One such uncertainty is in the climate models’ expression of evaporative...
Stations from the NOAA cooperative observer network with pan evaporation data used to extend the dataset originally compiled by Hobbins (2004).
(DOCX)
Identifying the climatic drivers of an ecological system is a key step in assessing its vulnerability to climate change. The climatic dimensions to which a species or system is most sensitive – such as means or extremes – can guide methodological decisions for projections of ecological impacts and vulnerabilities. However, scientific workflows for...
The Glacier and Runoff Changes (GRC) Study determination from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Dispute Resolution (April 26, 2013) requires for the literature review as "described in Revised Study Plan (RSP) section 7.7.4.1." The RSP describes the literature review method: to summarize the current understanding of the rate and trend...
The Commission-approved Study Plan for the Project does not order evaluation of the Project's effects in the light of future climate change. NMFS proposes this new information collection or study according to the regulations implementing the ILP, 18 C.F.R. § 5.15 (e), for good cause. Significant new information, material to the study objectives has...
High-Resolution Climate Modeling in the Northern Great Plains; Boulder, Colorado, 24–25 September 2015
Climate change poses major challenges for conservation and management because it alters the area, quality, and spatial distribution of habitat for natural populations. To assess species' vulnerability to climate change and target ongoing conservation investments, researchers and managers often consider the effects of projected changes in climate an...
Foodborne diseases have large economic and societal impacts worldwide. To evaluate how the risks of foodborne diseases might change in response to climate change, credible and usable climate information tailored to the specific application question is needed. Global Climate Model (GCM) data generally need to, both, be downscaled to the scales of th...
What is EDDI? EDDI, which stands for Evaporative Demand Drought Index, is a drought index that can serve as an indicator of both rapidly evolving "flash" droughts (developing over a few weeks) and sustained droughts (developing over months but lasting up to years). Why use EDDI? EDDI has been shown to offer early warning of drought stress relative...
In recent decades, computational hydrology has trended toward higher‐resolution distributed models of the land surface. The accuracy of these models is limited, by uncertainty in distributed precipitation forcings. In this research, different precipitation distribution schemes were compared through inter‐station transfer experiments, as well as wit...
This report is a synthesis of climate science relevant for management and planning for Colorado’s water resources. It focuses on observed climate trends, climate modeling, and projections of temperature, precipitation, snowpack, and streamflow. Climate projections are reported for the mid-21st century because this time frame is the focus of adaptat...
A primary goal of the National Climate Predictions and Projections (NCPP) platform is to develop an extensive set of standardized and interoperable evaluation tools to examine the efficacy of various regional climate downscaling techniques. To this end, a highly efficient NCL-based evaluation and comparison engine has been developed to compute peri...
Suppose you are a city planner, regional water manager, or wildlife conservation specialist who is asked to include the potential impacts of climate variability and change in your risk management and planning efforts. What climate information would you use? The choice is often regional or local climate projections downscaled from global climate mod...
The Colorado River provides water to 40 mil-lion people in seven western states and two countries and to 5.5 million irrigated acres. The river has long been over-allocated. Climate models project runoff losses of 5–20 % from the basin by mid-21st century due to human-induced climate change. Recent work has shown that decreased snow albedo from ant...
Precipitation changes between 32-yr periods in the late twentieth and mid-twenty-first centuriesare investigated using regional climatemodel simulations provided by theNorthAmerican Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). The simulations generally indicate drier summers in the futureover most of Colorado and the border regions of the...
A high-resolution case-based approach for dynamically downscaling climate model data is presented. Extreme precipitation events are selected from regional climate model (RCM) simulations of past and future time periods. Each event is further downscaled using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model to storm scale (1.3-km grid spacing). The...
Extreme events can be defined in many ways. Typical definitions of weather and climate extremes consider either the maximum value during a specified time interval (such as season or year) or exceedance of a threshold (the “peaks-over-threshold” [POT] approach), in which universal rather than local thresholds are frequently applied. For example, tem...
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people in seven states
and two countries and to 5.5 million irrigated acres. The river has long
been overallocated. Climate models project runoff losses of 5-20% from
the basin by mid-21st century due to human-induced climate change.
Recent work has shown that decreased snow albedo from anthropogenic...
Dynamical downscaling through regional climate modeling is often used in order to better address the needs of society, aiming to supply projections or predictions to stakeholders and decision-makers at a higher, more useful resolution than that provided by current global climate models. The details of downscaling (e.g., model resolution, domain sel...
Water resource managers share a common challenge in understanding what climate change could mean for future hydroclimate extremes. In order to make decisions about whether to invest in adaptation measures today or to wait for more convincing information, it is critical that managers understand the uncertainties of projecting changes in extremes. Un...
Global climate models (GCMs) are the fundamental drivers of regional climate-change projections (IPCC 2007). GCMs allow us to characterize changes in atmospheric circulation associated with human causes at global and continental scales. However, because of the planetary scope of the GCMs, their resolution, or level of detail, is somewhat coarse. A...
This study analyzes mid-21st century projections of daily surface air minimum (Tmin) and maximum (Tmax) temperatures, by season and elevation, over the southern range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The projections are from four regional climate models (RCMs) that are part of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP)....
We perform ensemble simulations using NCAR CAM3.1 T42 forced by
perturbed SST fields to estimate the sensitivity of regional climate
change at seasonal scales to tropical SST anomalies. We compare the
sensitivity and linear reconstruction of regional climate change to
tropical SST anomalies from the patch method and the random perturbation
method (...
Water utilities are increasingly incorporating climate change in their planning activities. A water manager embarking on such a study is often confronted with a large range of climate model projections and the need to incorporate this new source of uncertain information into existing management and operations models. This article discusses these tw...
The effect of a warming climate on hailstorm frequency and intensity is largely unknown. Global climate models have too coarse resolution to simulate hailstorms explicitly; thus it is unclear if a warmer climate will change hailstorm frequency and intensity, and if so, whether such events will become more likely through intensified thunderstorms or...
During the last five decades, the Tibetan Plateau has experienced a
warming trend of 0.4C/decade in winter, which is at least twice that of
any other season. Some studies have suggested that this anomalous winter
warming there is caused, in part, by the observed increases in lower
atmospheric water vapor and its amplifying effect on the surface
dow...
Water resource managers share a common challenge in understanding what
climate change could mean for future hydroclimate extremes.
Understanding the uncertainty of projected changes in extremes is
critical to making decisions about whether to invest in adaptation
measures today or delay until more credible information becomes
available. Uncertainti...
The Colorado River provides water to 27 million people in seven states
and two countries but is overallocated by more than 10% of the river's
historical mean. Climate models project runoff losses of 7-20% from the
basin in this century due to human-induced climate change. Recent work
has shown that decreased snow albedo from anthropogenic
disturban...
Regional climate simulations from general circulation models (GCM) are
subject to uncertainties from internal variability, external forcing and
the model differences. Because changes in tropical SST patterns are a
primary driver of the regional climate change over both tropical and
extratropical regions, we first examine the sensitivity of the regi...
Prediction of regional climate change includes uncertainties due to
internal variability, external forcing, and model errors. One goal of
this work is to assess regional predictions from different models by
separating the uncertainty from the different sources. Specifically, we
aim to quantify the regional model response for atmospheric GCMs to SST...
Dynamical downscaling of climate model data is an increasingly popular
way to link projected changes in large-scale climate to changes in
weather at regional and local scales. The details of downscaling (e.g.,
model resolution, domain selection, model physics) become even more
important when dealing with extreme weather phenomena, as such events
ar...
One of the challenges inherent to understanding the effect of global
climate change on precipitation extremes is the mismatch of scale.
Climate models simulate large-scale patterns of long-term change, while
weather models generally diagnose small-scale weather phenomena such as
extreme rainfall. Therefore, understanding the potential effects of
gl...
This is a simple study that attempts to accomplish a decomposition of
variance among emissions scenario, model, and internal variability for
precipitation extremes, analogous to what Hawkins and Sutton's work did
for temperature and precipitation mean changes. Working with the CMIP3
multi model archive as a template for CMIP5 analysis, and proceedi...
Dynamical downscaling of climate model data is an increasingly popular way to link potential changes in the large-scale climate pattern to discernible weather at regional and local scales. Downscaling is often performed in order to better address the needs of society, seeking to supply projections or predictions to stakeholders at a scale that may...
Mountain regions are not realistically represented in the current global climate models (GCMs). The Colorado Rocky Mountains, for example, have a maximum elevation of about 8,000 ft in most GCMs. From a water resource perspective, most of the annual base flow in the Colorado River occurs from the snowpack above 8,000 ft. Therefore, it is expected t...
Understanding extreme precipitation events is of critical importance to many meteorological, hydrological, and societal applications, particularly in the mountainous terrain of the western US. As many of the environmental factors that drive precipitation generation are predicted to change in future warming climate scenarios, understanding and commu...