From the University of Cincinnati: UC Geographers Develop a System to Track the Dynamics of Drought
Detecting drought before it causes more catastrophe: the news could go down like a cool drink of water for regions feeling the heat.
UC ingot University of Cincinnati researchers are at work tracking drought patterns across the United States. Qiusheng Wu, a doctoral student and research assistant for the UC Department of Geography, and Hongxing Liu, a UC professor and head of the Department of Geography, will present details this week at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Tampa, Fla.
To trace the dynamics around agricultural drought, the UC researchers implemented an Event-based Spatial-Temporal Data Model (ESTDM) to detect, track and monitor conditions. The framework organizes data into objects, sequences, processes and events.
The data was collected from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite, which was the first of its kind dedicated to measure moisture near the surface of the soil. The study focused on four years of data (2010-2014), which included the devastating Texas drought in 2011 and the 2014 California drought.
The satellite uses an L-band (1.4 Ghz) passive microwave radiometer to analyze the spatial and temporal variations of soil moisture and ocean salinity. “Recent studies have shown that many historical drought events in the U.S. are closely related to La Niña, a phenomenon known for its periodic cooling of sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean. So in addition to measuring soil moisture for drought monitoring, it is also important to measure ocean salinity,” explains Wu.
The satellite can penetrate the Earth’s surface up to 5 centimeters, providing a soil variable for each pixel, which represents 25 kilometers. The satellite’s data collection occurred over a three-day rotation.
The researchers were examining patterns of spreading drought to develop predictions for future drought events.
“Soil moisture is defined as the ratio between volume of water and volume of soil holding the water, which is expressed in percentages, so high soil moisture indicates wet while low soil moisture indicates dry.
“By studying the soil moisture data from the satellite, we can see where the droughts begin and end, and what might indicate patterns of how it can spread over one large area. The pattern might be used to predict the drought in another location, so that those areas could take precautions to avoid the impact of an oncoming drought,” says Wu.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – known as the leading international organization for the assessment of climate change – predicted in 2012 that droughts would intensify in some seasons and in many regions worldwide in the future due to reduced precipitation and/or increased evapotranspiration.
“Drought ranks among the most costly of all natural disasters. It has wide-ranging impacts on many sectors of society, affecting agriculture, economics, ecosystems services, energy, human health, recreation and water resources. By predicting the timing, severity and movement of drought events, we can provide fundamental information for planning and management in developing a response plan,” says Wu.
Future research will involve data gathered from a satellite that NASA is launching toward the end of the year, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite. The SMAP satellite integrates an L-band radar (1.26 GHz) and an L-band (1.41 GHz) radiometer as a single observation system combining the relative strengths of active and passive remote sensing for enhances soil moisture mapping. The combined radar-radiometer-based soil moisture product will be generated at about an intermediate 9-km resolution with three-day global revisit frequency. Wu says the accuracy, resolution and global coverage of SMAP soil moisture and freeze/thaw measurements would be invaluable across many science and applications disciplines including hydrology, climate and carbon cycle, and the meteorological, environmental and ecology applications communities.
The Association of American Geographers (AAG) is a nonprofit scientific and educational society that is dedicated to the advancement of geography. The meeting will feature more than 4,500 presentations, posters, workshops and field trips by leading scholars, experts and researchers. The AAG annual meeting has been held every year since the association’s founding in 1904.
I’m with you, Jimbo (2:54pm).
*******************************************
And kind regards to you, too, Mr. Istvan!
You and I have not only (to the small degree my little set of farming knowledge intersects with yours) soil (wrote “dirt” first, then thought, “No.”) in common, but a good deal of our education and also… dairy farming (well, sort of — I’m friends with some Washington dairy farmers — tough business, these days). Oh, and a looong time ago, my great-great-grandparents lived in Wisconsin. WUWT is a fascinating place… .
Nice “talking” with you,
Janice
MaxLD says:
April 9, 2014 at 2:34 pm
I will give these folks the benefit of the doubt
====
Well I won’t….they are going to predict droughts…when it could flood tomorrow
So you’ll end up with a lot of idiots preparing for a drought they can’t predict.
How about stop this BS and spend the money on preparing for a flood, normal, or drought?
….which is the real problem
“The pattern might be used to predict the drought in another location, so that those areas could take precautions to avoid the impact of an oncoming drought,” says Wu.
Unfortunately, this same prediction will also be used by governments to take in more taxes and fees and more loss of freedoms.. Imagine, as soon as a prediction is made for a drought somewhere, up go the water rates and restrictions even before it starts. On top of that, without even knowing for sure if there will be a drought of any significance, or how long it will last. In theory sounds like a great idea, but in the hands of the government…. guaranteed to be a bad idea.
It would be WAY better to just build more dams and lakes so you can weather the occasional droughts that come along. This to me makes way more sense that putting in place a mechanism so that the government can just increase fees and fines and impose harsh water restrictions even before a drought starts. If you have all of the things in place to handle a drought when they come along (like dams and sensible water management) then I’m all for this type of research. But, if the only preparation for droughts is to enact fees, restrictions and fines as soon as the computer models says so… not a chance.
Here is what happens when you give them the benefit of the doubt. You waste billions of dollars for nothing.
We were told to prepare for permanent drought in Australia by Flannery & Co.. Billions were spend on desalination plants. Australia subsequently received Biblical floods of ‘unprecedented’ proportions with inland seas and dams full to overflowing. Desalination plants were mothballed, billions wasted. Australian children weren’t supposed to know what floods are.
http://theconversation.edu.au/climate-and-floods-flannery-is-no-expert-but-neither-are-the-experts-5709
http://www.csiro.au/Organisation-Structure/Divisions/Marine–Atmospheric-Research/AustralianRainfallFuture.aspx
http://www.theage.com.au/national/its-not-drought-its-climate-change-say-scientists-20090829-f3cd.html#ixzz1exV8ooUb
MaxLD, you earlier said
I hope I have convinced you that we should “do nothing” when they tell us what to do and just do what we have always done – adapted to changes in climate when we are convinced of permanent change. Sceptics were never convinced by the Australia permanent drought claims and we were right. Short-term alarmism leads to big time expenditure and a waste of resources. Is this a good thing?
Remember snowfalls are now just a thing of the past? The UK ran down its grit salt stocks until near calamity struck late with huge snow, ice and frost. Need I go on???
“so high soil moisture indicates wet while low soil moisture indicates dry”
Good thing we have scientists to tell us these things or how would we ever be able to figure this out.
So their hope is that they can predict drought conditions early by measuring soil moisture. But isn’t soil moisture basically just a proxy for rainfall? So their actually measuring long term rainfall through a proxy to try and predict droughts. And we all know how good scientists are at predicting long term rainfall directly, much less through a proxy.
There might be useful information in their research, but predicting droughts so mitigation can be implemented early doesn’t seem to really be a practical result of their research. Practical measure to mitigate a drought basically come down to having water in storage, dams and lakes.
Sure reducing usage helps but it is like saying candles mitigate power outages. They are stop-gap emergency measures, not solutions.
Future research will involve data gathered from a satellite that NASA is launching toward the end of the year, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite. The SMAP satellite integrates an L-band radar (1.26 GHz)
Should be interesting viewing urban areas; between human construction and infrastructure of all types (buildings, roads, bridges, light/lamp posts, transformers, power lines etc.) and vehicle ‘reflections’ there ought to be plenty of glint* coming back at an L-band RADAR …
Perhaps they have ‘modeled’ and can predict the amount of glint and energy from humans in the equation; one can already see in visual imagery the difference between urban and rural areas in the north Tejas area.
.
* glint
Drought and global warming are funny old things.
A cooling world
contains less moisture
Also, as the temperature differential between the poles and equator grows larger due to the cooling from the top, very likely something will also change on earth. Predictably, there would be a small (?) shift of cloud formation and precipitation, more towards the equator, on average. At the equator insolation is 684 W/m2 whereas on average it is 342 W/m2. So, if there are more clouds in and around the equator, this will amplify the cooling effect due to less direct natural insolation of earth (clouds deflect a lot of radiation). Furthermore, in a cooling world there is more likely less moisture in the air, but even assuming equal amounts of water vapour available in the air, a lesser amount of clouds and precipitation will be available for spreading to higher latitudes. So, a natural consequence of global cooling is that at the higher latitudes it will become cooler and/or drier.
To prove that we are globally cooling, you only have o look at my own results….
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
which is currently simply being confirmed by most official global data sets….
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2013/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2013/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2014/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2014/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2002/trend
These comments are strangely negative, perhaps due in part to weak reporting. But Prf. Wu is talking about developing a database to understand, track, and potentially ADAPT to drought conditions. There does not appear to be any WAG modeling going on. He and his team are collecting real world data, though obviously the data will never be perfect. But it’s a good start. Helping communities understand, predict and adapt to drought would go a long way to finding economical solutions to an ever-changing climate and help our society maintain high intensity land use. Seems like good, practical science to me. Isn’t this the kind of research we should be cheering?
All science should contain a healthy dose of skepticism, especially climate science. But should we also be careful not to allow generalized negativity to swing the pendulum too far? I think that makes the regulars on this important blog forum look a little too much anti-science, and that undercuts the important accountability people here are providing and that is so desperately needed within the climate science community. Allowing ourselves to be branded naysayers against all science just provides an easy ad hominem attack to the zealots professing doom. And it is a turn-off to all those luke-warmers out there looking for a deeper understanding of the climate wars. Let’s keep some perspective and avoid putting on the same blinders that led so many climate scientists astray. There is SOME good climate science out there, isn’t there?
I congratulate Prf. Wu and his team at the University of Cincinnati on this practical research. I’m sure more than a few farmers would agree. And maybe, just maybe, this kind of research could provide political leaders in California a counterbalance to the atrocious water management policies developed and implemented by eco-socialists and other ill-informed (if well-meaning) environmentalists that have led inexorably (and predictably) to the desperate water shortages there now.
This will be an outstanding tool, if it works well. Of course it will be used for alarmist spin, but all good tools man has created can be used for evil as well. This should be no exception. Having some ties to agriculture myself I would be thrilled to have a product/dataset that can help me have an outlook and make on the ground decisions about plowing, cost expectations for pumping water, harvesting timelines, where I should haul beehives around the country to to find good flowering forage for the bees. Lots of possibilities. Here’s hoping it works as advertised.
Berényi Péter says:
April 9, 2014 at 10:55 am
“The satellite can penetrate the Earth’s surface up to 5 centimeters
In that case results depend on soil type. For example soil around Hajós, a fair wine district in Hungary, is loess covered by a foot of sand. I am sure the upper 2 inches can get bone dry pretty fast, while there’s still plenty of moisture below.”
Precisely, there are 30 soil groups with subtypes in each group. Differences in clay abundance and type will greatly affect how well the soil holds moisture. Some soil types will therefore always appear dry if only the top 5 cm are measured.
Chris says:
April 10, 2014 at 10:26 am
chuckarama says:
April 10, 2014 at 10:26 am
Both well said. Thanks for some positive rational comments. Negativity feeds upon itself and grows like a cancer. And as you say, it gives the alarmists even more fodder by pointing out the anti-science attitude.
Thanks again!
MaxLD says:
April 10, 2014 at 12:08 pm
Thank you, MaxLD. I don’t often comment, but this comment thread seemed particularly negative and off the mark.
Chris says:
April 10, 2014 at 10:26 am
I couldn’t agree more. I am a long time resident of Ca’s central valley and know first hand how the public policy decisions wrt water are devastating the economy. The water wars here are very real. Their long history stretches back to water agreements made a 100 years ago. While environmental policies carry much of the blame for the current situation, plenty of blame can be placed on farmers who farm crops not suited for the climate ie stone fruit in grasslands, flood irrigation as opposed to newer technologies like drip irrigation. In addition other culprits include municipal water policies that allow for wholesale waste of a precious commodity such as not metering the water being used by households. As an example Fresno just completed installing water meters on all house holds and are now in the process of phasing in paying per unit for the water used by each household as opposed to a flat fee based on the size of the lot. The rest of Ca has been on water meters for decades. The issues are complicated by the natural cycles of drought that Ca has experienced for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Simply attacking the research as bogus or politically motivated really does not do justice to the bulk of commentary on this site. It is the reporters of this research who wrote the byline about “heat”. I don’t think Dr Wu even addresses the causality of the drought situation. Let’s not simply dismiss the research because of assumed motivations. Critique the science, absolutely. Factually and methodically a la Steve McIntyre. Dismiss it because it doesn’t agree with your political opinion? We are really better than that.
Greg says:
April 10, 2014 at 1:09 pm
Good points, Greg. Forgive my ignorance on California’s water history, I’m no expert. I was referring primarily to the Delta Smelt issue and the failure to enhance storage capacity due in part to environmental activists blocking dam building proposals. I’m sure, as you point out, the problem is far more complex. Surely, outdated irrigation systems used by many farmers exacerbate the problem as well as weak municipal water use monitoring. I have read that federal farming subsidies may have inadvertently encouraged farmers to grow water intensive crops and neglect investment in updating irrigation systems? It rings true, as often the hand of government is ham shaped.
Maybe off point a bit. Back to Prf. Wu and the negativity here, Maybe Mr. Watts might elect to highlight again on this blog the importance of avoiding knee-jerk reactions to all things climate science, even where the connection is tenuous? Such ideological dismissals are off-putting and hand back the high ground so hard won.
Chris says: @ur momisugly April 10, 2014 at 10:26 am
These comments are strangely negative….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No, these are the type of comments that should be expected from a public whose trust has been badly abused by scientists with a nasty agenda.
At this point I am calling for ALL federal funding of science AND academia to be cut. They have had their chance and they completely abused our trust. Time to pull the plug.
As far as drought goes. This is a complete waste of money.
1.The amount of water in reservoirs is already closely monitored
2. The amount and timing of rainfall as well as temperature is already recorded
3. Two inches (5 cm) in depth means diddlesquat to plants in terms of moisture.
4. Even the IPCC said you can not predict climate because it is chaotic.
The best you can do is the PDO + AMO drought correlation
There are patterns to the weather and those patterns change. Better to spend the money on studying and identifying those patterns but that will not be done because it says there are natural climate patterns that STILL affect our weather and that would negate CAGW.
As others have said this is just giving the government another stick to beat the public with. We have the 2012 hose pipe ban during a very wet spring in the UK as an example of the idiocy this can produce.