The Tahoe Climate Information Management System (Tahoeclim)

Final ReportAugust 2016

Kelly T. Redmond1,GeoffSchladow2

1Desert Research Institute Reno,NV

2Tahoe Environmental Research Center, UC DavisInclineVillage,NV

Agency Collaborators:Shane Romsos- Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Stateline, NVPatrick Wright- California Tahoe Conservancy, South Lake Tahoe, CA

Project team:Nina Oakley—DRI, web design, development, and outreachGrant Kelly—DRI, Google Map layouts, WRF archiveHauss Reinbold—DRI, Westmap for TahoeMatthewFearon—WRF archive GregMcCurdy—DRI, development of data ingest processesStephanRoss—DRI, assistance in web developmentBillFleenor—UCDavis,REMOTEnetwork data

Thisresearchwassupportedthrough an agreement with the USDA Forest ServicePacificSouthwest ResearchStation usingfunds provided bytheBureauof Land Management through the sale of public lands as authorized by the Southern NevadaPublic Land Management Act (Round10). Thecontributions of the project team aregreatlyappreciated,andwithouttheir effortstheprojectcouldnothavebeen undertaken.

Executive summary:

Thisproject addressed SNPLMA Round 10 Subtheme 3c, understandingbasinmeteorology and the issue of improving access to meteorological data to supportresearch and decision-making in the basin. The main deliverable for this project isawebsite called Tahoeclim (Figure 1; http://tahoeclim.dri.edu/)housedat theDesert Research Institute. Tahoeclim aggregates meteorological and climatological data forthe basinthatwere previously accessed through avariety of differentsites or unavailable online. Tahoeclim provides access to: 1) station data from a variety ofnetworksinthebasin;2)Real-time and daily updated maps of weather/climateinformation; 3) links to a variety of tools for data analysis; 4) archived high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting model output for the basin; 5) a guideon using data from the Tahoeclim site. The project was developed in response toidentified needs for recognizing past and current meteorological measurementefforts and compiling them into a publically available database for the Tahoe Basin, as wellas the need for supportof air quality monitoring, burn day decisions, andunderstanding climate variabilityand watershed runoff process.

Figure 1: The Tahoeclim website landing page.

1. Background and problem statement

Climate is a pervasive influence in the Lake Tahoe Basin. The fluctuations of weatherand climate constitute a major environmental driver for the region. Hydrologicprocesses are greatly affected by average and extreme conditions experiencedaround the lake. Air quality within the basin is affected by meteorologicalconditions,which inturnaffectairflow trajectories, and the transport andtransformation of atmospheric constituents related to air quality and visibility.Vegetative growth and fire conditions are significantly determined by atmosphericconditions,and decisions on the timing of controlled burns and firefightingoperations during wildfires need to be based on the most accurate and currentmeteorological conditions. In addition, climate and weather are integral to therecreation-based economy in both winter and in summer.

To date, there has been no systematic effort to identify gaps in atmosphericmonitoring, nor a basin-wide strategy to identify such deficiencies.There is highdemand for data and information about weather and climate, but at present, thisinformation is widely scattered and must be assembled from a variety of existingsources. This places an undue, unnecessary, and ultimately expensive burden oneachuserorproject that requiressuchdata.Thereisnosingleauthoritativesourcethat provides easy access to the major data sets pertinent to the basin. The purposeof this project is to address these deficiencies and create a system that may be easilycontinuedorexpandedinthefuture.

2.Objectives

The main objectives for the projectwere:

1) Develop a web site for the provision of meteorological and atmospheric datarelevant to the Lake Tahoe Basin.

2) Identify potential datasets and develop automated methods for ingest tocontinuouslyupdatethewebsite.

3). Highlight gaps in current Tahoe Basin environmental monitoring activities.Augment and improve measurements at selected key sites.

4) Produce a range of standard “value added” meteorological products includinghourly, daily, and monthly interpolated wind fields onafine scale grid over the lake surface.

There are no formal hypotheses being tested.

3.Approach and methodology

Website The Tahoeclim site was custom built using standard HTML and CSS, with JavaScriptand JQueryapplications supportingthefunctionalityofthesite.TheGoogleMapsAPI was utilized for the display of stations locations and information.

Station Data A variety of atmospheric data networks were explored for feasibility of integrationwith the Western Regional Climate Center database or direct links from theTahoeclim site. Some networks, such as Caltrans and NASA-JPL, for example, werenotavailableonlineinawaythatWRCC couldreliablyaccessandtheprovider was unwillingtoworkwithWRCC toprovidearchived data and a data stream. These networkswere notincludedin Tahoeclim. Networks incorporated are described inthe nextsection.

Ingest of meteorological data from the eight UC Davis REMOTE network wasestablished and current and historic data were made available online throughTahoeclim for these stations. However, a change in transmission format in late 2014causedabreak inthedata posting;thisissuehasnot beenresolved.

GriddedData Gridded data for the Tahoe Basin were made available through several mechanisms.Historic:

• PRISM (Daly et al. 2008) data, monthly temperature and precipitation, from1895-present through the “Westmap for Tahoe” application

• Archive 4km and 6 km WRF forecasts for the Tahoe Basin provided byCANSAC

Current/Forecast: • CANSAC WRF forecasts for the Tahoe Basin(updated 2x/day; 3-hourly

forecasts

Other data sources Links to a variety of tools that provide information on the Tahoe Basin are providedthrough Tahoeclim and are described in greater detail in the following section.

4.Deliverables

The Tahoeclim website (Figure1) features a variety of data sources, includingstation data, gridded data, and “value-added”products.Descriptions of each are as follows:

Station data: StationnetworksincludedonTahoeclim are as follows,and itis noted whether theyare ingested into the WRCC database or links are provided to their managing agencythrough the Tahoeclim interface. These networks provide a variety ofmeteorological and atmospheric observations that differ from network to network.

• Desert Research Institute (ingest) • CA Snow Survey (ingest) • Nevada DOT (link) • USGSGaugingStations(link) • NWS COOP (ingest) • NRCS SNOTEL (link) • Airports (ingest) • SnowCourse(link) • UCDavisREMOTE(ingest) • NIFC RAWS (ingest) • Reno-Carson network (ingest) • CA Air Resources Board (link) • NASA-JPL (link)

Tahoeclim also provides access to GIS shapefiles of all stations and all active stationsintheLakeTahoeregiontosupport researchactivities.

Griddeddata

Westmap for Tahoe (Figure 2) allows users to generate time series graphsanddatalists of maximum, minimum and average temperature and precipitation for theTahoe lake surface, Tahoe Basin, and Tahoe Domain for the period 1895-present(Figure 3). The Westmap toolutilizes PRISMdata.

Figure 2: Westmap for Tahoe

Figure 3: June-July-August average temperature for the Lake Tahoe Basin 1895-present generated by Westmap.

The CANSAC WRF model provides high-resolution (2-4 km; Figure 4) forecasts ofseveral variables over the Lake Tahoe Basin.These dataare valuable for fire weather and air quality monitoring, recreation, and research. Tahoeclim provides alink to the CANSAC WRF current forecast model output. A portion of the Tahoeclim

Figure 4: Example CANSAC WRF 2 km forecast for 10 m winds over the Tahoe domain.

projectinvolved puttingCANSAC WRF/MM5 archive data online for public use. The archived dataspan2005-2015.

Monitoring current conditionsTahoeclim provides a small dashboard to help users of the site determine currentconditions at a glance. Images displayed include:

• Departure from average temperature and percent of normal precipitationovertheSouthwest USforthepast 30days

• Current radar • Current GOES West Infrared (to evaluate cloudiness, storminess) • Year-to-date precipitation, temperature values and departures from normal

for South Lake Tahoe • Mesonetcurrentweather observations • SNOTEL snowpack summary for Lake Tahoe

Value-added tools for the Lake Tahoe regionSeveraltoolsfor theLakeTahoeregionarelinked through the Tahoeclim website(Figure 5). Tahoeclim assists users of climate data in the Tahoe Basin by providingthese links allinone locationfor convenience.These tools include:

• California and Nevada Climate Trackers—allow users to create time series of temperature and precipitation data from PRISM for a variety of regions inthese states

• RCC Climate Anomaly maps—maps for the western US and individual statesshowing totals, averages, departures for temperature and precipitation overa variety of timescales

• North American Freezing Level Tracker—time series maps of freezing level(and other levels) for grid points over North America.

• Links to Tahoe weather blogs and imagery

Figure 5: A sample from the links to tools section on the Tahoeclim page.

Guide toTahoeclim The guide to Tahoeclim, linked from the website(http://tahoeclim.dri.edu/guide.html), assists users in determining whichdata is the best for their applications and provides several examples of the capabilities ofthe variety of available tools.This guide was developed atthe requestof potentialTahoeclim users to help them sort through the large amounts of data available.

5.Outreach andengagement

After the completion of a beta version of Tahoeclim, several presentations weremade to collect input on user needs and potential improvements to the website.Theseincluded:

• Presentation on Tahoeclim at the TahoeScience Consortium meeting in 2013 • Presentation to a select group of potential users (USFS, TRPA, non-profit

organizationsworkinginTahoesuchas League to Save Lake Tahoe, andothers)inSouthLakeTahoein2013- presentation made to group oncapabilities,and feedback requested through a survey process

• Presentation at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in SanFrancisco in 2013

Tahoeclim has also been shared with a variety of users and potential users throughinformal interactions with WRCC and UC Davisresearchpartners,andalsothroughthe data provision services of the WRCC.

Feedback from outreach efforts was used to improve the beta version to create thefinal version. Some of the user-inspired improvements include:

• Addition of Tahoeclim guide • Addition of station finder sorting tool • Addition of SNOTEL snowpack summary

WRCC and UC Davis/TERC continue to promote the use of the Tahoeclim websiteamong their customers and research partners looking for data in the Tahoe Basin.WRCC maintains the site, but is unable to add more networks at this time due tofunding limitations. WRCC hopes to obtain funding in the future to support updatingsome of the network feeds that are currently not operational in Tahoeclim as well asaddingnewnetworks to the Tahoeclim station map.

Tahoeclim also served as a testbed for WRCC’s study of web usability in2014 (OakleyandDaudert 2016). A group of graduate students in the physical sciences who use weather and climate data were given a set of tasks to accomplish usingtheTahoeclim site. Their responses and challenges in performing the tasks were used tomake improvements to Tahoeclim layout and wording, as well as aid in thedevelopment of testing methods for web usability.

References

Daly, C., Halbleib, M., Smith, J. I., Gibson, W. P., Doggett, M. K., Taylor, G. H., ... & Pasteris, P. P. (2008). Physiographically sensitive mapping of climatological temperature and precipitationacross the conterminous United States. International journal of climatology, 28(15), 2031-2064.

Oakley, N. S., & Daudert, B. (2016). Establishing Best Practices to Improve Usefulness and Usability ofWeb Interfaces Providing Atmospheric Data. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,97(2), 263-274.