May 31, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
California Snowlines On Track To Be 1,600 Feet Higher by Century’s End
May 30, 2023
Reno, Nev.
Shared with permission from Scripps Institution of Oceanography
DRI contributes to research concluding lower-elevation ski resorts could lose more than 70 percent of their natural snow supply
DRI’s Benjamin Hatchett, Ph.D, and Michael Dettinger, Ph.D., coauthored a new study in the journal Climate Dynamics that predicts dramatic changes for California’s future snowpack. The team combined seven decades of temperature and precipitation data with projections about climate change to examine the growing impact of atmospheric rivers, which tend to be warmer than other storms. With less snow in California’s future, there will be wide-ranging impacts on landscapes, ecosystems, and water availability for human communities.
“The snowline is an iconic component of mountains,” Hatchett says. “Its warming-driven upslope retreat poses numerous implications for the aspects of mountain environments we rely on for water resources, ecosystem function, and recreation. As the snowline moves upslope, increased winter runoff will occur at the expense of spring runoff, a change our current water management paradigm is not designed for. A longer snow-free environment will promote more severe wildfire activity at higher elevations and the numerous cascading impacts severe wildfire brings to ecosystems, life and property, and public health. Last, we will see recreation impacts such as shorter ski seasons, less available skiable terrain, and lower flows during the summer and fall, which when combined with other climate change impacts, negatively affects mountain economies.”
Below is the full press release from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
San Diego – March 25, 2023 –
This winter produced record snowfall in California, but a new study suggests the state should expect gradually declining snowpacks, even if punctuated with occasional epic snowfalls, in the future.
An analysis by Tamara Shulgina, Alexander Gershunov, and other climate scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggest that in the face of unabated global warming, the snowlines marking where rainfall turns to snow have been rising significantly over the past 70 years. Projections by the researchers suggest the trend will continue with snowlines rising hundreds of meters higher by the second half of this century.
In the high Southern Sierra Nevada range, for instance, snowlines are projected to rise by more than 500 meters (1,600 feet) and even more when the mountains get precipitation from atmospheric rivers, jets of water vapor that are becoming an increasingly potent source of the state’s water supply.
“In an average year, the snowpack will be increasingly confined to the peak of winter and to the highest elevations,” the study says.
Diminished snowfall is a consequence of a changing climate in which places like California will get an increasing portion of their winter precipitation as rain instead of snow. The authors said this study and related research suggest water resource managers will need to adapt to a feast-or-famine future. California’s water supply will arrive less through the gradual melt of mountain snowpack that gets the state through hot summers and more via bursts of rain and runoff delivered by atmospheric rivers, which are boosted by warming and are associated with higher snowlines than other storms.
Such events will further complicate the balancing act between protecting people and infrastructure from winter flooding and ensuring enough water supply during warmer summers.
“This work adds insight into the climate change narrative of more rain and less snow,” said California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Climatologist Mike Anderson. “DWR appreciates our partnership with Scripps to help water managers develop, refine, and implement adaptation efforts as the world continues to warm and climate change impacts are realized.”
The study, funded by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the DWR, appears in the journal Climate Dynamics.
“This is the longest and most detailed account of snow accumulation in California,” said Gershunov, “resolving individual storms over 70 years of observed weather combined with projections out to 2100.”
The authors make note of what this could mean for ski resorts around the state if climate change progresses unabated. For example, Mammoth Mountain, at an elevation between 2,400 and 3,300 meters (7,900 – 11,000 feet), is projected to receive 28 percent less snowfall in the latter half of the century. Lower elevation ski resorts such as Palisades and Northstar, both near Lake Tahoe, span elevational ranges of around 1,900 and 2,700 meters (6,200 – 8,900 feet). They are projected to lose more than 70 percent of their snow accumulation in an average winter.
“Observations and future climate projections show that already rising snowlines will keep lifting,” said Gershunov. “Epic winters will still be possible, though, and unprecedented snowfalls will ironically become more likely due to wetter atmospheric rivers, but they will be increasingly confined to the peak of winter and to the highest elevations of the Southern Sierra Nevada.”
Study co-authors include Kristen Guirguis, Daniel Cayan, David Pierce, Michael Dettinger, and F. Martin Ralph of Scripps Oceanography, Benjamin Hatchett of the Desert Research Institute of Reno, Nev., Aneesh Subramanian of University of Colorado at Boulder, Steven Margulis and Yiwen Fang of UCLA, and Michael L. Anderson of the California Department of Water Resources.
May 11, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
Scientists Discover Fire Records Embedded Within Sand Dunes
May 11, 2023
Reno, Nev.
Above: The Cooroibah wildfire sweeps down the Cooloola Sand Dunes in Australia. Photo by Michael Ford
Fire History
Paleoclimate Research
The discovery could expand scientific understanding of fire histories
to arid regions around the world
Knowing how the frequency and intensity of wildfires has changed over time offers scientists a glimpse into Earth’s past landscapes, as well as an understanding of future climate change impacts. To reconstruct fire records, researchers rely heavily on sediment records from lake beds, but this means that fire histories from arid regions are often overlooked. Now, a new study shows that sand dunes can serve as repositories of fire history and aid in expanding scientific understanding of fire regimes around the world.
Published May 11 in Quaternary Research, the study is the first to examine sedimentary records preserved in foot-slope deposits of sand dunes. The research team, led by Nicholas Patton, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher now at DRI, studied four sand dunes at the Cooloola Sand Mass in Australia. Australia is one of the world’s most fire-prone landscapes, with a long history of both natural and cultural burning, and vast expanses without lakes or ponds to gather sedimentary records from. The researchers aimed to prove that these sand dune deposits could be used to reconstruct reliable, multi-millennial fire histories. These previously unrecognized archives could potentially be used in arid regions around the world to fill knowledge gaps in places where fire shapes the landscape.
“Many fire and paleoclimate records are located where there’s a lot of water bodies such as lakes, peats, and bogs,” Patton says. “And because of this, most global models really have a bias towards temperate regions.”
Above: An illustration showing how charcoal layers accumulate in dune foot-slope deposits. Credit: Nicholas Patton/DRI
The Cooloola Sand Mass consists of enormous – up to 240-meter-tall – sand dunes that build up at the coast and gradually shift inland from the power of the wind. By identifying the age of the dunes using a technique called optically stimulated luminescence dating, or OSL, Patton’s team found that the four dunes span the Holocene, representing the last approximately 12,000 years.
Once a dune is stable, meaning it is no longer growing but slowly degrading, the force of gravity acts on the dune slopes to collect falling sand at the base, along with the remnants of charcoal from local fires that deposited on the dune’s surface. This sediment builds up over time, layering charcoal from fire events that can be reliably identified using radiocarbon dating.
“We were digging soil pits at the base of the dunes and were seeing a lot of charcoal – more charcoal than we expected,” says Patton. “And we thought maybe we could utilize these deposits to reconstruct local fires within the area.”
Patton found that on the younger dunes (at 500 years old and 2,000 years old), charcoal layers represented individual fires, because the steep slope of the dunes quickly buried each layer. However, the older dunes (at 5,000 years old and 10,000 years old) had more gradual slopes that blended charcoal from different fires over time, providing a better understanding of periods of increased or decreased fire frequency.
The dunes offered localized fire histories from within an approximate 100-meter radius, so fire records vary somewhat amongst the four dunes, which spanned approximately 2 kilometers. However, Patton’s team compared their results to other fire records from the region found in lake and swamp deposits. Similar to the regional records, their findings showed three major periods of fire activity over the past 7,000 years.
The researchers write that similar records are likely held in sand dunes around the world, and that regions like California and the Southwest U.S. could benefit from a better understanding of regional fire history. Embedded within the fire records is not only information about natural wildfires, but also the way that humans influenced fire regimes.
“Fire histories are important for understanding how fire was used in the past for cultural purposes, whether that was to clear fields for agriculture or for hunting,” Patton says.
Patton hopes to continue this line of research at other dunes near the Cooloola Sand Mass that are nearly 1 million years old to obtain a long-term fire history for the region. Because Australia has had human communities for at least 60-70 thousand years, and quite possibly longer, these records could help understand the relationship between humans and historical fire regimes.
“These kinds of long-term records aren’t always available within lake sediments, but they might be available within these dune deposits,” Patton says. “That’s pretty exciting.”
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More information: The full study, Reconstructing Holocene fire records using dune foot-slope deposits at the Cooloola Sand Mass, Australia, is available from Quaternary Research.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2023.14
Study authors include: Nicholas Patton (DRI/Univ. of Canterbury, NZ/Univ. of Queensland, AUS), James Shulmeister (Univ. of Canterbury, NZ/Univ. of Queensland, AUS), Quan Hua (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization), Peter Almond (Lincoln University, NZ), Tammy Rittenour (Utah State Univ.), Johanna Hanson (Univ. of Canterbury, NZ), Aloysius Grealy (Univ. of Queensland, AUS), Jack Gilroy (Univ. of Queensland, AUS), Daniel Ellerton (Univ. of Queensland, AUS/Stockholm Univ.)
About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
May 8, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
DRI Aims to Increase Scientific Access to Earth Monitoring Data With Re-Launch of ClimateEngine.Org
Satellite Data
Climate Data
ClimateEngine.org allows researchers and natural resource managers to easily analyze and visualize complex satellite and climate data, helping users understand change
in Earth’s landscapes over time
The combined use of satellite and climate data has rapidly become critical for scientists and resource managers seeking to accurately assess changes in land cover and land use over time and across space. Unfortunately, processing such vast amounts of data can be time and cost-prohibitive, which is why researchers teamed up with Google and federal agencies to create ClimateEngine.org. Climate Engine’s innovative web application allows scientists, natural resource agencies, and other users to create maps and time series plots that integrate satellite and climate data, providing an indispensable — and free — tool for visualizing complex datasets.
“If you’re trying to study how climate and natural resource management affects the environment, nothing beats the combination of maps and time series for unpacking the data,” says Justin Huntington, Ph.D., Climate Engine project lead and research professor of hydrology at DRI.
First launched in 2016 at the White House Water Summit, ClimateEngine.org is being re-launched with new datasets, support resources, and functionality to increase the capabilities and user-friendliness of the site. Interactive maps and data visualizations produced using decades of satellite data have been a cornerstone of the ClimateEngine.org app, and the new updates will make it easier than ever to use satellite, climate, and forecast data together. These enhanced resources will help Climate Engine’s diverse user community — which includes 12,000+ registered users from public agencies, non-profits, research institutions, and tribal governments — to better use the app to produce charts and maps of environmental indicators such as drought, fire risk, vegetation condition, and agricultural water use.
Above: The Climate Engine web application provides on-demand mapping and plotting of hundreds of climate and satellite variables, enabling real-time analysis and monitoring of vegetation, drought, snowpack, and other important environmental conditions.
“As researchers trying to process and visualize many Earth observations together, we understand how difficult it can be to work with these large and disjointed datasets,” Huntington says. “So, we wanted to create a tool that would allow researchers and practitioners to spend more time making discoveries and impact using the best available science.”
The Climate Engine app is unique in that it enables users to visualize and analyze vast amounts of data without the need to code, and results can be downloaded, shared, and recreated with a simple link. It overcomes the computational barriers many research institutions and public agencies face when using large datasets by using Google Earth Engine’s parallel cloud computing platform.
Notable datasets recently added include: 1) ERA5 Ag, which enables calculation of global drought, snowpack, and water demand indicators in near real-time; 2) Rangeland Analysis Platform, a 37-year Landsat dataset of vegetation cover and biomass production for the continental U.S.; and 3) OpenET monthly evapotranspiration, which provides Landsat satellite maps of vegetation water use at field-scale across the Western U.S.
As one of Climate Engine’s primary partners, NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) uses the Climate Engine Application Programming Interface (API) to automatically create drought datasets shared on Drought.gov.
“Climate Engine is a powerful cloud solution that has enabled NOAA to rapidly create and disseminate critical climate and drought information in ways that were previously impossible,” says Steve Ansari, physical scientist with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “The initial Faculty Research Award by Google, followed by funding from NOAA-NIDIS and other federal agencies, has led to a very fruitful and rewarding public-private partnership.” This partnership will continue to produce new datasets, processing capabilities, stakeholder engagement, and web application and API enhancements to advance research, drought monitoring, and early warning.
Above: The Climate Engine API is used by NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System to automatically update real-time drought maps featured on Drought.gov.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was also an early supporter of ClimateEngine.org due to the agency’s need to adopt a more data-driven approach to monitoring drought and informing grazing decisions. BLM has positioned itself as a leader in monitoring of federal lands through its investment in ground and satellite-based vegetation monitoring. Among other contributions, the agency supported the development of field–scale trends of drought and vegetation conditions within the Climate Engine web application. BLM is continuing to support trainings and integration of the newest datasets into Climate Engine to provide resource managers with the latest information and science on drought and vegetation conditions.
Above: Many advanced calculations are available within the Climate Engine web application, such as per-pixel trends and confidence levels that can be applied to all datasets, including Rangeland Analysis Platform vegetation cover and production data, to assess change over time.
Moving forward this summer, the ClimateEngine.org team will be adding even more features and functionality to the app, further expanding access to the API, and hosting several public agency webinars and in-person workshops across the Western U.S.
ClimateEngine.org is a collaboration between DRI, UC Merced, Google, and federal partners. The science team includes: DRI researchers Justin Huntington, Britta Daudert, Jody Hansen, Thomas Ott, Kristen O’Shea, Charles Morton, Dan McEvoy, and Eric Jensen, as well as UC Merced researchers Katherine Hegewisch and John Abatzaglou. Find out more about the initiative, partnerships, and updates at ClimateEngine.org and Twitter @ClimateEngOrg, and see the initiative’s peer-reviewed publication.
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Apr 25, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
Climate Change is Already Impacting Stream Flows Across the U.S.
April 25, 2023
Reno, Nev.
DRI researchers examined more than 500 watersheds across the country and found that increased winter temperatures are driving more extreme fluctuations in streamflow
Climate change is here, and scientists continue to discover new ways that the world around us is changing. In a new study published in the May issue of the Journal of Hydrology, DRI researchers show that altered weather patterns are impacting stream flows across the country, with implications for flooding, drought, and ecosystems.
Led by Abhinav Gupta, Ph.D., a Maki postdoctoral fellow at DRI, the research examined how day to day variations in streamflow changed in more than 500 watersheds in the U.S. between 1980 and 2013. They found that increased winter temperatures have driven the changes, with impacts varying due to local climate and amongst snow and rain-dominated watersheds. This information is important, the researchers say, for helping water managers adapt to climate change’s impacts.
“We wanted to understand how climate change has impacted the hydrological balance across the U.S. based on the observed data,” Gupta says. “Once we understand how climate change has impacted stream flows in the recent past, we can figure out what kind of changes we might see in the future.”
Streams receive water from a variety of sources, including fast, direct input from rainfall, and groundwater that gradually seeps through springs and soil. To understand how climate change is altering stream flows over time, the authors needed to differentiate between normal variability, like seasonal changes, and longer-term trends. To do this, they broke down stream inputs into events that occur at different timescales, like hourly and daily (rainfall), vs monthly and annual (groundwater). Then, they looked at trends for each timescale to see how they changed over time.
“Once we understand how these trends are evolving, we can make educated guesses about what exactly is changing in the watershed – whether it is snowmelt, surface runoff, base flow, or one of many other factors,” says Gupta. “Without studying streamflow in this way (what is called streamflow statistical structure) it’s not possible to study all of these components together, at once.”
Their results show that snow-dominated watersheds across the country are receiving more precipitation as rain than historically. This means that streams now have more water coming in short bursts from rainstorms, rather than the slow trickle of melting snow. The shift to short-term stream inputs could also be attributed to faster snowmelt rates due to higher temperatures, the authors say.
“In the past, streamflow changed very slowly over time,” Gupta says. “But now, because of climate change, we have faster fluctuations in streamflow, which means that we can have a lot of water in a very small amount of time and then we can have no water for a long period of time. These extreme swings are occurring more and more.”
Although the researchers found increased temperatures and changes in rainfall in all watersheds, differences in local climate dictate how this influences streamflow. In humid locales like Florida and the Pacific Northwest, storm inputs decreased, as higher temperatures caused more evaporation, leading the soil to absorb more rainwater. In the Great Plains and Mississippi Valley, contributions to streams from slow, long-term inputs like groundwater are very low, likely also due to high evaporation rates. Arid watersheds saw an increase in the number of days each year without rainfall over the study period, as well as a significant increase in winter temperatures, making streamflow more sporadic.
The study didn’t examine other variables that could impact how water moves through watersheds, like changes in forest cover that impact the amount of water used by plants, or soil type, which affects how quickly rainfall permeates into groundwater. Because each watershed is unique, with its own recipe of soil type, climate, and forest cover, “we cannot paint everything with the same brush,” Gupta says. “We need different strategies for different watersheds to adapt to changes in climate. Even within the same region, watershed impacts can vary.”
More research is needed, the study authors say, to understand what is driving changes in streamflow. If streams are increasingly dependent on groundwater, this could impact how water managers regulate groundwater pumping for human use. “That’s the kind of thing we need to know moving forward, in terms of how we manage our water resources,” says Sean McKenna, Ph.D., study co-author, and Clark J. Guild, Jr. Endowed Chair and Director of hydrologic sciences at DRI. “Can we pump more groundwater, or do we need to be more careful because if we do, we could lose streamflow?”
Gupta says that he plans to build on this research. “Based on this study, we have been able to identify watersheds across the U.S. that have changed. Now that we know which watersheds in our dataset have been affected by climate change, we can look at the future changes in those watersheds.”
More information: Changes in streamflow statistical structure across the United States due to recent climate change is available from the Journal of Hydrology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.129474
Study authors include: DRI researchers Abhinav Gupta, Rosemary Carroll, and Sean McKenna
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Apr 4, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
DRI and the Springs Preserve Launch Adult Science Education Series
April 4, 2023
Las Vegas, Nev.
Header Photo: The Springs Preserve in Las Vegas, NV. Photo by Renee Grayson (CC by 2.0)
DRI Science at the Springs –a new multimedia science storytelling series– explores environmental research, personal narratives, and climate solutions
DRI, in partnership with the Springs Preserve, announces the launch of DRI Science at the Springs. In the series, which launches on April 20, DRI scientists and other guests address some of the world’s most urgent concerns while also telling the tale of what it means to live in Nevada on the front lines of a changing climate.
“We are excited to partner with the Springs Preserve in launching an adult science education opportunity, specifically related to weather, climate change, and resiliency,” said DRI President Kumud Acharya. “DRI Science at The Springs will explore environmental research, personal narratives, and climate solutions to address some of our most challenging environmental issues. We invite Southern Nevadans to join us for an unforgettable multimedia and storytelling experience that highlights the innovative research and solutions being implemented to address our pressing climate issues.”
“We’re excited at the opportunity to join with DRI to expand on the educational programs presented at the Springs Preserve,” said Andy Belanger, director of public services. “This program provides an invaluable platform for us to continue educating and informing the community about the importance of science and how it touches our lives each day.”
In 2023, DRI Science at the Springs will hold four events at the Springs Preserve’s Big Springs Theater:
The Water Toolkit – Thursday, April 20, doors open at 6pm, presentation begins at 7pm
As society grows increasingly concerned about the future of our water resources, DRI Science at the Springs offers a refreshing perspective. From the science of cloud seeding to the art of aquifer recharging, from the importance of urban forestry to the vital role of irrigation, this inaugural event is a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of the conversation about water and its future.
The Art of Science – Thursday, June 15, doors open at 6pm, presentation begins at 7pm
This evening is designed to highlight the intersection of creativity and science, and explore how the two often seemingly antithetical disciplines can lead to some of the most beautiful, innovative, and impactful solutions. This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to broaden your understanding of the world and the role that science and art play in shaping it. You’ll leave the event with a deeper appreciation for the beauty that can be found in the scientific process, and how it can inspire us all to think more creatively about the world around us.
History Written in Ice – Thursday, August 24, doors open at 6pm, presentation begins at 7pm
This evening is dedicated to exploring the incredible story of ice core researchers and their journey to the arctic to extract ice cores that hold within them evidence of past societies, volcanic eruptions, and even plagues. You’ll learn about the incredible lengths that researchers go to in order to extract these cores, the technological advances that have made this work possible, and the impact that their discoveries have had on our understanding of history.
Beyond the Horizon – Thursday, October 5, doors open at 6pm, presentation begins at 7pm
In this final event in our season, DRI Science at the Springs departs from Earth and takes you on a journey to explore the beyond. Join our speakers as they share stories and research of hitchhikers on the International Space Station, how a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and bacteria might be the key ingredient in developing a sunscreen for the Red Planet and more.
DRI Science at the Springs is made possible through generous support from our sponsors Nevada Health Link and CORE Construction.
Ticket Types and Pricing:
Single Event Pricing
$25 Non-member
$20 Springs Preserve Members
$15 Springs Preserve Donor Members – (Gold and Platinum donor members receive a free pair of tickets to one of the four events)
Series Pricing (tickets to all four speaking engagements, limited amount)
$80 Non-members
$65 Springs Preserve Members
$50 Springs Preserve Members Donor Members
Tickets may be purchased through the Springs Preserve website or at the door the evening of the event.
DRI Science at the Springs is an adult-only (over 21) event. There will be a no-host beer and wine bar and snack shop. Food and beverage are not included in the ticket price.
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
About Springs Preserve
Located at the site of Las Vegas’ original water source, the Springs Preserve is a 180-acre cultural institution that celebrates Las Vegas’ dynamic history while focusing on its sustainable future. Visitors to the Springs Preserve will discover boundless opportunities to explore ancient and modern history, natural landscapes, archaeological sites, native plants and animals, and current water resource challenges. The campus includes the OriGen Museum, Nevada State Museum, two interactive exhibition spaces (WaterWorks and Boomtown 1905), a colorful botanical garden, art gallery, kids’ learning center, natural trails system, restored wetlands, seasonal butterfly habitat, preserved historical structures, and trackless train rides.. For more information, please visit www.springspreserve.org.
Mar 29, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
A Reconstruction of Prehistoric Temperatures for Some of the Oldest Archaeological Sites in North America
March 29, 2023
Reno, Nev.
Header Photo: View of autumn in Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska
Scientists used a new technique that examines temperature records stored in bacteria to better understand the environmental conditions that may have led to the earliest human migrations into the Americas
Scientists often look to the past for clues about how Earth’s landscapes might shift under a changing climate, and for insight into the migrations of human communities through time. A new study offers both by providing, for the first time, a reconstruction of prehistoric temperatures for some of the first known North American settlements.
The study, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, uses new techniques to examine the past climate of Alaska’s Tanana Valley. With a temperature record that reaches back 14,000 years, researchers now have a glimpse into the environment that supported humans living at some of the continent’s oldest archaeological sites, where mammoth bones are preserved alongside evidence of human occupation. Reconstructing the past environment can help scientists understand the importance of the region for human migration into the Americas.
“When you think about what was happening in the Last Glacial Maximum, all these regions on Earth were super cold, with massive ice sheets, but this area was never fully glaciated,” says Jennifer Kielhofer, Ph.D., a paleoclimatologist at DRI and lead author of the study. “We’re hypothesizing that if this area was comparatively warm maybe that would have been an attractive reason to come there and settle.”
Kielhofer conducted the research during her doctoral studies at the University of Arizona, and was attracted to the Alaska location because of the wealth of research expertise being focused on the area. She also saw an opportunity to contribute to scientific understanding of a part of the world that is particularly sensitive to global climate change.
“We have to look to the past to try to better constrain how these areas have responded previously,” she said, “and how they might respond in the future under climate scenarios that we predict.”
Earlier research had relied on coarse temperature records by examining changes in vegetation and pollen. However, this information can only provide a general sense of whether a region was warming or cooling over time. To obtain a more precise history of temperatures, Kielhofer examined soil samples from the archeological sites. Using a technique known as brGDGT paleothermometry, she examined temperature records stored in bacteria to obtain a record of mean annual air temperature above freezing with a precision within about 2.8 degrees Celsius.
“Bacteria are everywhere,” she said. “That’s great because in areas where you might not have other means of recording or assessing past temperature, you have bacteria. They can preserve for millions of years, so it’s a great opportunity to look at pretty much anywhere on Earth.”
The results were surprising, she said, because many scientists had previously believed that the region experienced large swings in temperature, which may have contributed to the movement of early humans. But Kielhofer’s data showed that temperatures in the Tanana Valley remained fairly stable over time.
“The region wasn’t really responding to these global scale climate changes as we might expect,” she said. “Because temperatures are really stable through this record, we can’t necessarily use temperature as a way to explain changes in human occupation or adaptation through time, as scientists have previously tried to do.”
Kielhofer’s now turning her attention to other historical records, like changes in aridity, that could help explain how conditions in this region influenced early human communities.
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More information: The full study, BrGDGT temperature reconstruction from interior Alaska: Assessing 14,000 years of deglacial to Holocene temperature variability and potential effects on early human settlement, is available from Quaternary Science Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.107979
Study authors include: Jennifer Kielhofer (DRI/University of Arizona), Jessica Tierney (Univ. of Arizona), Joshua Reuther (Museum of the North, Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks), Ben Potter and Charles Holmes (Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks), François Lanoë (Univ. of Arizona), Julie Esdale (Colorado State), Matthew Wooller and Nancy Bigelow (Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks).
Above: Jennifer Kielhofer sampling for charcoal and biomarkers (GDGTs) at Keystone Dune in Alaska, one of the study sites as well as one of the older archaeological sites in the area (dating back ~13,000 years).
Mar 21, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
New Study Sheds Light on Ancient Microbial Dark Matter
March 21, 2023
Reno, Nev.
Shared with permission from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Omnitrophota
Microbial Dark Matter
Header Photo: Obsidian Pool in Yellowstone National Park. Credit: Bob Lindstrom. Photo in the Public Domain
DRI contributes to international team of scientists that unearths first in-depth look at Omnitrophota, one of the world’s oldest and tiniest
DRI’s Duane Moser, Ph.D., is a coauthor on a new study in Nature Microbiology that offers the first detailed analysis of a globally prominent, but poorly characterized type of bacteria belonging to a group scientists refer to as “microbial dark matter.” Formally described here for the first time as the Omnitrophota, the existence of this phylum of bacteria was first inferred from environmental DNA nearly thirty years ago.
“This paper illuminates the properties and ecological function of a group of ubiquitous, but poorly understood organisms,” said Moser, associate research professor of microbiology.
Moser’s contribution to the study included identifying field sites and collecting samples, as well as developing an understanding of environmental context. His long-standing research relationship with the lead authors of the study meant that collaborative projects over the years led to a number of useful datasets for the analysis.
“The research community has followed the Omnitrophota story since the 1990s, when earlier groundbreaking studies that revealed unexpected diversity within Archaea at Obsidian Pool in Yellowstone National Park were expanded to include bacteria,” Moser says. “In those days, full genomes of uncultivable microorganisms were beyond the reach of available technologies, so a conserved gene that encodes an essential structure shared by all cellular life (the 16S rRNA gene) was used to identify novel life and estimate relatedness between organisms.”
“What scientists found was so different from anything that had been described previously that scientists of the time proposed that Omnitrophota might be a novel phylum within Bacteria (the equivalent of the evolutionary difference between plants and animals). This interpretation has stood the test of time,” Moser continued.
“Over the past several decades, Omnitrophota has been frequently encountered in aquatic and soil samples worldwide. In our own work in springs, mines, and shallow groundwaters, Omnitrophota have often been among the more prominent microbial groups detected. I sometimes wonder if the sheer abundance and evident diversity of this omnipresent group has intimidated researchers from tackling its formal description. This was an ambitious project that required the combined expertise of a strong team of collaborators.”
Brian Hedlund, a microbiologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and lead author of the study, said “Duane’s knowledge of the geology and hydrology of subsurface environments — and how to sample them meaningfully — was really important for this study.”
Below is the full press release from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
LAS VEGAS – March 16, 2023 – Bacteria are literally everywhere – in oceans, in soils, in extreme environments like hot springs, and even alongside and inside other organisms including humans. They’re nearly invisible, yet they play a big role in almost every facet of life on Earth.
Despite their abundance, surprisingly little is known about many microorganisms that have existed for billions of years.
This includes an entire lineage of nano-sized bacteria dubbed Omnitrophota. These bacteria, first discovered based on short fragments of DNA just 25 years ago, are common in many environments around the world but have been poorly understood. Until now.
An international research team produced the first large-scale analysis of more than 400 newly sequenced and existing Omnitrophota genomes, uncovering new details about their biology and behavior. The team’s findings are reported in the March 16 issue of the journal Nature Microbiology.
“We now have the most comprehensive view to date of the biology of an entire phylum of microorganisms and the surprising role they play in the Earth’s ecosystems,” said UNLV microbiologist Brian Hedlund, the study’s corresponding author. “There is a finite number of major lineages of life on our planet, and it’s exciting to learn more about organisms that pre-date plants and animals and have been essentially hidden under our noses.”
The tricky thing with Omnitrophota is that they’re still largely considered microbial dark matter, which means they exist in nature but can’t yet be cultivated as single species in lab studies. Just two species have been microscopically observed, and only very recently.
To present a comprehensive picture of their biology, scientists compared 349 existing and 72 newly mapped genomes of Omnitrophota. This included a review of publicly available data and new samples collected from geothermal environments, freshwater lakes, wastewater, groundwater, and springs located around the world.
The team observed that, in most cases, Omnitrophota measure less than 450 nanometers, which places them among the smallest of all known organisms. They also displayed genetic markers consistent with symbiosis – possibly as predators or parasites of other microorganisms, which suggested they would have high metabolic rates. Indeed, when isotope uptake was measured as a proxy for metabolic activity, Omnitrophota were hyperactive.
“Despite how little we collectively knew about Omnitrophota, they’ve long been cited by microbial ecologists. Our goal was to finally drag this lineage out of the dark,” said Cale Seymour, a recent UNLV master’s graduate and the study’s lead author. “The more we learn about their energy conservation pathways and possible lifestyles, the closer we get to our goal of cultivating them in the lab and bringing them into the light.”
The study, “Hyperactive nanobacteria with host-dependent traits pervade Omnitrophota,” appeared March 16 in the journal Nature Microbiology. Additional collaborating organizations include Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, the University of North Alabama, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute, Desert Research Institute, Northern Arizona University, Sun Yat-sen University, University of Science and Technology of China, and University of Queensland.
Mar 9, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
First-ever layered lake sediment sample extracted from subglacial Antarctica
March 9, 2023
Golden, Colorado
Shared with permission from the Colorado School of Mines
Subglacial Lakes Antarctica
Header Photo Credit: Matthew Siegfried
Sample gives important details into past dynamics of the Antarctic ice sheet and its cold, dark ecosystems
DRI’s Mark Hausner, Ph.D., is a coauthor on a new study detailing the first layered lake-sediment sample taken from a subglacial lake in Antarctica. Hausner stepped in to assist the project team — dubbed SALSA for Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access — after a difficult deployment created challenges in recovering temperature data from their equipment.
“I worked with the team after their return to recover the best temperature data we could,” Hausner says. Although precise temperature observations couldn’t be recovered, Hausner’s expertise with fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing cables enabled him to identify changes in the data that were consistent with other observations.
“Using multiple observation methods really increases your confidence in what you’re seeing,” he says. “In this case, satellite observations, surface geophysics, and the temperature profile through the ice and into the lake all tell the same story of a lake underneath 1 km of ice that’s switching from draining to filling.”
Below is the full press release from the Colorado School of Mines.
Since the discovery 50 years ago of subglacial lakes in Antarctica — some of the least accessible geological features on Earth — scientists have attempted to extract lake bed sediment to learn about the formation, movement, and past conditions of the ice sheet. Now, a team of researchers with the NSF-funded project Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access (SALSA) has successfully done so, recovering the first layered sediments from beneath the modern Antarctic ice sheet.
Their findings from analysis of the sediment sample, published March 9 in Geology, give important insight into the larger dynamics of the Antarctic ice sheet and its history, including when the ice sheet was smaller than its current size. Their work adds to the sedimentary record of knowledge of Antarctica and also holds implications for understanding how Antarctica may contribute to global sea level change.
Previous studies of modern subglacial lakes were limited to the timescale of the modern ice sheet due to the challenge of sampling an environment locked beneath thousands of feet of ice. The sediment sample extracted by the SALSA team will allow researchers to better understand subglacial activity across almost two centuries, instead of merely two decades.
“There are places on Earth that we still haven’t explored,” said Matthew Siegfried, assistant professor of geophysics at Colorado School of Mines and a lead author of the paper. “We have now one sample trying to understand an environment that is one and a half times the size of the continental United States. It’s like pulling up a rock in New Orleans and understanding how the Mississippi River and its entire basin has acted for the past 1,000 years.”
The saga of the SALSA team’s quest to explore subglacial lakes is chronicled in “The Lake at the Bottom of the World,” a feature-length documentary film released across multiple streaming platforms on February 28 by the team in partnership with Metamorph Films. The NSF-funded film gives viewers a close look at how the scientists conducted their work amid harsh Antarctic conditions.
‘Like grabbing a package of soup’
Researchers captured the sediment sample on a field expedition in December 2018. They cleanly bored a hole through over 3500 feet of ice over Mercer Subglacial Lake by filling a modified fire hose with sterilized water at nearly 200 °F and aiming it into the ice. They carefully collected sediment cores through a borehole that was constantly freezing back in using a device modified from its typical use in “normal” lakes to fit in a narrow ice borehole.
While researchers knew that even the mere extraction of the sediment from the lake would be a success, the fact that a sample arrived at the lab intact proved even more gratifying.
“We didn’t expect to find this mushy, fragile sediment under the ice sheet,” Siegfried said. “It was basically like grabbing a package of soup, bringing it up 1100 meters to the surface of the ice, shipping it to America, getting it into a CT scanner in Oregon, and somehow maintaining tiny laminations in the sample.”
Previous sediment samples from beneath the modern West Antarctic Ice Sheet have only consisted of a jumbled mixture of marine muds and rocks left behind when glaciers move over the Earth and do not contain a layered history of the region or ice sheet.
“In a 2001 paper published after a decade of subglacial drilling efforts in Antarctica, glaciologist Barclay Kamb somewhat unenthusiastically summarizes that everywhere the project sampled sediments, they found the same uninteresting, sticky, gray mixture,” said Ryan Venturelli, assistant professor of geology and geological engineering at Colorado School of Mines and a lead author on the paper.
“We found that, too. But above that same sticky, gray stuff, we found something different for the first time.”
Understanding subglacial movement
CT imagery of the sample showed a pattern of contrasts that indicated the subglacial lake was filling and draining with water before the scientists’ observational record. This finding offers insight into how long water has been moving under this part of Antarctica — movement that has implications for how the ice sheet moves and contributes to sea level rise. The life cycle of subglacial lakes derived from these contrasts also will enable researchers to better identify how carbon, nutrients and dissolved gasses are transported through the subglacial system to the global ocean.
“We use sediments from normal (subaerial) lakes all the time to build records of regional changes in climate. Subglacial lakes are different, because they are sealed by an overlying ice sheet that shields them from changing seasons and changing climate. Any variation in the subglacial sediment record is driven by changes to the overlying ice sheet and associated water system,” Venturelli said.
“Thanks to satellites that have helped us spy on Antarctica from space since 2003, we have a deep understanding of subglacial lake activity in the modern record, but the sediments we collected as part of SALSA give us an idea of how persistent these features are on a much longer timescale — hundreds of years. It’s our first insight into the life cycle of an active subglacial lake, and that is really exciting,” Venturelli added.
Significance of the sampling effort
The findings shared in Geology come amid more groundbreaking publications from the SALSA team based on the sediment samples they retrieved from Mercer Subglacial Lake. In February, researchers published work in ISME Communications that examined and compared microbial communities in the sediment to other regions under the ice; their work indicated an extensive subglacial ecosystem that is biogeochemically and evolutionarily linked through ice sheet behavior and the transport of microbes, water and sediments. Forthcoming research out soon in AGU Advances, also led by Venturelli, constrains the Antarctic subglacial carbon cycle for the first time and indicates how details of the cycle can be used to estimate how much smaller the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was in the last few thousand years.
“Knowing the dynamics of the ice sheet in the past is critical for predicting how it may respond to changes in the future, but this information has also helped to better understand the connectedness of these ecosystems to processes on the surface and regions beneath deep Antarctic ice that have yet to be explored,” said Brent Christner, a microbiologist at the University of Florida and SALSA Project team member.
Feb 21, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
Arsenic Contaminates Private Drinking Water Wells Across the Western Great Basin
February 21, 2023
RENO, Nevada
Arsenic
Water Wells
Western Great Basin
Above: Researchers test a private well water for traces as metals such as arsenic in Washoe Valley, Nevada.
Credit: Monica Arienzo/DRI.
A New Study Maps Risk of Elevated Arsenic Levels in Groundwater Wells Across Northern Nevada, Northeastern California, and Western Utah
In the arid and drought-stricken western Great Basin, sparse surface water means rural communities often rely on private groundwater wells. Unlike municipal water systems, well water quality in private wells is unregulated, and a new study shows that more than 49 thousand well users across the region may be at risk of exposure to unhealthy levels of arsenic in drinking water.
Led by researchers at DRI and the University of Hawai’i Cancer Center and published February 16th in Environmental Science and Technology, the study used data from groundwater wells across the western Great Basin to build a model to predict the probability of elevated arsenic in groundwater, and the location and number of private well users at risk. According to the study, the Carson Desert basin (including the town of Fallon, Nevada), Carson Valley (Minden and Gardnerville, Nevada), and the Truckee Meadows (Reno), have the highest population of well users at risk. The new study builds on previous research showing that 22% of 174 domestic wells sampled in Northern Nevada had arsenic levels exceeding the EPA guideline.
“What we are finding is that in our region, we have a high probability for elevated arsenic compared to most other regions in the country,” said Daniel Saftner, M.S., a hydrogeologist at DRI and lead author of the study. “And we are seeing that geothermal and tectonic processes that are characteristic of the Great Basin contribute to the high concentrations of naturally occurring arsenic in the region’s groundwater.”
The region’s mountains are also primary sources of arsenic. “As the arsenic-rich volcanic and meta-sedimentary rocks that form the mountains erode, sediment is transported to the valleys below,” says Steve Bacon, Ph.D., DRI geologist and study co-author. Water percolating through the valley floor then carries arsenic into the groundwater. Deeper, older groundwater and geothermal waters tend to have a higher arsenic concentration and can migrate upward along faults and mix with shallow groundwater.
“We really wanted to better understand the unique geologic factors that contribute to high arsenic in this study,” Saftner says. “It’s important for us to think about the role of the environment as it pertains to human health – where we live can influence what our long-term health looks like.”
To train and test the predictive model, the research team used data collected through the Healthy Nevada Project, including water samples from 163 domestic wells primarily located near Reno, Carson City, and Fallon. These data were supplemented with 749 groundwater samples compiled from the USGS National Water Information System. The model uses tectonic, geothermal, geologic, and hydrologic variables to predict the probability of elevated arsenic levels across the region.
Although the U.S. EPA has set an arsenic concentration guideline of 10 µg/L for public drinking water, previous research has shown a range of health effects from long-term exposure to levels above 5 µg/L. Using this concentration as the benchmark, the model and map show that much of the region’s groundwater – particularly in western and central Nevada – is predicted to have more than a 50% probability of elevated arsenic levels.
“Community members can use our arsenic hazard map to see what the risk is at their location, which might motivate them to test their well water,” says Monica Arienzo, Ph.D., associate research professor at DRI and study co-author. “Then, if they have high levels of arsenic or other contaminants, they can take steps to reduce their exposure, such as installing a water treatment system.”
The findings from this study are potentially useful for a range of different applications. “The results can be useful for water utilities or water managers who tap similar shallow aquifers for their water supply,” says Saftner, “as well as irrigation wells that source water from these aquifers.”
The research team plans to use their model to take a closer look at the health impacts of prolonged arsenic exposure. “Through the Healthy Nevada Project, genetic data and health records are paired with environmental data to help determine whether there are associations between the levels of arsenic in a community’s groundwater and specific health outcomes,” stated Joe Grzymski, Ph.D., research professor at DRI and principal investigator of the project.
Map showing the hydrographic basin boundaries and predicted average population density with arsenic ≥5 μg/L in (a) the entire western Great Basin; (b) Truckee Meadows (Reno area), Lemmon Valley, and Cold Spring Valley; (c) Carson Valley (Minden and Gardnerville areas); and (d) Carson Desert (Fallon area).
Predicted probability of arsenic ≥5 μg/L in alluvial aquifers of the western Great Basin, including (a) mean probability of arsenic ≥5 μg/L, (b) 95% confidence upper bound, and (c) 95% confidence lower bound. Bedrock aquifers and lakes are shown in gray and were not included in the arsenic hazard assessment.
More information:
The full study, “Predictions of Arsenic in Domestic Well Water Sourced from Alluvial Aquifers of the Western Great Basin, USA,” is available from Environmental Science and Technology: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c07948
Study authors include: DRI researchers Daniel Saftner, Steve Bacon, Monica Arienzo, Erika Robtoy, Karen Schlauch, Iva Neveux, and Joseph Grzymski, as well as Michele Carbone with the University of Hawaii Cancer Center.
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
About the University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center
The University of Hawaiʻi Cancer Center through its various activities, including scientific research and clinical trials, adds more than $57 million to the Oʻahu economy. It is one of only 71 research institutions designated by the National Cancer Institute. An organized research unit within the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the UH Cancer Center is dedicated to eliminating cancer through research, education, patient care and community outreach with an emphasis on the unique ethnic, cultural, and environmental characteristics of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. Learn more at https://www.uhcancercenter.org. Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/UHCancerCenter. Follow us on Twitter @UHCancerCenter.
Feb 1, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
Wildfires Are Increasingly Burning California’s Snowy Landscapes and Colliding with Winter Droughts to Shrink California’s Snowpack
February 1, 2023
RENO, Nevada
Wildfires
Winter Drought
Snowpack
Above: Burned trees on a snowy mountain. The trees in the photo were burned by the Caldor Fire.
A new study shows that midwinter dry spells lead to dramatic losses of winter snowpack in burned areas
The early pandemic years overlapped with some of California’s worst wildfires on record, creating haunting, orange-tinted skies and wide swathes of burned landscape. Some of the impacts of these fires are well known, including drastic declines in air quality, and now a new study shows how these wildfires combined with midwinter drought conditions to accelerate snowmelt.
In a study published Jan. 20 in Geophysical Research Letters, a DRI-led research team examined what happens to mountain snowpacks when sunny, midwinter dry spells occur in forests impacted by severe wildfire. The researchers found a substantial increase in wildfires burning in California’s snowy landscapes throughout 2020 and 2021, when large blazes like the Dixie, Caldor, and Creek fires concentrated in snow zones. Using a 2013 midwinter dry spell as comparison, they found that similar weather in the winter of 2021-2022 led to 50% less snow cover. The compounding impacts of wildfire on snow melt include an increase in sun exposure due to loss of forest canopy, and a reduction in the snow’s ability to reflect sunlight.
“It’s already established that wildfires are increasing spring snow melt, but we wanted to know what happens when you add a long winter dry spell on top of that,” said Arielle Koshkin, M.S., a Ph.D. student now at the Colorado School of Mines who co-led the study as part of her master’s research at DRI and the University of Nevada, Reno. “The Caldor fire burned in our backyard, it was so close to where we live and work. So, the following winter, we wanted to investigate what it looked like.”
Satellite data showed that compared to the 2001-2019 average, 2020 and 2021 saw a nearly ten-fold increase in wildfires burning in California’s seasonal snow zones. “What that implies is that there’s this increasing overlap between the fire and snow and there’s all these cascading and compounding impacts on the system and especially the hydrology,” said Ben Hatchett, Ph.D., a climatologist at DRI who co-led the study with Koshkin. “This huge increase of fire activity in California snowy regions is exactly what we expect to see more of going forward.”
A strong winter drought followed during the winter of 2021-2022, when Tahoe City experienced a 46-day long midwinter dry spell (the second-longest since reliable records began in 1917; the long-term median is 22 days without precipitation). A comparable midwinter drought following a wet start to the winter occurred in 2013, giving the researchers the ability to compare and contrast the impacts under more typical conditions with those that occurred in a severely burnt landscape.
“In 2013 and 2022, we had very similar weather patterns, but we didn’t see notable melt in 2013. And in 2022, we also did not see melt in unburned areas,” Hatchett said. “So that gives two lines of evidence suggesting that it’s the fire and not the meteorology that’s driving this.”
Forests where severe wildfires have burnt the tree canopy have more exposed snowpacks, which enhances the melting caused by sunny days and warm nights (another recent DRI study examined the snowmelt impacts of spring heatwaves). Snowmelt is further exacerbated by the loss of the snowpack’s albedo, or the natural power of white snow to reflect, rather than absorb, the sun’s radiation. Particularly in the winters immediately following a wildfire, snow is dusted with the black carbon of burnt vegetation, which can accelerate snowmelt rates by up to 57%.
The enhanced snowmelt was so pronounced within the perimeter of the Caldor fire that the researchers found a total of 50 fewer days with snow cover in the winter of 2021-2022 – the lowest number of snow cover days on record.
Following a wildfire, “there are two timescales of interest: right after the fire, the loss in albedo really dominates,” said Hatchett. “But impacts from the loss of canopy last for decades, maybe longer if the forest does not recover.”
The enhanced snowmelt midwinter creates challenges for forecasting water availability from the natural snowpack reservoir. During the winter months, water managers need to leave room in reservoirs to prevent flooding; this means that earlier snowmelt may not be captured for later use in the dry season. Studies like this provide water managers with the tools to make more accurate predictions of the timing and magnitude of snowmelt.
“The fires have made major landscape disturbance that we’re not taking into account in our forecasting abilities,” Koshkin said. “I think this study is showing that wildfire impacts are huge, and we need to implement this into our ability to understand how water runs off the landscape. It’s part of our world and it’s increasing and it’s going to affect more snowy places. So, it’s important to make sure that we understand the outcomes in our models and management plans.”
Koshkin plans to expand on this research for her Ph.D. studies by examining regional variation of fire impacts on snow. She notes that how wildfire impacts snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada may look different in Colorado or Idaho, due to different weather and snowpack conditions.
The researchers emphasize that the wildfire impacts seen in this study are the result of high-severity wildfires, and not lower-severity burns like prescribed fires. “This study really highlights the importance of bringing fire back onto our landscape in the sense that we need fire – good fire is the answer to our wildfire problem,” Hatchett says. “Bringing a more natural regime of fire, through prescribed and cultural fire, back onto our landscape will help reduce the likelihood of future severe fire.”
“We can recognize that this could be our new normal,” Koshkin said, “but we also have the ability to adapt and manage and mitigate as much as possible.”
Study authors Arielle Koshkin and Ben Hatchett measure albedo in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
More information:
The full study, Midwinter dry spells amplify post-fire snowpack decline, is available from Geophysical Research Letters: https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL101235
Study authors include: Benjamin Hatchett (DRI), Arielle Koshkin (DRI/UNR), Kristen Guirguis (Scripps Institution of Oceanography), Karl Rittger (CU Boulder), Anne Nolin (UNR), Anne Heggli (DRI), Alan Rhoades (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab), Amy East (USGS), Erica Siirila-Woodburn (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab), W. Tyler Brandt (Scripps Institution of Oceanography), Alexander Gershunov (Scripps Institution of Oceanography), and Kayden Haleakala (Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UCLA).
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Jan 5, 2023 | Blog, Featured researchers
What can prehistoric ceramics of the California deserts tell us about the past?
Jan. 5, 2023
LAS VEGAS, NEV.
Prehistoric Ceramics
California Desert District
Artifacts
A Q&A With Archaeologist Greg Haynes
DRI archaeologist Greg Haynes, Ph.D., recently completed a synthetic report on the prehistoric ceramic artifacts of the Colorado and Mojave deserts for the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) California Desert District (CDD). The CDD manages the 11 million-acre California Desert Conservation Area, which holds cultural artifacts dating back thousands of years. Following a century of research on the prehistoric people and cultures of the Colorado and Mojave deserts of California, this is the first large-scale synthesis focused on ceramics and what they can tell us about the past.
Haynes’ report provides guidance for understanding prehistoric ceramics, identifies research questions for their study, and aids in the evaluation of ceramic-bearing resources for the National Register of Historic Places.
DRI sat down with Haynes to discuss this project, which he calls “one of the highlights of my career.”
DRI: Could you tell me a little bit about your background and how you came to DRI?
Haynes: I’ve been a professional archaeologist for about 35 years. I have a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology and my research focus is on the prehistoric archaeology of western North America. The hunter gatherer populations in the Great Basin, Mojave Desert, and the small-scale agricultural societies on the Colorado Plateau, namely the ancestral Pueblos or Anasazi. I was on staff at DRI as an Associate Research Scientist in archaeology between 1992 to 1998 and returned in 2019.
DRI: And how did you come to be involved with this particular report?
Haynes: The project is focused on creating a new synthetic context for prehistoric ceramics in the deserts of Southeastern California. I was awarded the project in large part because I have a professional background in the area, and I had a nationally recognized ceramic expert in the American Southwest on my team, Dr. Karen Harry, a Professor of Anthropology at UNLV.
Left: Map of the Mojave Desert region. Right: Great Basin Brown Ware with incised decoration along rim, from the northeastern Mojave Desert.
DRI: Why is it important to catalog and identify ceramic artifacts?
Haynes: What the BLM wants to do, and what most archaeologists want to do with ceramic artifacts, is use them to identify cultural and temporal affiliations. Which groups made or used a particular site — that is, you find a pot sherd (piece of ceramic) and you want to infer what archaeological cultures made that ceramic and therefore used or made the archaeological site you’re looking at. They also want to know what time periods those ceramics date to. And many ceramics in the American Southwest are tied to a radiocarbon or tree-ring chronology, so they’re tightly constricted in time and space.
DRI: How are ceramics dated using radiocarbon dating methods or tree-ring chronology?
Haynes: In fact, they can’t be radiocarbon dated. They have to be in direct association with something that can either be radiocarbon dated or be dated through tree rings. For instance, if archaeologists find a pot in a house, and the house has a wooden roof beam over the top of it, the roof beam can be dated through a tree ring chronology (or dendrochronology). And by association, they therefore date the pot at that particular time period.
DRI: And radiocarbon dating only works for things that were previously living, right?
Haynes: Yes, that’s right. Now, there’s another type of dating nowadays called optically stimulated luminescence dating (OSL). And that you can use to actually date the ceramic itself, and as springboard projects develop from this particular one, I hope to learn more about OSL and perhaps use our own OSL lab here at DRI.
The important point though, is that the ceramics in the Colorado and Mojave deserts of Southeastern California, are primarily plain wares — they don’t have a lot of diagnostic features on them. And you need diagnostic features to be able to identify different types of pottery, and therefore the people who made them, as well as track them through time. Additionally, most of the pottery you find sits right on the ground surface. And if they are buried, there’s almost no association with organics that can be radiocarbon dated, tree rings, or stratification — that is, buried deposits that are layered so you can see how things change through time. So, they stump people. This inspired the BLM to seek a new synthetic context for these things, and new research directions about how we can use ceramics to tell us about precontact people and time.
DRI: When ceramics are found in the desert today, are they still collected and put into collections?
Haynes: In general, they’re not collected at all. And one reason is that there are hundreds of collections with tens of thousands of ceramic artifacts in repositories across the U.S. The BLM identified 16 repositories in the Western US that hold prehistoric ceramics from lands administered by the California Desert District. And while there is no absolute number of how many pieces of pottery are in those collections, it is tens of thousands — maybe even over 100,000.
An example of a Tizon Brown Ware body sherd from Arizona. The brown color is derived from residual mountain clays and the temper is visible on its surface.
DRI: And how old are some of the artifacts that you documented in this report?
Haynes: They don’t date much before about A.D. 1000. Most of them date no earlier than A.D. 1100 or 1200.
DRI: Would ceramic artifacts last much longer than that?
Haynes: Ceramic artifacts certainly would — they’re fired stone, essentially. Clay molded into something and then fired until they’re essentially pieces of stone.
DRI: When you’re making these associations between the ceramics and the people, how does that work?
Haynes: Well, there are different attributes on the ceramics, like surface colors. For instance, a particular type of ceramic called Lower Colorado Buff ware was known to be made by ancestral Yuman-speaking populations and they have particular types of colors because of their clay sources (buff, orange, or red). And you can also do that with temper (small chunks of rock or other material mixed into the clay to give it some texture, so it doesn’t break apart when it’s being fired and used). The types of clay you might find in Lower Colorado Buff ware is different than the clay in other types of pottery like Tizon Brown ware, which is also found in the Mojave and parts of the Colorado deserts of California, and colored brown. And that’s because it’s made from residual, igneous clays formed in the mountains as opposed to alluvial clays formed on the valley floor near rivers.
An example of Lower Colorado Buff painted ware from along the Colorado River. It is a red-on-orange bowl sherd with decorated elements on the interior of the vessel.
DRI: And what can we learn from these artifacts?
Haynes: Well, what the BLM wanted to learn is, can these plain wares in the Mojave and Colorado deserts of southeastern California actually tell us who was at a site and at what time? That can be done to some extent, but it can’t be done with a lot of detail. So, if you find a site that has a whole bunch of Lower Colorado Buff Ware you can say, okay, the people who lived here were ancestral Yuman-speaking folk, but these same ceramic artifacts have not been tied to a very good chronology. You can’t tell when the site was occupied based on the ceramics, unfortunately. And people have tried to do that for years, but there simply has not been enough radiocarbon dating or stratified deposits associated with those ceramics to track them through time. OSL offers an opportunity to do that, but it has to be fairly widespread — it would take a lot of ceramic artifacts to develop a well-established chronology for plain ware artifacts.
DRI: What do you mean by “wares”?
Haynes: A ware is a type of ceramic that is made by a particular prehistoric people. If you were an archaeologist, however, we could debate what a ware is for quite a long time. I’ll just leave it at that simple, big idea.
DRI: I think you touched on this, but why are the ceramic resources in the Colorado and Mojave Deserts difficult to characterize and differentiate?
Haynes: It’s because they don’t have a lot of distinguishing attributes on them, like painted motifs. For instance, if you find a painted circle or a square on a piece of pottery that’s made in one location, but you don’t find it in the next region over, that may be related to cultural differences. For plain wares, there’s not a lot of decoration, they’re just plain wares, very utilitarian. So that’s what makes them difficult and the fact that they have not been tied to a well-established chronology. And we’re often working with just little fragments of ceramics, rather than large pieces or entire vessels.
Another important point about the ceramic context is that you will not be able to learn much about the ceramics in terms of culture and history unless you examine attributes that change through space and time – like one single attribute, how it changes or varies through time and where you find it. So, one thing you could look at are changes in rim morphology or shape over space and time. Or you could look at the distribution over space and time of stucco (something put around the base of a pot, presumably to strengthen it). Or you could source these ceramics using specialized techniques to identify their geochemical signature or fingerprint, and see how far and wide, through space and time, that geochemical signature or fingerprint can be found.
Top: Rim morphologies: a. straight walled; b. chimney neck; c. outward/gently recurved; d. outward flaring/exaggerated recurved wall; e. inward/gently recurved wall; f. inward flaring/exaggerated inverted wall.
Bottom: An example of a Lower Colorado Buff plain sherd from along the Colorado River. It has a thick stucco applied to its exterior.
DRI: And by fingerprint, you mean a particular type of clay?
Haynes: That’s correct. You can do the same kind of analysis with what’s called burnishing, where the inside or the exterior of the pot is blackened, and then it’s polished. Where do you find burnishing, through space and through time?
DRI: Did you learn anything new or surprising while preparing this report?
Haynes: Part of the project was to go to a number of ceramic repositories and look at some of these collections. And I chose four museums to go to because they had by far the most ceramics. When you look at collections like that, you run across some incredibly interesting things that are just startling. For instance, I was at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum in El Centro. I was given this bag of prehistoric ceramics and they were Lower Colorado Buff ware, and I thought, “These are really weird — something’s wrong with them.” It was like the pottery itself had decorative waves in the clay, but they were clearly natural. So, I put the bag away because I was just confused by it. And I looked through other bags and looked at different pottery sherds. And the last day of the last hour, I came back to this bag because I’m just completely stymied by it. And I opened it up and looked at it and it dawned on me that this is an unfired pot. They had molded this either around the inside or the outside of a pot, but never fired it. And so, it was just natural clay shaped into a vessel that had somehow preserved on the surface.
Examples of LCBW vessels on display at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum (TOP: red-on-buff globular jar [olla] with chimney neck, medium to large; MIDDLE: flower pot recurved rim jar, medium to large, with stucco application; BOTTOM: globular [water] jar with chimney neck, medium to large).
DRI: So, it just kind of baked in the sun naturally?
Haynes: Exactly. Another bag of pottery I was looking at was in the San Diego Museum of Us and it was from a collection obtained from the Cronese Basin, just west of Baker, California. I looked at these potsherds, and they were really grey and crumbly. And they were painted with black designs. I looked at them and thought “This is weird. I don’t know what this is.” So, I put it away. And I came back to it. And it dawned on me that whoever made this piece of pottery in the Cronese Basin was trying to mimic an Anasazi black-on-grey ware. They were trying to mimic a pottery vessel made perhaps hundreds of miles away. It was startling.
That was really one of the highlights of my career here at DRI.
DRI: And how will this report be used by the Bureau of Land Management?
Haynes: It’s been distributed to all the BLM field offices in the CDD and used as a synthetic overview. It also builds consistency for recording these artifacts in the field. When archaeologists go out and conduct inventory for regulatory compliance purposes under the National Historic Preservation Act, it aids them in recommending a ceramic-bearing site eligible or ineligible for the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, it can also be used by investigators to contextualize the ceramics in Southeastern California. And then offers a chapter on new research directions for their analysis.
DRI: Any final thoughts?
Haynes: Well, it was a tough project for two years. But it was incredibly fun to do — one of the highlights of my career.
We’re (the project principals) planning an invited symposium in 2024 in Riverside, California to discuss these plain wares with other archaeologists and other specialists, as well as Native American tribal members.
More Information
The technical report is the property of the BLM-CDD and will become available in the future on their website.
Jan 4, 2023 | Announcements, News releases
DRI Leading $5 Million Regional Climate Adaptation Project
January 4, 2023
RENO, Nevada
CNAP
Climate Adaptation
Climate Resiliency
Above: Cloud of smoke from a California wildfire. CNAP’s projects will support adaptation needs to address some of the most pressing climate issues in the region including the public health impacts of wildfire smoke.
DRI is partnering with Scripps Institution of Oceanography to build climate resiliency through the California Nevada Adaptation Program (CNAP)
The impacts of climate change have been acute in California and Nevada, with most of the last two decades spent in extended drought conditions and 2021 wildfires producing Reno’s worst recorded air quality in the 21st century. Adapting to these challenges will require not only focused research to better predict climatic events, but will also depend on empowering local communities to use this knowledge to make informed decisions in the face of adversity. With $5 million in funding from NOAA’s Climate Adaptation Partners initiative, the California Nevada Adaptation Program (CNAP) will spend the next five years bringing together researchers, community members, and practitioners to cooperatively conduct research and identify solutions.
For the first time, CNAP will be hosted in Nevada under the leadership of DRI’s Tamara Wall, Ph.D., research professor of atmospheric science and deputy director of the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC). DRI’s long-standing partnership with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego will continue, with Dan Cayan, Ph.D., regional climate researcher and CNAP lead since its founding in 1999, and Julie Kalansky, Ph.D., who has served as CNAP program manager for six years, joining Wall to lead the project.
“The goal of CNAP has always been to expand more fully across the California and Nevada region,” Wall says. “This is the first time that DRI is leading CNAP, and it’s also the first time that CNAP is a system-wide effort. Bringing on partners from UNLV and UNR is important for meeting that goal and will help us address climate change impacts across the state.”
California and Nevada have partnered for the CNAP program since 2011, producing research and results that include: the first Nevada Climate Assessment; California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment; recommendations for updating red flag warnings and the fire weather watch system; and analyses of water use and supply in California’s agricultural communities.
The next five years will focus on adaptation, with an intentional transition from statewide climate research toward preparing communities for local-level action to address regional climate hazards. Six projects will support adaptation needs to address four of the most pressing climate issues in the region: extreme heat, wildfire smoke, coastal flooding, and water scarcity. As part of the project’s commitment to equity and diversity, it will include a mentorship program within community colleges to prepare the future’s workforce to address climate impacts. In addition, a small grants program, Building Capacity through Reciprocity with Tribal Communities, will work to enact community-identified solutions for tribal communities by supporting a Leaders Indigenous Climate Fellowship Program.
“Centering CNAP’s research on adaptation allows us to focus on producing community-centered solutions,” Wall says. “Impacts from climate change are expected to amplify in the coming decades, and disadvantaged communities are the least able to manage those impacts without additional support. Our research includes community partners so that we can adequately understand community needs and concerns and actually improve people’s lives.”
Research Focus Areas
Extreme Heat
Highlights for planned research include creating the Southern Nevada Heat Resilience Lab (SNHRL), a regionally focused program that will bring together public service providers, including emergency responders and social services workers, with scientific experts on extreme heat. Real-time air temperature sensors will be installed in at-risk neighborhoods within Las Vegas, targeting locations such as public transit stops and buses, cooling centers, places with outdoor laborers, and unhoused communities. Following a trial period in Las Vegas, the project aims to expand local heat sensor networks to rural and Indigenous communities, where heat impacts are less well studied and understood
Water Resiliency
In order to help California prepare a more resilient workforce in the face of growing issues with water availability, CNAP will partner with community colleges in the San Joaquin Valley to create climate-related workforce training opportunities. The goal is to create a more climate-technical workforce to support community adaptation to changes in water availability and climate extremes.
Coastal Erosion
Southern California is lined with some of the most heavily used beaches on the West coast, and this region is likely to experience increased flooding and erosion due to sea-level rise. CNAP will partner with collaborators to explore nature-based solutions and Indigenous stewardship as coastal adaptation strategies.
Public Health in the Face of Extreme Heat and Wildfire Smoke
California and Northern Nevada are increasingly experiencing extreme weather conditions with overlapping heat waves and intense wildfires. CNAP will explore the public health impacts of these events by directly assessing a sample of households in Washoe County, Nevada. Research will include installing air sensors to monitor heat exposure and air pollution, conducting interviews to understand decision-making under environmentally challenging conditions, and baseline health monitoring.
Understanding Burnout in Climate Change Professionals
Previous CNAP research has shown that climate change professionals are experiencing high rates of burnout, and institutional support isn’t yet providing adequate resources to this population. CNAP will continue this line of study by evaluating the traits and communities that lead to more psychological resiliency and developing training materials based on the results for the CNAP team and partner networks.
State Climate Assessments
Both California and Nevada will likely produce new statewide climate assessments within the next five years, and CNAP will continue to coordinate among state and local efforts. CNAP will also pilot a mentoring program focused on early career faculty at universities and colleges in California and Nevada.
“NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnerships (CAP, formerly ‘RISA’) advances equitable adaptation through sustained regional research and community engagement,” says Caitlin Simpson, Program Manager, NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnerships. “Climate affects every part of society, and this is most visible to us when we see long-term changes in social and environmental conditions, increased unpredictability, and extreme weather events. We seek to help people plan for and adjust to a changing climate by supporting long-lasting partnerships among scientists, decision makers, and communities. The result is a shared understanding about society’s needs and the co-generation of credible and actionable knowledge to support community solutions. We work within regions composed of multiple US state/territory jurisdictions which share similar climates and cultures.”
“CNAP’s long history in the CAP/RISA program dates from 1997, and features many accomplishments, including substantial scientific contributions to all five of California’s climate assessments in close partnership with the state government. CNAP has achieved deep expertise on sea level rise, drought, water resources, and wildfire planning issues and has closely partnered with a number of federal and nonfederal partners to advance local, state, and regional planning around these issues. The NOAA Climate Program Office is thrilled to fund the California-Nevada Climate Applications Program (CNAP) team for another five years as a part of the CAP/RISA Network.”
More information:
For additional information about CNAP visit: https://www.dri.edu/cnap/
CNAP Principal Investigators include Tamara Wall (DRI), Julie Kalansky (Scripps), and Daniel Cayan (Scripps).
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Dec 5, 2022 | Blog, Featured researchers
Air Pollution Near Roads is Changing
DECEMBER 5, 2022
RENO, Nevada
Air Pollution
Roadways
Emissions
Above: Rush hour traffic with thick smog. Even as emissions from engine exhaust decline with stringent regulations and the growing popularity of electric vehicles, other traffic-related pollution remains unaddressed. Of particular concern are the microscopic particles from brakes and tires, worn down from abrasion and degradation, which mix into the air we breathe and wash into our watersheds, creating hazards for human and environmental health.
Credit: Photo by plherrera, iStock.
A new study shows that tailpipe emissions are declining, but brake and tire wear particle emissions remain a persistent – and unregulated – air quality concern
Air pollution near roads remains a significant health concern in the U.S., with an estimated 60 million people living within 500 meters of a major highway. Even as emissions from engine exhaust decline with stringent regulations and the growing popularity of electric vehicles, other traffic-related pollution remains unaddressed. Of particular concern are the microscopic particles from brakes and tires, worn down from abrasion and degradation, which mix into the air we breathe and wash into our watersheds, creating hazards for human and environmental health.
In a new study published Nov. 23 in Environmental Pollution, researchers from DRI, UC Riverside, UNLV, and the California Air Resources Board take a closer look at these overlooked pollutants, known as non-tailpipe emissions. With funding from the California Air Resources Board, they placed air quality monitors near two southern California highways and found that air pollutants from brake and tire wear exceed those from engine exhaust.
“We knew that tailpipe emissions are coming down, and that non-tailpipe emissions have been steady or slightly increasing,” says Xiaoliang Wang, Ph.D., Research Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at DRI and the study’s lead author. “But I didn’t realize that it’s already crossing over – that was a surprise.”
Map of roadside sampling locations in Los Angeles, California — one of the most polluted areas in the U.S.
Credit: Elyse DeFranco/DRI.
Tire wear particles contain rubber and microplastics, as well as thousands of chemicals, some of which are known ecological hazards. Previous research identified one of these chemicals as the primary culprit in the decline of Coho salmon in the Pacific Northwest. And brake pads contain metals and other materials known to be harmful to human health. Non-tailpipe emissions like brake and tire wear particles aren’t regulated the way engine exhaust is, and are expected to become the primary source of particulate matter pollution near roads.
“There is increasing interest in understanding how much non-tailpipe emissions – including brake wear, tire wear, road surface wear, and road dust – are impacting air pollution for people living close to roadways,” Wang says. “This has environmental justice implications as well because many low-income communities tend to live closer to roads.”
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established a near-road air monitoring network that measures nitrogen dioxide (which causes respiratory tract damage and can trigger asthma), but fine and coarse particles that are more related to non-tailpipe emissions than engine exhaust are monitored spottily or not at all.
California has led the way in enacting regulations on exhaust emissions, as Los Angeles first began experiencing smog-choked air in the 1940s. It wasn’t until the early 1950s that scientists discovered that motor vehicles were the primary source of this smog, and that engine exhaust chemically reacts with sunlight and industrial air pollution to create what is known as “secondary pollutants.” This means that air pollution isn’t merely the combination of all added pollutants, but that as these pollutants intermix in the air, new pollutants are born.
Electric vehicles have eliminated tailpipe emissions by transferring their emissions to their power source, but are heavier than conventional gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles. This could mean more road and tire wear particle emissions.
“There’s still active research going on trying to understand what’s the impact of electrification of vehicles on non-tailpipe emissions,” Wang says. Previous research has noted that because electric vehicles don’t reduce non-tailpipe particulate matter emissions, they shouldn’t be considered as the single and only solution to urban air pollution.
Although this study focused on air pollution near roads, Wang notes that the pollutants don’t stay only near highways, but follow wind patterns to become part of the overall air pollution mix, and eventually get washed into storm gutters and out to sea.
The study team is continuing this research to better understand the chemicals in the air samples they collected and will publish a more detailed analysis of the sources. The information will be provided to appropriate environmental and transportation agencies to aid decision-making for air quality improvements.
Nov 29, 2022 | Announcements, News releases
Successful Citizen Science Weather Tracking Effort Goes National, Receives Three Additional Years of Funding From NASA
November 29, 2022
RENO, Nevada
Mountain Rain or Snow
Citizen Science
Weather Tracking
Mountain Rain or Snow Project Invites Community Observers Around the Country to Improve Winter Weather Predictions
Satellite technologies often struggle to differentiate snow from rain near the freezing point in mountainous regions, with impacts on flood predictions, avalanche forecasting, snowpack water storage, and road safety. To help improve these technologies, researchers from Lynker, DRI, and the University of Nevada, Reno are partnering with community observers to track winter storm activity across the country through a project called Mountain Rain or Snow. The project has been so successful at collecting data that demonstrates regional variation in the rain-snow threshold that NASA’s Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program is funding an additional three years.
The project began in 2019 as Tahoe Rain or Snow and expanded last year to include mountain regions across the country. Last winter, more than 1,100 people in the Sierra Nevada, Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains, and Northeast submitted real-time reports of rain, snow, or mixed precipitation. Community observers submitted 15,000 observations – a six-fold increase over the previous winter.
“Scientists have noticed that satellite predictions are not as effective as ground-based observations,” says Keith Jennings, Ph.D., water resources scientist at Lynker and the project lead. “Direct observations, made by people, are the most accurate way to discover how precipitation phase varies in time and space. We are filling an important gap with this project.”
Community members sign up to receive alerts when storms with predicted temperatures near freezing are in the forecast, and submit observations of the type of precipitation they are seeing via a web-based mobile phone app. These reports show that the Sierra Nevada region transitions from rain to snow around 36 degrees Fahrenheit, rather than around the freezing temperature of 32 degrees. In the Rockies, the snow-rain threshold is closer to 40 degrees, while it’s around 33 degrees in the Northeast. Expanding the project to include more regions will help scientists understand how the rain-to-snow temperature threshold varies according to local atmospheric conditions, improve scientists’ ability to make locally-relevant predictions, and improve the technology behind rain-snow estimates.
“With the help of community observers, we are amassing a very large database of ground-based observations. These will ultimately help to improve the predictive technologies that satellites use,” says Meghan Collins, M.S., associate research scientist at DRI. “The data the community observers have helped us collect is a big step towards being able to make those improvements. We understand the state of the problem much better now and will use the next three years to advance the solution.”
Mountain Rain or Snow welcomes new community observers as it expands to additional regions this season, including the Eastern Great Lakes; the Wasatch Range around Salt Lake City; and Western Montana around Missoula. To sign up, observers find the keyword that corresponds to their region at www.rainorsnow.org. Then, text the keyword to 855-909-0798 for guidance on how to participate.
Mountain Rain or Snow is a collaboration between Lynker, DRI, and the University of Nevada-Reno. In addition to the large network of community observers, the project team includes: Keith Jennings of Lynker; Monica Arienzo, Meghan Collins, and Benjamin Hatchett of DRI; Anne Nolin of the University of Nevada, Reno; and several student researchers. The group has expertise in hydroclimatology, hydrology, and geospatial analysis.
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About Lynker
Lynker delivers innovative solutions to support global environment security and economic prosperity as a trusted partner to governments, communities, industry, and nonprofits. We are a premier science, engineering, and technology company supporting some of the nation’s most important missions from atmosphere to ocean. We are scientists, engineers, conservationists, divers, observers, developers, technologists, educators, outreach specialists, artists, economists, policy specialists, and managers.
About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
About the University of Nevada, Reno
The University of Nevada, Reno, is a public research university that is committed to the promise of a future powered by knowledge. Nevada’s land-grant university founded in 1874, the University serves 21,000 students. The University is a comprehensive, doctoral university, classified as an R1 institution with very high research activity by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Additionally, it has attained the prestigious “Carnegie Engaged” classification, reflecting its student and institutional impact on civic engagement and service, fostered by extensive community and statewide collaborations. More than $800 million in advanced labs, residence halls and facilities has been invested on campus since 2009. It is home to the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine and Wolf Pack Athletics, maintains a statewide outreach mission and presence through programs such as the University of Nevada, Reno Extension, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, Small Business Development Center, Nevada Seismological Laboratory, and is part of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Through a commitment to world-improving research, student success and outreach benefiting the communities and businesses of Nevada, the University has impact across the state and around the world. For more information, visit www.unr.edu.
Nov 21, 2022 | Blog, Featured researchers
New research examines the potential impacts of climate change on water quality in tropical reservoirs
NOVEMBER 21, 2022
LAS VEGAS, NEV.
Climate Change
Water Quality
Tropical Reservoirs
Above: The Infiernillo Dam (“Little hell”), also known as Adolfo López Mateos Dam, is an embankment dam on the Balsas River near La Unión, Guerrero, Mexico. It is on the border between the states of Guerrero and Michoacán.
Credit: Arturo Peña Romano Medina, iStock Photo.
A Q&A With Study Author Erick Bandala, Ph.D.
In a new study, DRI’s Erick Bandala, assistant research professor of environmental science, worked with scientists in Mexico to address an important research gap: how will a warming climate alter water quality in tropical reservoirs? With scientists predicting that half of the world’s human population will live in tropical climates by 2050, this knowledge will be critical for adapting to a warming world.
Bandala and his coauthors developed algorithms that can be used to predict changes in water quality under the projected temperature intervals provided by climate change models developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
DRI sat down with Bandala to discuss this study and how it ties into his broader research goals.
DRI: What was the impetus for this research?
Bandala: What we’re trying to do in my lab is create technologies for climate change adaptation. Many people do research on climate change and how it will impact water availability, so there is a lot of information about how water availability will change. But something that we believe is less studied – and that is the focal point of our research – is figuring out how global warming may have an effect on water quality. This is significant because even if you have a lot of water, if the water doesn’t have the proper quality, it cannot be used, or you will need to treat it to make it usable. So, in this study, we looked at water quality parameters in a reservoir in Mexico to predict how they could change over the next 80 years or so.
But we also need to come up with solutions for how to improve the water quality so that people can use it properly without facing the risk of illness. This is what we’re trying to do in my lab. We want to come up with solutions that can help people improve the quality of their drinking water.
DRI: And what kind of solutions are you looking at?
Bandala: Well, I’m very glad that you asked that because we are developing materials that can remove contaminants from the water. And we are using the concept of circular economy, which means we want to use material that for someone is considered a waste, and turn it into something else that can be used for water treatment. For example, we have used crop waste and even plastic waste, and converted them into something that can be used to remove contaminants from water. So, we aren’t only interested in the effect of global warming on contaminants, but also in creating something that can be used for the removal of those pollutants from the water while having a low carbon and environmental footprint.
Figure 1 from the study shows the Adolfo Lopez Mateos Dam (ALMD) and water quality sampling site’s geographical location.
Credit: Erick Bandala/DRI.
DRI: That’s amazing. And how did the international collaboration with your co-authors come about?
Bandala: Well, I believe that science is not an isolated work, and less so now than ever. I think that in many cases the most help is needed in developing countries. You know in my home country of Mexico, they have a saying, “the fleas always go to the skinnier dog.” That’s very true because now many developing countries are suffering the biggest effects of climate change, and I want to help people in these countries deal with all these problems. We are developing processes, technologies, and materials that can be used for helping people in Africa, or Central America, or Asian countries that are facing huge problems with water quality.
DRI: Returning to the study, is there a reason why the study team chose to examine water quality at this particular reservoir, the Adolfo Lopez Mateos Dam in Sinaloa, Mexico?
Bandala: The main reason for choosing that site was because it had reliable water data available – it’s very complicated to get access to a good and reliable data set. Also, many of the models that have been developed in the past are for cold water bodies, and this is a warm one – the differences are significant just because of the increased water temperature in the dam.
DRI: The study showed that there was a temperature threshold where the bacteria in particular really thrived, and then above that temperature, it declined. Why is that?
Bandala: Well, bacteria are living organisms, so they have a preferred temperature range to grow in, just like everyone else. If you go too low or too high, then the reproduction or the growth of the colony will decline because it’s too hot or too cold. Now, we were very interested in microbiological contamination because this is one of the main issues in developing countries like Mexico, where many people are drinking water without the safeguards that are required. And because of that, we have very high mortality, mainly in children five years old or less. So, we wanted to understand how bacterial contamination might change under different climate scenarios.
DRI: What do you think are the biggest implications of this study?
Bandala: Well, I believe the study is probably the first one that I know of where we are really including the effects of global warming and calculating how the water quality in a water body will vary over time. In the past, I have published other papers trying to do the same, but honestly, as you said, it is highly complicated and we just partially achieved that goal. This time, I think we were really good at getting a nice model that will give us some good insight of the actual trends for a warm water body. Most of the studies are made in Canada, the U.S., or Europe, where the temperatures of the water may be in the range from 45 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. In this case we were about 70 degrees, so it’s a completely different scenario. And that makes them not only challenging, but also interesting to address.
DRI: And do you have any studies that will continue this line of work?
Bandala: Well, we’re planning to use remote sensing to corroborate the information that we created for this paper. So, if that works, it may mean that you don’t need to jump into a big data set, but can simply collect information from satellites for the analysis. Hopefully, that will be the next thing.
Erick Bandala, Ph.D., continues to work in his lab on developing materials that can remove contaminants from water.
Credit: Tommy Gugino/DRI.
Nov 15, 2022 | Announcements, News releases
Footprints Claimed as Evidence of Ice Age Humans in North America Need Better Dating, New Research Shows
November 15, 2022
RENO, Nevada
Footprints
Dating
Ice Age Humans
Above: Closeup photographs of excavated human trackways from the shores of an ice age lake that once filled the Tularosa Basin in south-central New Mexico, in what is now White Sands National Park.
Credit: Jeff Pigati & Kathleen Springer, USGS.
The preserved footprints found in New Mexico’s Lake Otero Basin would upend scientific understanding of how, and when, humans first arrived in North America, if they are accurately dated. A new study brings the age claim into question.
The wide expanse of an ancient lakebed in New Mexico holds the preserved footprints of life that roamed millennia ago. Giant sloths and mammoths left their mark, and alongside them, signs of our human ancestors. Research published in September 2021 claimed that these footprints are “definitive evidence of human occupation of North America” during the last ice age, dating back to between 23 and 21 thousand years ago. Now, a new
study disputes the evidence of such an early age.
Scientists from DRI, Kansas State University, the University of Nevada, Reno, and Oregon State University caution in Quaternary Research that the dating evidence is insufficient for claims that would so radically alter our understanding of when, and how, humans first arrived in North America. Using the same dating method and materials, the new study shows that the footprints could have been left thousands of years later than originally claimed.
“I read the original Science article on the human footprints at White Sands and was initially struck not only by how tremendous the footprints were on their own, but how important accurate dating would be,” says Charles Oviatt, emeritus professor of geology at Kansas State University and one of the new study’s authors. “I saw potential problems with the scientific tests of the dates reported in the Science paper.”
“It really does throw a lot of what we think we know into question,” says David Rhode, Ph.D., a paleoecologist at DRI and co-author of the new study. “That’s why it’s important to really nail down this age, and why we’re suggesting that we need better evidence.”
Archaeologists and historians use a number of methods to determine the timing of historic events. Based on these methods, scientists tend to agree that the earliest known dates of humanity’s colonization of North America lie between 14 and 16 thousand years ago, after the last ice age. If the original claims are correct, current chronological models in fields as varied as paleogenetics and regional geochronology would need to be reevaluated.
“23 to 21 thousand years ago is in a timeframe where you need to really pay attention to how people got into North America,” says Rhode. “At that time, there was a huge, mile-high mountain range of ice covering Canada to the north, and the pathway down the Pacific Coast wasn’t very accommodating either – so it may have been that people had to come here much earlier than that.”
By studying ancient DNA from human fossils and using rates of genetic change (a sort of molecular clock using DNA), paleogeneticists surmise that the American Southwest was first occupied no earlier than 20 thousand years ago. If the footprints are older, it throws into question the use and integrity of these genetic models. It’s possible that the ages from one study at a single site in a New Mexico lake basin are valid, and that age estimates from a variety of other fields are invalid, the authors write, but more robust evidence is needed to confirm the claims.
At the center of the debate are the tiny seeds of an aquatic plant used to age the footprints. The timeframe for the seeds was identified using radiocarbon dating methods, in which researchers examine a type of carbon known as Carbon-14. Carbon-14 originates in the atmosphere and is absorbed by plants through photosynthesis. These carbon isotopes decay at a constant rate over time, and comparing the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere to the amount present in fossilized plant material allows scientists to determine their approximate age. But the plant species used, Ruppia cirrhosa, grows underwater and therefore obtains much of its carbon for photosynthesis not directly from the atmosphere as terrestrial plants do, but from dissolved carbon atoms in the water.
“While the researchers recognize the problem, they underestimate the basic biology of the plant,” says Rhode. “For the most part, it’s using the carbon it finds in the lake waters. And in most cases, that means it’s taking in carbon from sources other than the contemporary atmosphere – sources which are usually pretty old.”
This method is likely to give radiocarbon-based age estimates of the plant that are much older than the plants themselves. Ancient carbon enters the groundwater of the Lake Otero basin from eroded bedrock of the Tularosa Valley and the surrounding mountains, and occurs in extensive calcium carbonate deposits throughout the basin.
The authors demonstrated this effect by examining Ruppia plant material with a known age from the same region. Botanists collected living Ruppia plants from a nearby spring-fed pond in 1947 and archived them at the University of New Mexico herbarium. Using the same radiocarbon dating method, the plants that were alive in 1947 returned a radiocarbon date suggesting they were about 7400 years old, an offset resulting from the use of ancient groundwater by the plant. The authors note that if the ages of the Ruppia seeds dated from the human footprints were also offset by roughly 7400 years, their real age would be between 15 and 13 thousand years old – a date which aligns with ages of several other known early North American archaeological sites.
The dating of the footprints can be resolved through other methods, including radiocarbon dating of terrestrial plants (which use atmospheric carbon and not carbon from groundwater) and optically stimulated luminescence dating of quartz found in the sediment, the authors write.
“These trackways really are a great resource for understanding the past, there’s no doubt about that,” says Rhode. “I’d love to see them myself. I’m just cautious about the ages that the researchers put to them.”
More Information:
The full study, A critical assessment of claims that human footprints in the Lake Otero basin, New Mexico date to the Last Glacial Maximum, is available from Quaternary Research: https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2022.38
Study authors include Charles Oviatt (K-State), David B. Madsen (UNR), David Rhode (DRI), and Loren G. Davis (OSU).
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
About the University of Nevada, Reno
The University of Nevada, Reno, is a public research university that is committed to the promise of a future powered by knowledge. Nevada’s land-grant university founded in 1874, the University serves 21,000 students. The University is a comprehensive, doctoral university, classified as an R1 institution with very high research activity by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Additionally, it has attained the prestigious “Carnegie Engaged” classification, reflecting its student and institutional impact on civic engagement and service, fostered by extensive community and statewide collaborations. More than $800 million in advanced labs, residence halls and facilities has been invested on campus since 2009. It is home to the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine and Wolf Pack Athletics, maintains a statewide outreach mission and presence through programs such as the University of Nevada, Reno Extension, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, Small Business Development Center, Nevada Seismological Laboratory, and is part of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Through a commitment to world-improving research, student success and outreach benefiting the communities and businesses of Nevada, the University has impact across the state and around the world. For more information, visit www.unr.edu.
Aug 22, 2022 | Announcements, News releases
The making of a megafire: Study explores why some wildfires grow fast and furious
August 22, 2022
RENO, Nev.
Megafires
Fire Ecology
Fire Detection
Above: A view of the Las Conchas Fire, which burned more than 150,000 acres in New Mexico in 2011. The fire was among those analyzed as part of this study.
Reposted from https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/news-releases/making-megafire-study-explores-why-some-wildfires-grow-fast-and-furious.
Some wildfires grow much larger and a lot faster than others to become megafires. But why? As their name suggests, megafires are wildfires of extreme size with great destructive potential, which can make them especially challenging to manage. As megafires become more frequent in the Western United States, better wildfire prediction is needed to protect lives, property, and resources.
A recent study led by the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station explores why some fires turn into megafires by analyzing the effects of daily weather conditions. The findings can help fire managers anticipate which fires are likely to grow most rapidly and become megafires.
“Ours is the first study to systematically and quantitatively compare daily weather conditions with daily fire growth using multiple fires across the country,” said Brian Potter, research meteorologist at the station’s Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory in Seattle, Wash. Along with Daniel McEvoy, researcher with the Desert Research Institute, Potter analyzed 40 fires that burned in California, the Great Basin, the Rockies, the Northwest, and the Southwest between 2002 and 2017.
The two researchers looked at a particular kind of megafire, which they called “fires of unusual size” or FOUS. These fires were 90,000 acres or larger and grew an additional 22,000 acres or more after at least one blowup, or growth, event. The scientists then compared these unusually large wildfires with smaller wildfires from the same general area. For each fire, they looked at the effects of prevailing dryness and daily weather conditions.
The scientists were surprised to find that the daily weather during these types of fires was, if anything, less extreme than during the smaller fires in their study sample. The FOUS tended to develop after two to four weeks of drier weather, which appears to prime them to grow much more when strong, dry winds occur.
More information:
- The largest wildfires developed because they responded to one- or two-day, high-wind events and preceding dryness more strongly than the other wildfires.
- It was how the wildfires responded to weather, not the weather itself, that appeared to differentiate the largest fires from other fires.
- The study’s findings suggest that when the previous couple of weeks have been dry, fire managers may need to be more aware than usual of infrequent high-wind days, even when overall conditions are mild.
Potter, Brian E.; McEvoy, Daniel. 2021. Weather factors associated with extremely large fires and fire growth days. Earth Interactions. 25(1): 160-176.
Jul 8, 2022 | Blog, Featured researchers
Heading to the Mountains?
The Living Snow Project needs your help
JULY 8, 2022
RENO, NEV.
By Kelsey Fitzgerald
Living Snow Project
Snow Algae
Citizen Science
Featured research by DRI’s Alison Murray, Meghan Collins, Jaiden Christopher, Eric Lundin, and Sonia Nieminen.
On a cool and breezy morning in late spring, DRI Research Professor Alison Murray, Ph.D. and student intern Sonia Nieminen hiked up a ski slope at Mount Rose Ski Area, outside of Reno. The ground, wet from snowmelt, squished and squelched beneath their feet as they crossed a hillside of soggy grass to reach a remnant patch of late-season snow.
They were out to find snow algae – a type of freshwater algae that thrives in late-season snowpack. Although snow algae is best known for being pink, it actually comes in colors ranging from yellow to orange, light-green, brown, light pink, or a bright watermelon pink.
“There’s a whole microbial community that lives in the snow, and snow algae is the food source that gets it all started,” Murray explained. “They are a primary producer, so they bring organic carbon into the snow that feeds a diverse community of bacteria, fungi, protozoans and other multicellular animals. For example, little rotifers, tartigrades, mites, and spiders also call the snow ecosystem home.”
Alison Murray, Sonia Nieminen, and KOLO reporter John Macaluso look for snow algae among snow patches at Mount Rose, May 31, 2022.
Murray, Nieminen, Meghan Collins, Jaiden Christopher, and Eric Lundin at DRI are studying snow algae as part of the Living Snow Project (https://wp.wwu.edu/livingsnowproject/) – a collaboration between DRI and Robin Kodner and her team at Western Washington University. The project aims to learn more about the ecology, diversity, and prevalence of snow algae in the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountains, with help from citizen scientists.
“The literature is pretty spotty on the biology of snow and snow algae,” Murray said. “A lot is known about just a few species of snow algae, but we want to see what else is out there, and learn more about the role that algae play in the snowpack in a changing climate.”
Alison Murray digs into a patch of light pink snow at Mount Rose Ski Area to collect a snow algae sample.
To collect a sample of snow algae, Murray and Nieminen first looked for patches of discolored snow. They dug down a few inches with a shovel, and then opened a sample collection kit – a pair of rubber gloves and a small plastic tube filled with a small amount of preservative. They used the lid of the tube to scoop some snow into the tube, then gave it a shake and sealed it. Finally, they recorded their location and sample number using the project’s smartphone app.
Top Left:
Participants in the Living Snow Project receive sample collection kits with specific instructions on how to collect a snow algae sample.
Top Right: Snow algae samples are collected using a plastic tube filled with a small amount of preservative.
Bottom: Sonia Nieminen collects a snow algae sample at Mount Rose Ski Area.
Just off the boardwalk at Tahoe Meadows, the team came across another patch of lightly pink pigmented snow and stopped to collect some samples. Snow algae spend the winter in the soil, Murray explained, and remain there until the wetness and light conditions of melting snowpack trigger the algae’s flagellated growth phase. The algae move to the top of the snowpack, where they develop sunscreen-like pigments that turn them shades of orange, pink, or deep red.
Top Left:
DRI scientist Alison Murray collects a snow algae sample at Tahoe Meadows.
Top Right: Sonia Nieminen collects a snow algae sample at Tahoe Meadows. Rubber gloves help to prevent the contamination of samples with any microbiota on the researcher’s hands.
Bottom: Samples tubes containing snow algae collected at Tahoe Meadows in Nevada during late spring 2022.
In the sample tubes, the snow samples appeared muted shades of brown, yellow, and light pink. But back in the laboratory at DRI, Eric Lundin placed the samples under a light microscope, and the red pigments became easier to see.
“The algae appear red due to astaxanthin, a pigment that protects snow algae from UV radiation,” Lundin explained.
Next, he examined the samples using fluorescence microscopy and DAPI staining. DAPI is a fluorescent dye that is attracted to DNA. Using fluorescence microscopy, the snow algae appear as red circular cells due to the autofluorescence of chlorophyll.
Finally, he looked at the samples using confocal microscopy, which uses specific wavelengths of light to induce fluorescence and shows the 3-D structure of the cells as a 2-D image. In these images, blue indicates the presence of DNA. Chlorophyll appears red, clearly showing the presence of snow algae. The snow algae cells are often coated with a layer of bacterial cells, and some debris too.
Top Left:
Snow algae cells (red) from the Mount Rose sites were identified in the laboratory using a light microscope. Pollen grains are large and appear to have two “ears” on either side of the main pollen particle, that helps the pollen grains get transported by the wind, they are often referred to as Mickey-Mouse shaped.
Top Right: Using fluorescence microscopy and DAPI staining to examine a sample, snow algae appear as red circular cells. Pollen grains, if the nucleus is still intact, emit blue light due to the presence of DNA. Other material seen in the image is a combination of bacteria, plants, dirt, and extracellular material.
Bottom: Snow algae, some of which are surrounded by bacterial cells (blue) as viewed with confocal microscopy. Blue indicates the presence of DNA, and red indicates presence of chlorophyll.
Want to participate in the Living Snow Project?
For the second year in a row, the group has put out a call to action to the outdoor recreation community for help tracking snow algae blooms, recording observations, and collecting samples of snow algae from backcountry areas during the late spring into the summer. By enlisting the help of volunteers, the research team is able to cover much more ground than they could alone.
“We appreciate the help of anyone who is out in the mountains in the early summer – hikers, summer skiers, or anyone else – who can help us collect samples or just use their phones to log locations where snow algae is found and how prevalent it is,” Murray said.
Are you heading to the mountains and interested in participating in the Living Snow Project? Instructions for how to participate are available on the Living Snow website: https://wp.wwu.edu/livingsnowproject/
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Jul 5, 2022 | Blog, Featured researchers
Meet Victoria Wuest, Graduate Researcher
JULY 5, 2021
LAS VEGAS, NEV.
Above: Graduate researcher Victoria Wuest filters wastewater samples for COVID-19 detection in the BSL-2 lab at DRI in Las Vegas.
Credit: Alison Swallow/DRI.
Victoria Wuest is a graduate research assistant with the Division of Hydrologic Science at DRI in Las Vegas, mentored by Duane Moser, Ph.D. She is a Master’s student in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Learn more about Victoria and her graduate research in this interview with DRI’s Behind the Science blog!
DRI: What brought you to DRI? And who at DRI are you working with?
Wuest: I came to DRI to research environmental DNA (eDNA) in two warm springs of Southern Nevada, working under Duane Moser, Ph.D., and with Ali Saidi-Mehrabad, Ph.D. eDNA is DNA that is released from an organism into the environment, and can come from sources like shed skin, mucus, and feces.
In my previous job, I was monitoring endangered species at the Muddy River, one of the study sites for this research. Also, I had previously worked with many biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Nevada Department of Wildlife who manage this project and both of its study sites — the springs of the Muddy River and Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. I was familiar with the species, the hydrology of these areas, and the management concerns of these precious resources. I had worked with the fish before and care about their survival. I thought I could make a positive impact with this research.
DRI: What research projects have you worked on during your time at DRI?
Wuest: When I first came to DRI, I had the opportunity to study the ancient eDNA excavated from Mule Springs Rockshelter, NV. This research focused on the migration of peoples throughout the Great Basin using DNA found on quids. Quids are chewed and expectorated plant fibers, which essentially served as an unintentional cheek swab. These samples were haplotyped and dated. Some quids turned out to be older than 3,000 years. This was my first experience working with eDNA and was valuable in teaching me the techniques for my project.
On the project at the Muddy River and Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, I have developed a method and markers for using eDNA for early detection of the invasive red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) and western mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis). I have also been using eDNA to track the movements of two endangered species, the Moapa dace (Moapa coriacea), and Warm Springs pupfish (Cyprinodon pectoralis nevadensis).
Graduate researcher Victoria Wuest extracts DNA from water samples in the clean lab at DRI in Las Vegas.
Credit: Alison Swallow/DRI.
DRI: What are some of the management concerns at the Muddy River and Ash Meadows project sites?
Wuest: The management of both sites focuses on the recovery of the imperiled species that are endemic to the area. The Moapa dace population has grown from 459 in 2008 to over a thousand. Meanwhile, the Warm Springs pupfish has a very small population of less than 500 individuals. Both species are highly susceptible to disturbances and have very localized distributions. The populations of Moapa dace and Warm Springs pupfish are dependent on the restoration of the streams and removal and monitoring of non-native and invasive species.
Graduate researcher Victoria Wuest samples stream water in Beatty, NV for the detection of western mosquitofish.
DRI: What are your research goals?
Wuest: My goal is to design markers, or specific, single-stranded DNA sequences, to detect red swamp crayfish , western mosquitofish, Moapa dace, and Warm Springs pupfish and publish these novel markers along with the novel sampling method. This method has the potential to be expanded to detect all the species in these systems with the future goal of tracking abundance. As I near the end of my degree program, I am proud that I have made progress towards using eDNA as a monitoring tool for these sites.
DRI: Tell us about yourself. What do you do for fun?
Wuest: Like many ecologists, I enjoy being outdoors—hiking, hammocking, and kayaking. At Northern Arizona University, my alma mater, these activities were a fundamental part of my college experience and part of the reason I chose that university. It is also the reason I chose to pursue biology.
However, lately, when I truly need a break from science, I find myself turning to art. I enjoy refinishing furniture, knitting gifts for my friends and family, propagating plants, sewing, photography, and honestly any craft that allows me to solve problems by being creative. These activities allow me to take a break from my work while still being fulfilling.
Graduate researcher Victoria Wuest samples the mainstem Muddy River, NV for the detection of invasive species and the endangered Moapa dace.
Jun 14, 2022 | Announcements, News releases
Study Explores Uncertainties in Flood Risk Estimates
Hydrology
Climate
Flood Risk
Above: The Truckee River in Reno, Nev. during high flow conditions after a storm in late January, 2016.
Credit: Kelsey Fitzgerald/DRI.
Results show a need to revise existing methods for estimating flood risk
Flood frequency analysis is a technique used to estimate flood risk, providing statistics such as the “100-year flood” or “500-year flood” that are critical to infrastructure design, dam safety analysis, and flood mapping in flood-prone areas. But the method used to calculate these flood frequencies is due for an update, according to a new study by scientists from DRI, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Colorado State University.
Floods, even in a single watershed, are known to be caused by a variety of sources, including rainfall, snowmelt, or “rain-on-snow” events in which rain falls on existing snowpack. However, flood frequencies have traditionally been estimated under the assumption these flood “drivers,” or root causes, are unimportant.
In a new open-access paper in Geophysical Research Letters, a team led by Guo Yu, Ph.D., of DRI examined the most common drivers (rainfall, snowmelt, and rain-on-snow events) of historic floods for 308 watersheds in the Western U.S., and investigated the impact of different flood types on the resulting flood frequencies.
Their findings showed that most (64 percent) watersheds frequently experienced two or three flood types throughout the study period, and that rainfall-driven floods, including rain-on-snow, tended to be substantially larger than snowmelt floods across watershed sizes.
Further analysis showed that by neglecting the unique roles of each flood type, conventional methods for generating flood frequency estimates tended to result in under-estimation of flood frequency at more than half of sites, especially at the 100-year flood and beyond.
“In practice, the role of different mechanisms has often been ignored in deriving the flood frequencies,” said Yu, a Maki postdoctoral research associate at DRI. “This is partly due to the lack of physics-based understanding of historic floods. In this study, we showed that neglecting such information can result in uncertainties in estimated flood frequencies which are critical for infrastructure.”
The study findings have important implications for estimating flood frequencies into the future, as climate change pushes conditions in snowmelt-dominated watersheds toward increased rainfall.
“How the 100-year flood will evolve in the future due to climate change is one of the most important unanswered questions in water resources management,” said Wright, an associate professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “To answer it, we need to focus on the fundamental science of how the water cycle, including extreme rainstorms and snow dynamics, are and will continue to change in a warming climate.”
The study team hopes that this research is useful to engineers, who rely on accurate estimates of flood frequencies when building bridges and other infrastructure. Although many engineers realize that there is a problem with the conventional way of estimating flood frequencies, this study provides new insights into the level of inaccuracy that results.
“This study shows that taking into account different physical processes can improve flood risk assessment,” said Frances Davenport, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow at Colorado State University. “Importantly, this result suggests both a need and opportunity to develop new methods of flood frequency assessment that will more accurately reflect flood risk in a warming climate.”
More information:
The full study, Diverse Physical Processes Drive Upper-Tail Flood Quantiles in the US Mountain West, is available from Geophysical Research Letters: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL098855
This project was funded by the DRI’s Maki Postdoctoral fellowship, U.S. National Science Foundation Hydrologic Sciences Program (award number EAR-1749638), and Stanford University. Study authors included Guo Yu (DRI/University of Wisconsin-Madison), Daniel Wright (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Frances Davenport (Stanford University and Colorado State University).
###
About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
About Colorado State University’s Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering
Colorado State is one of the nation’s top public research universities with about 33,000 students and $447 million in annual research funding. The Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering at CSU prepares students to solve global challenges to shape a better world through research, education, innovation, and outreach. In addition to a top-ranked graduate program in atmospheric science, the college conducts cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research that provides students hands-on learning in biological, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, mechanical, and systems engineering. The college attracts about $80 million in annual research dollars, placing it in the top tier of public institutions of similar size, and is a campus leader in patents, startups, and technology transfer. For more information, please visit www.engr.colostate.edu.
May 9, 2022 | Announcements, News releases
Extreme Heat
Outdoor Workers
Workforce Health
For Outdoor Workers, Extreme Heat Poses Extreme Danger
Study explores effects of summertime heat waves on workforce health in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles
Working outdoors during periods of extreme heat can cause discomfort, heat stress, or heat illnesses – all growing concerns for people who live and work in Southwestern cities like Las Vegas, where summer temperatures creep higher each year. But, did you know that female outdoor workers are experiencing disproportionate impacts? Or, that more experienced outdoor workers are at higher risk than those with fewer years on the job?
In a new study in the International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, scientists from DRI, Nevada State College, and the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities explore the growing threat that extreme heat poses to workforce health in three of the hottest cities in North America – Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Their study results hold important findings for outdoor workers, their employers, and policymakers across the Southwestern U.S.
To assess the relationship between extreme heat and nonfatal workplace heat-related illness, the study compared data on occupational injuries and illnesses for the years 2011-2018 with heat index data from Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Heat index data combines temperature and humidity as a measure of how people feel the heat.
“We expected to see a correlation between high temperatures and people getting sick – and we found that there was a very clear trend in most cases,” said lead author Erick Bandala, Ph.D., assistant research professor of environmental science at DRI. “Surprisingly, this type of analysis hadn’t been done in the past, and there are some really interesting social implications to what we learned.”
First, the research team analyzed changes in heat index data for the three cities. They found a significant increase in heat index at two of the three locations (Phoenix and Las Vegas) during the study period, with average heat index values for June-Aug climbing from “extreme caution” in 2012 into the “danger” range by 2018. Over the same period, data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics showed that the number of nonfatal heat-related workplace injuries and illnesses in each of the three states increased steadily, climbing from below the national average in 2011 to above the national average in 2018.
According to new research, the number of heat-related nonfatal workplace injuries in Arizona, California, and Nevada increased between 2011 and 2018. The three states now exceed the U.S. average.
Credit: Erick Bandala/DRI.
“Our data indicate that the increases in heat are happening alongside increases in the number of nonfatal occupational injuries across these three states,” Bandala said. “Every year we are seeing increased heat waves and higher temperatures, and all of the people who work outside in the streets or in gardens or agriculture are exposed to this.”
Next, the study team looked deeper into the data to learn about the number of male and female workers being affected by heat-related workplace injuries. At the beginning of the study in 2011, 26 to 50 percent of the people affected across the three states were female. By 2018, 42 to 86 percent of the people affected were female.
Study authors believe that the reason for this increase may be due to more women entering the outdoor workforce, or it could be related to the vulnerability of women to certain heat-related effects, like hyponatremia — a condition that develops when too much plain water is consumed under high heat conditions and sodium levels in blood get too low.
“As the number of female workers exposed to extreme temperatures increases, there is an increasing need to consider the effect of gender and use different approaches to recommend prevention measures as hormonal factors and cycles that can be exacerbated during exposure to extreme heat,” said study coauthor Kebret Kebede, M.D., associate professor of biology at Nevada State College.
The authors examined other variables, such as the length of an employee’s service with an employer. They found that the number of heat-related injury/illnesses tended to increase as the length of service with the employer increased, and that those with more than five years of service were at greater risk than those with less than one year of service. This may be due to employees with more years of service having a reduced perception of risk, or could be a cumulative effect of years of chronic heat exposure on the well-being of outdoor workers.
New research shows that in Arizona, Nevada and California, the number of heat-related injuries/illnesses tended to increase as length of service with the employer increased.
Credit: Erick Bandala/DRI.
In severe cases, heat-related illness or injury can cause extensive damage to all tissues and organs, disrupting the central nervous system, blood-clotting mechanisms, and liver and kidney functions. In these cases, lengthy recoveries are required. The authors found concerning evidence that heat-related injuries are keeping many outdoor workers away from work for more than 30 days.
“These lengthy recovery times are a significant problem for workers and their families, many of whom are living day-to-day,” Bandala said. “When we have these extreme heat conditions coming every year and a lot of people working outside, we need to know what are the consequences of these problems, and we need the people to know about the risk so that they take proper precautions.”
Authors of a new study on the impacts of extreme heat on workplace health found concerning evidence that heat-related injuries are keeping many outdoor workers away from work for more than 30 days.
Credit: Erick Bandala/DRI.
The study also explored connections between heat-related injuries/illnesses and the number of hours worked, the time of day that the event occurred, and the ethnicities and age groups that were most impacted.
Study authors hope that their results will be useful to policymakers to protect outdoor workers. They also hope that the information will be useful to outdoor workers who need to stay safe during times of extreme heat, and employers who rely on a healthy workforce to keep their businesses operating.
“This study underscores the importance of and the need for the work the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is doing to adopt a regulation to address heat illness,” stated Nancy Brune, Ph.D., study co-author and senior fellow at the Guinn Center.
“As temperatures continue to rise and heat-related illnesses and deaths continue to rise, the need for public policies to alleviate health and economic impacts is growing,” Bandala said. “I hope to continue doing research on this problem so that we can have a better of understanding of the impacts of extreme heat and how to help the people who are most vulnerable.”
More information:
The full study, “Assessing the effect of extreme heat on workforce health in the southwestern USA,” is available from the International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-022-04180-1
This project was funded by NOAA/IRAP (Grant no. NA18AR4310341) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM103440) from the National Institutes of Health. Study authors included Erick Bandala (DRI), Nancy Brune (Guinn Center for Policy Priorities), and Kebret Kebede (Nevada State College).
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
About Nevada State College
Nevada State College, a four-year public institution, is a member of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Nevada State places a special emphasis on the advancement of a diverse and largely under-served student population. Located on a developing 512-acre campus in the foothills of Henderson, Nevada, the college was established in 2002 as a new tier in the state system between the research universities and the two-year colleges and, as such, is Nevada’s only state college. Nevada State College is one of the fastest-growing colleges in the country and the fastest growing in Nevada. It currently has more than 7,000 students and more than 800 full- and part-time employees. For more information, visit http://nsc.edu.
About the Guinn Center
The Guinn Center is a policy research center, affiliated with the University of Nevada, Reno, with offices in both Las Vegas and Reno. The Guinn Center provides data-driven research and policy analysis. The Guinn Center seeks to identify and advance common-sense policy solutions through research , policy engagement, and strategic partnerships.
May 3, 2022 | Announcements, News releases
Forecasting
Flood Risk
Winter Storms
Above: During January 2017, a rain-on-snow event caused flooding along the South Fork of the Yuba River in California. Climate change is expected to make such events larger and more frequent.
Study Develops Framework for Forecasting Contribution of Snowpack to Flood Risk During Winter Storms
New research advances effort to create a decision-support tool for reservoir operators and flood managers
Lead author Anne Heggli of DRI digs through deep snow to reach a monitoring site during a 2019 field project at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory in the Tahoe National Forest.
Reno, Nev. (May 3, 2022) –In the Sierra Nevada, midwinter “rain-on-snow” events occur when rain falls onto existing snowpack and have resulted in some of the region’s biggest and most damaging floods. Rain-on-snow events are projected to increase in size and frequency in the coming years, but little guidance exists for water resource managers on how to mitigate flood risk during times of rapidly changing snowpack. Their minute-by-minute decisions during winter storms can have long-lasting impacts to people, property, and water supplies.
A new study by a team from DRI, University of California, Berkeley, the National Weather Service, and University of Nevada, Reno, provides the first framework for a snowpack decision support tool that could help water managers prepare for potential flooding during rain-on-snow events, using hourly data from existing snow monitoring stations.
“During rain-on-snow events, the people managing our water resources always have decisions to make, and it’s really challenging when you’re dealing with people’s lives and property and livelihood,” said DRI Graduate Assistant and lead author Anne Heggli, M.S. “With this work, we’re leveraging existing monitoring networks to maximize the investment that has already been made, and give the data new meaning as we work to solve existing problems that will potentially become larger as we confront climate change.”
Lead author Anne Heggli of DRI installing a snow depth sensor at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory in the Tahoe National Forest for the 2021-2022 winter.
To develop a testable framework for a decision support tool, Heggli and her colleagues used hourly soil moisture data from UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory from 2006-2019 to identify periods of terrestrial water input. Next, they developed quality control procedures to improve model accuracy. From their results, they learned lessons about midwinter runoff that can be used to develop the framework for a more broadly applicable snowpack runoff decision support tool.
“We know the condition (cold content) of the snowpack leading into a rain-on-snow event can either help mitigate or exacerbate flooding concerns,” said study coauthor Tim Bardsley of the National Weather Service in Reno. “The challenge is that the simplified physics and lumped nature of our current operational river forecast models struggle to provide helpful guidance here. This research and framework aims to help fill that information gap.”
“This study and the runoff decision framework that has been built from its data are great examples of the research-to-operations focus that has been so important at the Central Sierra Snow Lab for the past 75 years,” said study coauthor Andrew Schwartz, Ph.D., manager of the snow lab. “This work can help inform decisions by water managers as the climate and our water resources change, and that’s the goal – to have better tools available for our water.”
The idea for this project was sparked during the winter of 2017, when Heggli and her brother were testing snow water content sensors in California. Several large rain-on-snow events occurred, including a series of January and February storms that culminated in the Oroville Dam Spillway Crisis.
“I noticed in our sensors that there were these interesting signatures – and I heard a prominent water manager say that they had no idea how the snowpack was going to respond to these rain-on-snow events,” Heggli explained. “After hearing the need of the water manager and seeing the pattern in the data, I wondered if we could use some of that hourly snowpack data to shave off some level of uncertainty about how the snowpack would react to rain.”
Heggli is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program at UNR, and has been working under the direction of DRI faculty advisor Benjamin Hatchett, Ph.D., to advance her long-term goal of creating a decision support tool for reservoir operators and flood managers.
The results of this study can next be used to develop basin-specific decision support systems that will provide real-time guidance for water resource managers. The study results will also be used in a new project with the Nevada Department of Transportation.
“Anne’s work, inspired by observation, demonstrates how much we still can learn from creatively analyzing existing data to produce actionable information supporting resource management during high-impact weather events as well as the value of continued investment to maintain and expand our environmental networks,” said Hatchett, DRI Assistant Research Professor of Atmospheric Science.
More information:
The full text of the study, Toward snowpack runoff decision support, is available from iScience: https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(22)00510-7.
This project was funded by University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s COMET Outreach program, Desert Research Institute’s Internal Project Assignment program, and the Nevada Space Grant Consortium Graduate Research Opportunity Fellowship. Study authors included Anne Heggli (DRI), Benjamin Hatchett (DRI), Andrew Schwartz (University of California, Berkeley), Tim Bardsley (National Weather Service, Reno), and Emily Hand (University of Nevada, Reno).
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Apr 6, 2022 | Announcements, News releases
Atmospheric Thrist
Temperature
Climate
Above: A dry Nevada landscape. New research led by DRI scientists shows that atmospheric thirst is a persistent force in pushing Western landscapes and water supplies toward drought.
Credit: Riccardo Panella/DRI.
New study shows robust increases in atmospheric thirst across much of U.S. during past 40 years
Largest changes centered over Rio Grande region of Southwestern U.S.
Reno, Nev. (April 6, 2022) –In arid Western states, the climate is growing warmer and drier, leading to increased demand for water resources from humans and ecosystems. Now, the atmosphere across much of the U.S. is also demanding a greater share of water than it used to, according to a new study by a team from DRI, University of California, Merced, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
The study was published in the Journal of Hydrometeorology and assessed trends in evaporative demand across the U.S. during a 40-year period from 1980-2020 using five datasets. Evaporative demand, sometimes described as “atmospheric thirst,” is a measure of the potential loss of water from the earth’s surface to the atmosphere based on variables including temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation.
The team’s findings showed substantial increases in atmospheric thirst across much of the Western U.S. during the past 40 years, with the largest and most robust increases in an area centered around the Rio Grande and Lower Colorado rivers. These regions have experienced changes on the order of two-to-three standard deviations from what was seen during the baseline period of 1980-2000.
“This means that atmospheric thirst conditions in parts of the country are now verging outside of the range that was experienced 20 to 40 years ago, especially in some regions of the Southwest,” said lead author Christine Albano, Ph.D., of DRI. “This is really important to understand, because we know that atmospheric thirst is a persistent force in pushing Western landscapes and water supplies toward drought.”
Figure showing changes in atmospheric thirst, measured in terms of reference evapotranspiration (mm), from 1980-2020. The largest changes are centered over the Rio Grande region of the southwestern U.S.
To learn more about the role that different climate variables play in determining atmospheric thirst, Albano and her colleagues analyzed the relative influences of temperature, wind speed, solar radiation, and humidity. They found that, on average, increases in temperature were responsible for 57 percent of the changes observed in all regions, with humidity (26 percent), wind speed (10 percent), and solar radiation (8 percent) playing lesser roles.
“This study shows the dominant role that warming has played on the increasing evaporative demand and foreshadows the increased water stressors the West faces with continued warming,” said study co-author John Abatzoglou, Ph.D., of University of California, Merced.
For farmers and other water users, increases in atmospheric thirst mean that in the future, more water will be required to meet existing water needs. Some of these changes observed in this study are centered over areas where warming temperatures and lower-than-average precipitation are already creating stress on water supplies.
For example, in the Rio Grande region, the study authors calculated that atmospheric thirst increased by 8 to 15 percent between 1980 and 2020. Holding all else equal and assuming no other changes in management, this means that 8 to 15 percent more water is now required to maintain the same thoroughly-watered crop.
“Our analysis suggests that crops now require more water than they did in the past and can be expected to require more water in the future,” said study co-author Justin Huntington, Ph.D., of DRI.
Other impacts of increased atmospheric thirst include drought, increased forest fire area, and reduced streamflows.
“Our results indicate that, decade by decade, for every drop of precipitation that falls, less and less water is likely to drain into streams, wetlands, aquifers, or other water bodies,” said study co-author Michael Dettinger, Ph.D., of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and DRI. “Resource managers, policy makers, and the public need to be aware of these changes and plan for these impacts now and into the future.”
Members of the team are now developing seasonal to sub-seasonal forecasts of evaporative demand.
“We anticipate these types of forecasts will be important for drought and fire forecasting applications,” said study co-author Dan McEvoy, Ph.D., of DRI.
Additional information:
The full text of the study, A multi-dataset assessment of climatic drivers and uncertainties of recent trends in evaporative demand across the continental U.S., is freely available from the Journal of Hydrometeorology: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/hydr/23/4/JHM-D-21-0163.1.xml
The study team included Christine Albano (DRI), John Abatzoglou (UC Merced), Daniel McEvoy (DRI), Justin Huntington (DRI), Charles Morton (DRI), Michael Dettinger (Scripps Institution of Oceanography/DRI), and Thomas Ott (DRI).
This research was funded by the Sulo and Aileen Maki Endowment Fund to the Desert Research Institute’s Division of Hydrologic Sciences, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) California-Nevada Climate Applications Program (NA17OAR4310284), NOAA National Integrated Drought Information System California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System (NA20OAR4310253C), the NASA Applied Sciences, Water Resources Program (NNX17AF53G), the U.S. Geological Survey Landsat Science Team (140G0118C0007), and USDA-NIFA project (2021-69012-35916).
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
About UC Merced
UC Merced opened in 2005 as the newest member of the University of California system and is the youngest university to earn a Carnegie research classification. The fastest-growing public university in the nation, UC Merced is on the cutting edge of sustainability in campus construction and design and supports high-achieving and dedicated students from the underserved San Joaquin Valley and throughout California. The Merced 2020 Project, a $1.3 billion public-private partnership that is unprecedented in higher education, nearly doubled the physical capacity of the campus with 11 buildings earning Platinum LEED certification.
About Scripps Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego is one of the world’s most important centers for global earth science research and education. In its second century of discovery, Scripps scientists work to understand and protect the planet, and investigate our oceans, Earth, and atmosphere to find solutions to our greatest environmental challenges. Scripps offers unparalleled education and training for the next generation of scientific and environmental leaders through its undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs. The institution also operates a fleet of four oceanographic research vessels, and is home to Birch Aquarium at Scripps, the public exploration center that welcomes 500,000 visitors each year.
About UC San Diego
At the University of California San Diego, we embrace a culture of exploration and experimentation. Established in 1960, UC San Diego has been shaped by exceptional scholars who aren’t afraid to look deeper, challenge expectations and redefine conventional wisdom. As one of the top 15 research universities in the world, we are driving innovation and change to advance society, propel economic growth and make our world a better place. Learn more at ucsd.edu.
Mar 24, 2022 | Blog, Featured researchers
Meet Dennis Hallema, Ph.D.
MARCH 24, 2021
LAS VEGAS, NEV.
Data Modeling
Hydrology
Wildfires
Above: Dennis Hallema of DRI studies natural catastrophe impacts, such as the longer-term impacts that wildfires have on flood risk after a fire has passed. The hillside shown here burned in California’s Loyalton Fire during August 2020.
Credit: Kelsey Fitzgerald.
Dennis Hallema, Ph.D., is an assistant research professor of hydrology with the Division of Hydrologic Sciences at DRI in Las Vegas. He specializes in data modeling and natural catastrophe research. Dennis is originally from the Netherlands and holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Earth Sciences from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in Continental hydrology and society from Montpellier SupAgro in France. A new addition to the DRI community, Dennis started working for DRI remotely from North Carolina in November 2021 and relocated to Las Vegas in March.
DRI: Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you to DRI?
Hallema: I started at DRI in November of last year, so I am still fairly new here. If you had to describe me with two keywords, it would be hydrology and wildfires. I specialize in consulting on natural hazard impacts – not so much the natural hazards themselves, but the longer-term impacts that they have on things like flood risks. My methods are AI (artificial intelligence) focused – so, machine learning. When I applied for this job at DRI, there was really a need for a person who could do research on all of these aspects combined – a person that crossed the bridge between traditional hydrologic modeling and who could also apply newer methods like AI.
My background is in hydrologic modeling and fire science. I first did this work for the USDA Forest Service, where I was a research fellow with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE). That was my first big fellowship. I did that job for a few years, and that’s where I really became an expert in wildfire impacts on hydrology. Before that, I worked in Quebec City, Canada, on different jobs in hydrologic modeling of snowy landscapes, so I have experience doing snow modeling as well.
DRI: What are some of the ways that wildfires impact hydrology? Can you give us an example?
Hallema: I have studied this across the whole entire country looking at various regions where fires have an impact on runoff. The higher up you go in mountainous areas, you see very profound impacts. We can divide the impacts into primary perils and secondary perils. In the case of a wildfire, primary perils are the immediate damage. People lose their property, there are health impacts, there can be loss of life.
Secondary perils are what come later, after the fire has passed – the indirect effects that occur from the fire. In many cases, secondary perils are related to hillslope stability. You may remember the mudslides of California a few years ago. The hillslope becomes unstable because the wildfire can remove a large part of the vegetation canopy. After the fire, when the first rainfall event occurs, the soil can often still absorb that. But when the second rain shower comes, and there’s nothing to retain or protect the soil, in case of very severe wildfires, the soil becomes saturated and essentially creates a sliding plane, and that’s when you get mudslides.
Above: Dennis Hallema is an assistant research professor of hydrology with DRI in Las Vegas. In his free time, he enjoys spending time outdoors.
DRI: You recently published new research on wildfire risks to watersheds in Canada. Can you tell us about that?
Hallema: The paper was a review of the mechanisms that are responsible for wildfire impacts on water security and water resources across Canada. We mapped out where data are available, and what types of data are available, as far as wildfire occurrence, severity, streamflow data, and streamflow impacts. Data is often collected with publicly funded projects, so the ideal outcome would be that data should be accessible to other users later on. But this isn’t always the case.
One principle that we advocate for in this paper that I also want to promote in Nevada is the FAIR data principle. That stands for Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets. Obstacles to that are data scarcity and data fragmentation. Data scarcity means that there is little data available, and data fragmentation means that the data exist, but they are stored in many different locations. There is a lot of opportunity to improve the depth of data collection and quality of datasets and improve and reduce the fragmentation of data.
DRI: Can you tell us about a project you’re working on here at DRI?
Hallema: I’m working on a project that is sponsored by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and one thing that we’re exploring is the effect of rain on snow. This happens in landscapes in northern Nevada when temperatures are around the freezing point, and you get an interesting dynamic of snowmelt and snowfall. My research is really focused on how likely this is to generate a flood, such as a 50-year flood, or a 100-year flood. The way I’m approaching the problem is by looking at the interactions between rain, snow, and rain-on-snow events. I’m researching how these interactions at the land surface really affect the runoff that is generated, how that affects the probability of a flood occurring, and when during the season you see this elevated flood risk. That’s one thing I’m working towards – and in general also providing consulting for institutions like USACE for implementing machine learning and remote sensing technologies into natural hazards impact models, wildfire data modeling, water risk models, and such.
DRI: What do you like to do outside of work?
Hallema: I like to spend a lot of time outdoors. I like to travel, I speak a few languages. I’m lucky that the things I do for work are things that I really enjoy doing. Being outside, collecting data, and doing cool computer stuff when I get back to the office, that’s the fun of my job.
Mar 23, 2022 | Announcements, News releases
Wastewater
COVID-19
Wastewater Surveillance
Above: Waste water samples were collected at the Waste Water Treatment Plant in Pahrump, Nevada.
Agencies collaborate to launch wastewater surveillance dashboard
New dashboard will include COVID-19 concentration data, information about variant testing and more.
Las Vegas, Nev. (March 23, 2022) –
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), Southern Nevada Health District, Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) and Desert Research Institute (DRI) are partnering to detect early increases of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) and emerging variants in Southern Nevada through wastewater surveillance. The data will be available on a new dashboard that will be updated weekly at http://empower.unlv.edu.
The wastewater surveillance program monitors SARS-CoV-2 concentrations from people who contract COVID-19 (with or without symptoms) and shed genetic material in their stools. During the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater surveillance has tracked, monitored and provided early awareness of increases in volume of the virus as well as changes to the types of variants of COVID-19. Because people who are infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 can take several days before showing symptoms, the information provided through this surveillance program can assist with informing public health strategy and ongoing planning efforts.
In addition to being an early indicator that cases of COVID-19 may be increasing in a community, wastewater surveillance can also indicate when cases are decreasing, and the surveillance program is not dependent on people seeking testing or health care when they are sick.
“As we move into the next stage of our response to COVID-19, wastewater surveillance is going to be a powerful tool for detecting potential surges in new cases or the presence of new variants in our community. We will be able to alert the public in a timelier manner and support public health mitigation measures that can help slow the spread of the virus,” said Cassius Lockett, Director of Disease Surveillance and Control for the Health District.
Currently, the SARS-CoV-2 concentration in the wastewater of participating community water systems across Southern Nevada is tested as part of this program. Nevada was one of the first states to initiate testing, and this surveillance project represents one of the largest projects of its kind in the U.S.
“The collaboration between our community partners has enabled the collection of one of the largest and most diverse wastewater datasets in the country,” said Edwin Oh, professor and director of the Neurogenetics and Precision Medicine Lab at UNLV. “The daily and weekly analyses of these samples will help keep us one step ahead of emerging pathogens and variants.”
DRI Associate Research Professor Duane Moser collects water waste samples in Pahrump to detect possible increases of SARS-CoV-2 and emerging variants in Southern Nevada.
“DRI is contributing to this collaborative effort by organizing sampling from ten wastewater systems across rural Clark and Nye Counties, substantially expanding the geographic reach of the project and providing time-sensitive epidemiological data that would otherwise be lost,” said DRI Associate Research Professor of Microbiology Duane Moser. The addition of these outlying sites has a great deal to teach us about how quickly and effectively viruses spread from population centers to outlying areas with lower population densities.”
While wastewater surveillance can provide early awareness of increases in cases and potential outbreaks, the data provided cannot directly indicate the number of people who are currently infected with COVID-19. The data collected are not intended to be used as the sole method of measuring the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community. The information will be used along with other data by partner and responding agencies for planning purposes.
More information about wastewater surveillance, and national wastewater surveillance data, is available on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website at www.cdc.gov/healthywater/surveillance/wastewater-surveillance/wastewater-surveillance.html.
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
About Southern Nevada Health District
The Southern Nevada Health District serves as the local public health authority for Clark County, Boulder City, Henderson, Las Vegas, Mesquite and North Las Vegas. The agency safeguards the public health of the community’s residents and visitors through innovative programs, regulations, and initiatives focused on protecting and promoting their health and well-being. More information about the Health District, its programs, services, and the regulatory oversight it provides is available at www.SNHD.info. Follow the Health District on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Jan 20, 2022 | Blog, Featured projects
Seeking answers from the ashes
January 20, 2022
RENO, NEV.
By Kelsey Fitzgerald
Above: A soil collection field site located within the perimeter of Dixie fire. November 18, 2021.
DRI scientists study soil dynamics in the wake of Sierra Nevada wildfires
After a wildfire, soils in burned areas become temporarily water-repellent, resulting in increased risk of flooding and erosion in the months that follow. Scientists and land managers have never thoroughly understood why or how this happens – but when last summer’s Dixie, Tamarack, and Caldor fires burned through the Sierra Nevada in close proximity to DRI’s Reno campus, scientists Brad Sion, Ph.D., Vera Samburova, Ph.D., and Markus Berli, Ph.D., jumped into action.
The team, led by Sion, obtained a Rapid Response Research grant from the National Science Foundation for a new project aimed at exploring the impacts of wildfires on physical and chemical properties of burned soils.
Above, left: Brad Sion, Ph.D., Assistant Research Professor of Geomorphology, holds a frozen chunk of burned soil at a soil sample collection site near Kirkwood in the wake of the Tamarack Fire.
Above, right: Vera Samburova, Ph.D., inspects soils in a burned area near Frenchman Lake that was affected by the Beckwourth Complex Fire.
To collect soil samples before the burned areas were impacted by rain or snowfall, time was of the essence. In October, the team made several trips to nearby fire sites to collect soil samples and to conduct field measurements of soil water repellency.
Then, in late October, a major atmospheric river storm came through. The team’s next visit to the fire sites revealed a changed landscape – a real-world example of how wildfires and water repellent soils can impact ecosystems and infrastructure.
“When we first went out into the field, the sites were very dry and ash-covered,” said Samburova. “When we went back out after the atmospheric river storm, we saw lots of mudslides along the roads, and even dirt on top of the road in some places. The soil was very mushy at the surface, but bone dry within centimeters below. And a lot of water was staying on the surface. It was hard to walk on – very slippery.”
Above, left: The results of a water droplet penetration test on burned soils at the Dixie fire show a high degree of soil water repellency.
Above, right: After a late October atmospheric river storm passed through the region, researchers observed erosion and mudslides field sites at the Dixie fire.
An interdisciplinary approach
Although previous studies have examined impacts of fire on soils in a controlled laboratory setting, the new DRI study will be one of the first to investigate changes in soil properties and their interrelationships using samples collected directly from freshly burned forests. This work builds upon earlier research by co-investigators Samburova and Berli, which investigated the impacts of fire smoke on water repellency of sand samples.
The team, which includes experts from all three of DRI’s research divisions, is approaching their research questions from several angles. Sion is leading the effort to measure the hydraulic (water-related) and thermal (heat-related) properties of burned soils. Samburova is analyzing organic compounds found in the burned soil samples, and Berli is conducting tests to assess the degree of soil water repellency.
Together, their results will provide new insight into linkages between fire burn severity, changes in soil thermal and hydraulic properties, and more.
“Our goal is to understand from a basic science perspective, what the cause is for these various soil characteristics pre- and post- fire,” said Sion. “If we can look at different fire conditions and the soil conditions that result, then we can say something about how a soil may respond in the future, and eventually that information can be extrapolated to different landscape settings.”
At present, the researchers have completed sample collection and are analyzing samples in their respective laboratories in Reno and Las Vegas. They plan to return to their field sites next fall to see how the soil water repellency changes over time.
As climate warms and western wildfire activity increases, Sion and his colleagues believe that understanding how forest fires impact soil properties will continue to be a topic of growing importance.
“Climate change and wildfires are not problems that are unique to the Sierras,” Sion said. “Whether you’re in the Pacific Northwest, Canada, Alaska, or elsewhere, you’re seeing increases in fire activity. People are thinking about the landscape responses and what they mean.”
Diana Brown, Staff Research Scientist of Geomorphology, analyzes samples in the Soil Characterization and Quaternary Pedology laboratory in Reno. The soil samples have been saturated with water and contain tensiometers and heat probes to analyze hydraulic and thermal properties of the soil.
Funding for this study is provided by the National Science Foundation (award # 2154013). Additional DRI scientists participating in this project include Hans Moosmüller, Ph.D., Diana Brown, M.S., Chris Baish, M.S., Janelle Bustarde, Palina Bahdanovich, Shelby Inouye, Adam Hackbarth, Zimri Mena and Kendrick Seeber.
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Jan 13, 2022 | Announcements, News releases
“Native Climate” project will build relationships and narrow the climate justice gap in Native American communities of the Intermountain West
Above: The new Native Climate project will work to support climate resilience planning in Indian Country. Greenhouses at Salish Kootenai College (upper left), Grey Farrell near Tuba City on the Navajo Reservation (upper right), Pyramid Lake (lower right), a schoolbus on the Navajo Reservation near Tuba City (lower left). Credit: Maureen McCarthy/DRI
Reno, Nev. (Jan 13, 2022) – A collaborative team of researchers led by Maureen McCarthy, Ph.D. of DRI has received a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) to support and strengthen the role of USDA Climate Hubs in Indian Country.
The USDA Climate Hubs work across ten regions of the U.S. to support agricultural producers and professionals by providing science-based, region-specific information about climate change and climate adaptation strategies. The new DRI-led project, titled “Native Climate: Strengthening the role of Climate Hubs in Indian Country,” will support the Climate Hubs by expanding the reach of their services and outreach to Tribal Extension agents, agricultural producers, and youth educators in the Southwest and Northern Plains regions.
“From heatwaves to extreme winds, droughts, wildfires, and floods, the climate crisis poses huge adaptation challenges to Native American communities in the Intermountain West – and there are huge inequities across the U.S. in providing climate services and resources to Tribes,” said McCarthy, Native Climate program director from DRI. “Many of these communities are incredibly resilient and forward-thinking in terms of finding ways to adapt to this rapidly warming world, and their knowledge of the landscape pre-dates modern science. This project is an amazing opportunity to build connections and sustainable, trusted relationships that support information sharing between Tribal communities, Climate Hubs, Tribal Extension partners, researchers, and educators.”
Native Climate will address long-standing issues related to climate injustice in Indian Country through culturally-appropriate information sharing and by increasing the representation of Native American Tribal members in climate-related research and outreach positions. The project team includes researchers, Tribal Extension educators, and Climate Hub leaders from DRI, the University of Nevada, Reno Extension, University of Arizona, University of Montana (UM), and the Southwest and Northern Plains Climate Hubs.
The project supports the hiring of several Native Climate Fellows, who will work directly with the Southwest and Northern Plains Climate Hubs in coordinating climate data needs, extending outreach to agricultural producers, and sharing youth climate education materials. One Native Climate Data Fellow will be stationed in the Montana Climate Office (MCO) at UM. A second Native Climate Agricultural Producer Fellow will work through UNR-Extension, and a third Native Climate Youth Education Fellow will be hired by DRI.
DRI’s Native Climate Youth Education Fellow will work with mentor Meghan Collins, M.S., to continue growing an existing Teaching Native Waters Community of Practice, which fosters communication between educators, FRTEP agents, and scientists. This Fellow will also work with the Climate Hubs and other NIFA project teams to adapt climate education resources to be place-based and culturally relevant.
“Educators, scientists, decision-makers, and leaders all have important knowledge to bring to the table,” said Collins, assistant research scientist at DRI. “This community of practice creates spaces for us to listen, respond, and innovate. Together, we are seeking solutions that engage youth in closing the gap in climate justice.”
The project will also create a new student internship program for Native Climate Reporters at DRI, which will support three or more Native students a year studying communications, journalism, agriculture or STEM. The interns will report on stories about climate impacts and adaptation by tribes in their regions, and gain experience developing and producing multi-media communications, with mentorship from Native Climate Communications Coordinator Kelsey Fitzgerald, M.A.
“Only a very small percentage of journalists at U.S. news organizations are Native people, which has a huge impact on the news coverage we see or don’t see about climate change and other challenges being addressed by Tribal communities,” said Fitzgerald, senior communications official at DRI. “We are so excited to be able to provide this opportunity for Native students interested in climate reporting to develop their communications experience and skills, so that they can play an active role in providing more accurate news coverage and telling the stories that are important to their regions.”
Other components of the project include a “Native Climate Toolkit” – a web-based interactive resource clearinghouse, and impact reporting and alert tools. A Native Climate Advisory Group will help the team engage tribes in the region, leverage resources from partner organizations, and conduct culturally-respectful project evaluation.
Native Climate builds on partnerships established under previous USDA-funded projects Native Waters on Arid Lands (nativewaters-aridlands.com), the COVID CARE Toolkit Project, All Climate is Local virtual conference, and Teaching Native Waters. Native Climate will begin in March 2022 and run through March 2027.
More information:
To view the full award announcement from USDA, please visit: https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2022/01/12/usda-invests-9m-expand-reach-and-increase-adoption-climate-smart
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Oct 27, 2021 | Blog, Featured researchers
Meet Anne Heggli, Graduate Researcher
OCTOBER 27, 2021
RENO, NEV.
Atmospheric Science
Weather
Snowpack
Above: DRI graduate research assistant Anne Heggli works at the Virginia Lakes SNOTEL station to collect no-snow data for the cosmic ray detector for snow water content observations.
Anne Heggli is a graduate research assistant with the Division of Atmospheric Science at DRI in Reno. She is a Ph.D. student studying atmospheric science at the University of Nevada, Reno. Learn more about Anne and her graduate research in this interview with DRI’s Behind the Science blog!
DRI graduate research assistant Anne Heggli digs through deep snow to reach a monitoring site during a 2019 field project at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Laboratory in the Tahoe National Forest.
DRI: What brought you to DRI?
Heggli: The applied and operational approach towards research.
DRI: What are you studying?
Heggli: I am studying the role that present weather and snowpack conditions have on the timing of rain-on-snow induced runoff by looking into hourly data from existing snow monitoring stations. I am curious to find out if we can use these existing snow monitoring networks to recognize patterns and learn more about how different snowpack conditions contribute to runoff as a means to improve reservoir operations and aid in flood management.
DRI: What research projects are you working on? And who at DRI are you working with?
Heggli: I am working on the development of a Snowpack Runoff Advisory aimed at identifying high risk weather and snowpack conditions that can be synthesized into a decision support tool for reservoir operators and flood managers. Dr. Ben Hatchett is my advisor and the principal investigator on this.
DRI graduate research assistant Anne Heggli connects a prototype snow water content sensor that measures the attenuation of passive cosmic rays at Sagehen Creek Field Station.
DRI: What are your short-term and long-term goals while at DRI?
Heggli: In the short term, I am looking forward to growing my skills around quantifying risk and how to best communicate those results in a meaningful way. I also hope to develop multi-use data products through the Western Regional Climate Center that are ready for analysis to engage with other researchers that could allow me to acquire interdisciplinary knowledge and skills while I am working at DRI.
DRI: Tell us about yourself. What do you do for fun?
Heggli: In the summer you can find me playing sand volleyball at Zephyr Cove in Tahoe, on my paddle board, or swimming and exploring the American River watershed. I am a beginner at mountain biking and cross-country skiing. I of course love observing the weather and clouds. I also volunteer with Protect American River Canyons and help to engage the community with the stewardship of the recreational area.
DRI graduate research assistant Anne Heggli works with a hydropower agency in Panama to help them upgrade their hydrometeorological monitoring network.
Oct 26, 2021 | Announcements, News releases
New DRI Internship Program Focuses on Mentorship for Inclusion in STEM
Oct 26, 2021
RENO, NEV.
By Kelsey Fitzgerald
Internships
Career Development
STEM
Above: DRI Research Internship Immersion Program students Mary Andres (left) and John Cooper (right) work with faculty mentor Dr. Riccardo Panella in his laboratory on DRI’s Reno campus.
Research immersion internships provide career-building opportunities for students from Nevada’s two-year colleges
From wildflower blooms to microplastics pollution, fourteen students from Nevada’s two-year colleges are spending this fall building career skills in exciting new directions. The students are conducting hands-on research alongside
DRI scientists in Reno and Las Vegas through DRI’s new
Research Immersion Internship Program.
Although professional internship opportunities are fairly common in the sciences, many positions are aimed at students who are enrolled in four-year science degree programs. DRI’s new internship program takes a more inclusive approach, creating an opportunity specifically aimed at students from two-year colleges and welcoming those majoring in fields from outside of traditional scientific disciplines.
“Science and innovation thrive when people of diverse skillsets work together, because real-world problems are often very interdisciplinary,” said Internship Program Director Meghan Collins, M.S. “In addition to traditional scientific fields, drawing in students with interests in communications, business, public health, computing, and many other areas can bring new perspectives and new solutions to the table.”
DRI faculty mentor Riccardo Panella, Ph.D., (left) and student intern John Cooper (right) review calculations as part of an ongoing research project that tests a new therapeutic approach to treating metabolic disorders. Panella is an assistant research professor of cancer and genetics with the Center for Genomic Medicine at DRI; Cooper is a student at Truckee Meadows Community College.
DRI’s internship program began in September and runs for 16 weeks. Students have been placed in teams of two to four people, and are working under the direction of DRI faculty mentors from the Institute’s Reno and Las Vegas campuses on a variety of project themes.
One team of interns is working with Erick Bandala, Ph.D., assistant research professor of environmental science from DRI’s Las Vegas campus, to investigate water security in Native American communities of the Southwestern U.S. His team consists of three students from Nevada State College – two environmental studies majors and one math major.
“Many people in Native American communities lack access to running water in their homes and experience problems with water quality as well,” Bandala said. “We are exploring data that was collected by Tribes and water treatment facilities to learn about the scale of the problem and how it can be improved. I love the challenge and hope that my team will come out with helpful information. Water security is a very complicated issue, but the students that I am working with are very enthusiastic, and I am happy to be interacting with them.”
Other project themes for the program’s inaugural semester include documentation and analysis of wildflower superblooms (above-average bursts of blooming wildflowers) in the Western U.S., an investigation into the effects of wildfire on water repellency of soils, a study on how microplastic particles can be transported through the air, and a study investigating the effects of obesity on health challenges in mice.
Above, left: Student intern Mary Andres from Truckee Meadows Community College prepares reagents needed to analyze lipid profiles and hepatic enzymes in a study being conducted by DRI’s Center for Genomic Medicine. The results of these experiments will pave the way for a new generation of RNA-based therapies to treat metabolic disorders and prevent cancer progression.
Above, right: DRI faculty mentor Riccardo Panella, Ph.D., (left) of the Center for Genomic Medicine and Truckee Meadows Community College student Mary Andres (right) use a bright light to view a sample in Panella’s laboratory in Reno.
This year’s cohort includes students from Nevada State College,
Truckee Meadows Community College,
Great Basin College, and the
University of Nevada, Reno. Because many of the students are early in their college journeys, or come from fields outside of the sciences, the internship program provides stepping-stones to help them build the fundamental skills they need to succeed, including a month-long period of training prior to implementing their projects.
At the end of the semester, the student teams will deliver their project results and receive feedback from their faculty mentors. The end goal is to help foster the next generation of diverse scientists through mentorship, inclusion, and skill building.
“There are a lot of independent internships available to science majors, but not many programs that prepare students to be successful working in the sciences in the real world – especially for students who are coming from two-year college programs or from outside of scientific disciplines,” Collins said. “This program aligns with some of DRI’s larger goals of improving diversity and inclusion at DRI and in the sciences as a whole, while also providing important stepping-stones for students to learn to navigate the culture of science.”
Student Intern John Cooper from Truckee Meadows Community College prepares reagents in Riccardo Panella’s laboratory at DRI in Reno, as part of DRI’s new Research Internship Immersion Program.
More Information:
For more information on DRI’s Research Immersion Internship Program, please visit: https://www.dri.edu/immersion/.
DRI faculty mentors for the Research Immersion Internship Program include Erick Bandala, Riccardo Panella, Eden Furtak-Cole, Markus Berli, Christine Albano, and Meghan Collins.
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Oct 21, 2021 | Announcements, News releases
“What OpenET offers is a way for people to better understand their water usage. Giving farmers and water managers better information is the greatest value of OpenET.” – Denise Moyle, Farmer, Diamond Valley, Nevada
OpenET makes satellite-based data widely accessible to help 17 states develop more resilient water supplies
Reposted from OpenET
SACRAMENTO, CA – OpenET, a new online platform that uses satellites to estimate water consumed by crops and other plants, launched today, making critical data for water management widely available in 17 western states for the first time amid record drought.
OpenET fills a major information gap in water management in the West. Although water is essential to the health of our communities, wildlife, and food supply, access to accurate, timely data on the amount of water used to grow food has been fragmented and often expensive, keeping it out of the hands of many farmers and decision-makers. OpenET allows users to easily view and download this important water data for the current year and previous five years at no charge.
OpenET is providing this data down to the field scale in 17 western states as water supplies become increasingly scarce due to drought, climate change and population growth. The states covered by OpenET are Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
“OpenET addresses one of the biggest data gaps in water management in the western United States,” said Forrest Melton, program scientist for the NASA Western Water Applications Office. “This easy-to-use online platform provides scientifically robust data that are invaluable for water management at all scales, from an individual agricultural field to an entire river basin.”
“As water supplies become increasingly scarce in arid regions, we need new, innovative tools like OpenET to manage water more precisely and sustainably,” said Robyn Grimm, senior manager, water information systems, at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). “OpenET provides all farmers, policymakers and communities big and small with the same high-quality data on water use, so that we can all work together from the same playbook to develop more resilient water supplies across the West.”
“OpenET is a powerful application of cloud computing that will make a measurable impact on the ground in the agriculture sector. Google is proud to support such an important new tool to help improve water sustainability in the western United States as we see the impacts of climate change intensify,” said Google Earth Engine developer advocate Tyler Erickson.
“OpenET combines decades of research with advances in technology from just the past five years to make valuable water data much more affordable and accessible to all,” said Justin Huntington, a research professor at Desert Research Institute. “In the future we hope to expand OpenET to other arid regions of the world, such as South America, India and Africa.”
“As someone who has worked on evapotranspiration for more than 40 years, I am thrilled to see multiple, independent models for estimating ET come together on a single, easy-to-navigate platform,” said Richard Allen, a professor of water resources engineering at the University of Idaho. “By putting these water consumption data into the hands of farmers and water managers across the western United States, OpenET will be transformative in helping us manage water more sustainably,” added Ayse Kilic, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
“In some parts of the arid West, more than 70% of irrigation water ends up as evapotranspiration. By automating calculations for this highly important water data, OpenET will enable the USGS and water managers to more easily create water budgets at the watershed scale, which is an essential first step toward proactive water management,” said Gabriel Senay, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey.
“Irrigated agriculture is essential to feeding a growing population,” said Martha Anderson, a research scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “OpenET will be a powerful tool to help our nation’s farmers increase food production under conditions of limited freshwater resources.”
“OpenET has not just transformed access to information on ET, but has also facilitated important advances in the underlying science,” said Josh Fisher, a research scientist with the University of California, Los Angeles. “The collaborative approach used to develop OpenET will accelerate our ability to scale the platform to other regions, and to rapidly incorporate new information from future satellite missions.”
“The development of multi-model tools based on cloud computing, as provided by OpenET, is a paradigm shift, allowing water resources management in sustainable ways, not only in the United States, but also in many agricultural regions of the world, where agriculture and irrigation are increasing rapidly, as in Brazil”, added Anderson Ruhoff, a professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.
Applications of OpenET data include:
- Informing irrigation management and scheduling to maximize “crop per drop” and reduce costs for water, fertilizer and energy. ET data are being used by E&J Gallo Winery in California and Oregon state legislator and alfalfa farmer Mark Owens to reduce applied irrigation water while sustaining crop yields and quality.
- Enabling water and land managers to develop more accurate water budgets, water trading programs and other innovative programs. Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District in California’s San Joaquin Valley is using OpenET in its online accounting and trading platform. Salt River Project in Arizona is using OpenET to improve their understanding of the impacts of wildfire and forest management on streamflow and groundwater recharge.
What is evapotranspiration?
The “ET” in OpenET stands for evapotranspiration — the process by which water evaporates from the land surface and transpires, or is released, from plants. ET is a key measure of water consumed by crops and other vegetation that can be used by farmers and water managers to better track water use as well as water saved, for instance, when farmers change crops or invest in new technologies.
Evapotranspiration can be estimated by satellites because the ET process absorbs energy and cools the land surface, and vegetation reflects and absorbs different amounts of visible and near-infrared light depending upon the density and health of the vegetation. These effects are visible to thermal and optical sensors on a satellite. Using sophisticated biophysical models, OpenET combines satellite information with local weather data to accurately estimate ET.
Using publicly available data, OpenET brings together six independent models for estimating evapotranspiration onto a single computing platform, ultimately helping to build broader trust and agreement around this information.
OpenET data has been extensively compared to ground-based measurements collected in agricultural fields and natural landscapes, and tested by a wide variety of organizations through several use cases to ensure the highest accuracy.
Unprecedented public-private partnership
OpenET has been developed through an unprecedented public-private collaboration with input from more than 100 farmers, water managers, and other stakeholders. The project is led by Environmental Defense Fund, NASA, Desert Research Institute, and HabitatSeven. Additional team members include Google, the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, California State University Monterey Bay, University of Idaho, University of Maryland, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Wisconsin-Madison, UCLA, and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.
The OpenET project has received funding from the NASA Applied Sciences Program Western Water Applications Office, S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, Water Funder Initiative, Lyda Hill Philanthropies, The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment, Delta Water Agencies, and the Windward Fund. In-kind support has been provided by Google Earth Engine and partners in the agricultural and water management communities.
Providing farmers and local water managers free ET data is a core objective of the OpenET project. For-profit entities and other organizations looking for large-scale access to OpenET data will be able to purchase it through an application programming interface (API) expected to launch in 2022. Revenue generated will fund continuing research and development of OpenET data services.
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Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org), a leading international nonprofit organization, creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. EDF links science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and our Growing Returns blog.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (nasa.gov) is a U.S. government agency that leads an innovative program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and bring new knowledge and opportunities back to Earth. With its fleet of Earth-observing satellites and instruments, NASA uses the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future.
The Desert Research Institute (dri.edu) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Google Earth Engine (earthengine.google.com) is a geospatial processing platform that combines a multi-petabyte catalog of satellite imagery and other geospatial datasets with planetary-scale analysis capabilities. The platform is enabling scientists, developers and decision-makers to make substantive progress on global environmental and sustainability challenges.
Oct 6, 2021 | News releases, Research findings
Early Human Activities Impacted Earth’s Atmosphere More Than Previously Known
Oct 6, 2021
RENO, NV
By Kelsey Fitzgerald
Climate Change
Earth’s Atmosphere
Ice Cores
Above: After a storm at the drilling camp on James Ross Island, northern Antarctic Peninsula.
New study links an increase in black carbon in Antarctic ice cores to Māori burning practices in New Zealand more than 700 years ago
The James Ross Island core drilled to bedrock in 2008 by the British Antarctic Survey provided an unprecedented record of soot deposition in the northern Antarctic Peninsula during the past 2000 years and revealed the surprising impacts of Māori burning in New Zealand starting in the late 13th century. Robert Mulvaney, Ph.D., pictured here led collection of the core.
Reno, Nev. (October 6, 2021) – Several years ago, while analyzing ice core samples from Antarctica’s James Ross Island, scientists Joe McConnell, Ph.D., and Nathan Chellman, Ph.D., from DRI, and Robert Mulvaney, Ph.D., from the British Antarctic Survey noticed something unusual: a substantial increase in levels of black carbon that began around the year 1300 and continued to the modern day.
Black carbon, commonly referred to as soot, is a light-absorbing particle that comes from combustion sources such as biomass burning (e.g. forest fires) and, more recently, fossil fuel combustion. Working in collaboration with an international team of scientists from the United Kingdom, Austria, Norway, Germany, Australia, Argentina, and the U.S., McConnell, Chellman, and Mulvaney set out to uncover the origins of the unexpected increase in black carbon captured in the Antarctic ice.
The team’s findings, which published this week in Nature, point to an unlikely source: ancient Māori land-burning practices in New Zealand, conducted at a scale that impacted the earth’s atmosphere across much of the Southern Hemisphere and dwarfed other preindustrial emissions in the region during the past 2,000 years.
“The idea that humans at this time in history caused such a significant change in atmospheric black carbon through their land clearing activities is quite surprising,” said McConnell, research professor of hydrology at DRI who designed and led the study. “We used to think that if you went back a few hundred years you’d be looking at a pristine, pre-industrial world, but it’s clear from this study that humans have been impacting the environment over the Southern Ocean and the Antarctica Peninsula for at least the last 700 years.”
Four ice cores from continental Antarctica were drilled in East Antarctica, including two as part of the Norwegian-American International Polar Year Antarctic Scientific Traverse.
Tracing the black carbon to its source
To identify the source of the black carbon, the study team analyzed an array of six ice cores collected from James Ross Island and continental Antarctica using DRI’s unique continuous ice-core analytical system. The method used to analyze black carbon in ice was first developed in McConnell’s lab in 2007.
While the ice core from James Ross Island showed a notable increase in black carbon beginning around the year 1300, with levels tripling over the 700 years that followed and peaking during the 16th and 17th centuries, black carbon levels at sites in continental Antarctica during the same period of time stayed relatively stable.
Andreas Stohl, Ph.D., of the University of Vienna led atmospheric model simulations of the transport and deposition of black carbon around the Southern Hemisphere that supported the findings.
“From our models and the deposition pattern over Antarctica seen in the ice, it is clear that Patagonia, Tasmania, and New Zealand were the most likely points of origin of the increased black carbon emissions starting about 1300,” said Stohl.
After consulting paleofire records from each of the three regions, only one viable possibility remained: New Zealand, where charcoal records showed a major increase in fire activity beginning about the year 1300. This date also coincided with the estimated arrival, colonization, and subsequent burning of much of New Zealand’s forested areas by the Māori people.
This was a surprising conclusion, given New Zealand’s relatively small land area and the distance (nearly 4,500 miles), that smoke would have travelled to reach the ice core site on James Ross Island.
“Compared to natural burning in places like the Amazon, or Southern Africa, or Australia, you wouldn’t expect Māori burning in New Zealand to have a big impact, but it does over the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic Peninsula,” said Chellman, postdoctoral fellow at DRI. “Being able to use ice core records to show impacts on atmospheric chemistry that reached across the entire Southern Ocean, and being able to attribute that to the Māori arrival and settlement of New Zealand 700 years ago was really amazing.”
Black carbon deposition during the past 2000 years measured in ice cores from Dronning Maud Land in continental Antarctica and James Ross Island at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Atmospheric modeling and local burning records indicate that the pronounced increase in deposition in the northern Antarctic Peninsula starting in the late 13th century was related to Māori settlement of New Zealand nearly 4000 miles away and their use of fire for land clearing and management. Inset shows locations of New Zealand and ice-core drilling sites in Antarctica.
Research impacts
The study findings are important for a number of reasons. First, the results have important implications for our understanding of Earth’s atmosphere and climate. Modern climate models rely on accurate information about past climate to make projections for the future, especially on emissions and concentrations of light-absorbing black carbon linked to Earth’s radiative balance. Although it is often assumed that human impacts during preindustrial times were negligible compared to background or natural burning, this study provides new evidence that emissions from human-related burning have impacted Earth’s atmosphere and possibly its climate far earlier, and at scales far larger, than previously imagined.
Second, fallout from biomass burning is rich in micronutrients such as iron. Phytoplankton growth in much of the Southern Ocean is nutrient-limited so the increased fallout from Māori burning probably resulted in centuries of enhanced phytoplankton growth in large areas of the Southern Hemisphere.
Third, the results refine what is known about the timing of the arrival of the Māori in New Zealand, one of the last habitable places on earth to be colonized by humans. Māori arrival dates based on radiocarbon dates vary from the 13th to 14th century, but the more precise dating made possible by the ice core records pinpoints the start of large scale burning by early Māori in New Zealand to 1297, with an uncertainty of 30 years.
“From this study and other previous work our team has done such as on 2,000-year old lead pollution in the Arctic from ancient Rome, it is clear that ice core records are very valuable for learning about past human impacts on the environment,” McConnell said. “Even the most remote parts of Earth were not necessarily pristine in preindustrial times.”
Measuring the chemistry in a longitudinal sample of an ice core on DRI’s unique ice core analytical system.
Additional information:
The full study, Hemispheric black carbon increase after 13th C Māori arrival in New Zealand, is available from Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03858-9
Study authors included Joseph R. McConnell (DRI), Nathan J. Chellman (DRI), Robert Mulvaney (British Antarctic Survey), Sabine Eckhardt (Norwegian Institute for Air Research), Andreas Stohl (University of Vienna), Gill Plunkett (Queen’s University Belfast), Sepp Kipfstuhl (Alfred Wegener Institut, Germany) , Johannes Freitag (Alfred Wegener Institut, Germany), Elisabeth Isaksson (Norwegian Polar Institute), Kelly E. Gleason (DRI/Portland State University), Sandra O. Brugger (DRI), David B. McWethy (Montana State University), Nerilie J. Abram (Australian National University), Pengfei Liu (Georgia Institute of Technology/Harvard University), and Alberto J. Aristarain (Instituto Antartico Argentino).
This study was made possible with funding from the National Science Foundation (0538416, 0968391, 1702830, 1832486, and 1925417), the DRI, and the Swiss National Science Foundation (P400P2_199285).
To learn more about DRI’s Ice Core Laboratory, please visit: https://www.dri.edu/labs/trace-chemistry-laboratory/.
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Sep 29, 2021 | Blog, Featured researchers
Meet Nicholas Kimutis, Graduate Researcher
SEPTEMBER 29, 2021
RENO, NEV.
Public Health
Climate
Epidemiology
Nicholas Kimutis is a graduate research assistant with the Division of Atmospheric Sciences at DRI in Reno. He is a master’s student studying public health with a specialization in epidemiology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Learn more about Nick and his graduate research in this interview with DRI’s Behind the Science Blog!
Graduate research assistant Nick Kimutis prepares to capture Speyeria nokomis (butterflies) at Round Mountain in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.
DRI: What brought you to DRI?
Kimutis: I was originally brought into DRI by Meghan Collins, who hired me as an undergraduate intern with the Stories in the Snow citizen science program back in 2017. At that time, I was interested in ice crystal formation as well as communicating science and engaging with the public in an accessible way. After Stories in the Snow, Tamara Wall brought me into the Western Regional Climate Center where I have worked since. What keeps me at DRI is two-fold: First, the amazing and talented people that work here. Second, the translational research, co-productions and community engagement that we conduct in the climate center. I truly believe that the research questions DRI addresses leave the world a better place.
DRI: What are you studying?
Kimutis: During my undergraduate program, I studied microbiology and immunology. As a graduate student, I am studying epidemiology. To borrow Friss and Sellers 2012 definition, “Epidemiology is concerned with the distribution and determinants of health, diseases, morbidity, injuries, disability, and mortality in populations.” Specifically, I am interested in the intersection of climate and public health. I believe humanity’s biggest public health crisis is climate change.
DRI: What research projects are you working on? And who at DRI are you working with?
Kimutis: First and foremost, my job as a graduate research assistant is climate services. Climate Services involves connecting government, academics, media and the public with historical climate data. Tamara Wall serves as my primary mentor at DRI and Lyndsey Darrow serves as my advisor at UNR. I also work with Tim Brown, Greg McCurdy, Dan McEvoy and Pam Lacy.
In addition to climate services, I am working on two projects that involve health. The first is an extreme heat project located in San Diego County. This work is being done with Kristin VanderMolen and Ben Hatchett. This project aims to make a series of recommendations, based on focus group discussions with vulnerable populations, to the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency on extreme heat messaging.
Secondly, I am assisting on an EPA Project that will test and install air quality monitoring sensors in rural Nevada. This project will also generate recommendations for Emergency Managers on air quality messaging. This project includes Kristin VanderMolen, Meghan Collins, Yeongkwon Son, Greg McCurdy, Pam Lacy, Tamara Wall and collaborators at the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.
DRI: What are your short-term and long-term goals while at DRI?
Kimutis: My biggest goal at DRI is to do meaningful work that ultimately helps people. At the same time, I want to grow and refine my skills as a researcher. I am committed to an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible environment and serve on DRI’s IDEA Committee to help foster and grow that culture.
DRI: Tell us about yourself. What do you do for fun?
For fun, I enjoy all things outdoors including camping, hiking, rock climbing, swimming, biking and paddle boarding. I also have a Rottweiler, named Simon, who occupies quite a bit of my time.
Nick Kimutis and his dog Simon enjoy camping, hiking, and other outdoor adventures around Reno.
Sep 10, 2021 | Announcements, News releases
Second DRI researcher to be recognized with this prestigious award
Reno, Nev. (September 10, 2021) – DRI announced that research professor Michael Dettinger, Ph.D., has been selected by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) to give this year’s Tyndall Lecture at the Fall 2021 AGU meeting. The prestigious Tyndall Lecture Award recognizes outstanding work in advancing understanding of global environmental change. Dettinger is the second DRI researcher to be recognized by AGU since the award’s inception in 2013. World-renown DRI researcher Kelly Redmond, Ph.D., was recognized with the second Tyndall Lecture award in 2014.
“I am deeply honored to be recognized with the Tyndall Lecture and to follow in the footsteps of Dr. Kelly Redmond,” said Dettinger. “I look forward to sharing my research at the Fall 2021 AGU meeting. My lecture will present a history of climate and water studies in the Western U.S. Water resources have not been a focus of previous Tyndall Lectures and with current conditions in the West, the time is right for taking a look at this history.”
Dr. Dettinger joined DRI several years ago following a long (38-year) career with the U.S. Geological Survey that began in Nevada with studies of Las Vegas valley groundwater and the carbonate-rock aquifers of Eastern and Southern Nevada in collaboration with DRI scientists in the early 1980s. His career has since focused on unraveling the complex interactions between water resources, climate variations and change, and ecosystems in the Western U.S. He recently co-edited a book on atmospheric rivers. He is a Fellow of the AGU and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“We are proud of Mike’s accomplishments and are honored that he has been awarded DRI’s second Tyndall Lecture Award,” said DRI Executive Director, Division of Hydrologic Sciences Sean McKenna, Ph.D. “Mike has sustained his considerable energy, curiosity and creativity over a long career resulting in ground-breaking insights on global environmental change. His ability to communicate his findings in clear language and his dedication to mentor other researchers is a shining example of what we strive for at DRI.”
The Tyndall History of Global Environmental Change Lecture is presented annually and recognizes outstanding contributions to our understanding of global environmental change. It honors the life and work of Irish physicist John Tyndall, who confirmed the importance of the greenhouse effect in the late 1800s.
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The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Media Contact:
Detra Page
Communications Manager
Detra.page@dri.edu
702.591.3786
Sep 9, 2021 | News releases, Research findings
Study Shows A Recent Reversal in the Response of Western Greenland’s Ice Caps to Climate Change
Climate Change
Polar Research
Ice Cores
Above: A wide view of the Nuussuaq Peninsula in West Greenland. Project collaborators investigate an ice core extracted from this region for signs of change and response to past periods of warming.
Credit: Sarah Das © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Research suggests some ice caps grew during past periods of warming
Although a warming climate is leading to rapid melting of the ice caps and glaciers along Greenland’s coastline, ice caps in this region sometimes grew during past periods of warming, according to new research published today in Nature Geoscience. The study team included Joseph McConnell, Nathan Chellman, and Monica Arienzo of DRI, who analyzed a 140 m ice core from an ice cap on Greenland’s Nuussuaq Peninsula at DRI’s Ice Core Laboratory in Reno, Nevada.
“The use of records from Greenland’s coastal ice caps in climate change research has been hampered by difficulties in creating chronologies for ice-core measurements,” said McConnell. “Here we used a novel approach based on synchronizing detailed measurements of heavy metals in an array of Greenland ice cores.”
“This allowed creation of a tightly constrained chronology in a coastal core for the first time, and it was this chronology that underpinned this climate study,” Chellman added.
The analysis was done using DRI’s unique continuous ice core analytical system, which was developed in McConnell’s lab and funded by grants from the National Science Foundation during the past 15 years.
The full news release from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is below.
Ice capped and snow-covered mountains of coastal west Greenland. (Apr. 2015)
Credit: Matthew Osman © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
News release reposted from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:
Woods Hole, Mass. (September 9, 2021) – Greenland may be best known for its enormous continental scale ice sheet that soars up to 3,000 meters above sea level, whose rapid melting is a leading contributor to global sea level rise. But surrounding this massive ice sheet, which covers 79% of the world’s largest island, is Greenland’s rugged coastline dotted with ice capped mountainous peaks. These peripheral glaciers and ice caps are now also undergoing severe melting due to anthropogenic (human-caused) warming. However, climate warming and the loss of these ice caps may not have always gone hand-in-hand.
New collaborative research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and five partner institutions (University of Arizona, University of Washington, Pennsylvania State University, Desert Research Institute and University of Bergen), published today in Nature Geoscience, reveals that during past periods glaciers and ice caps in coastal west Greenland experienced climate conditions much different than the interior of Greenland. Over the past 2,000 years, these ice caps endured periods of warming during which they grew larger rather than shrinking.
This novel study breaks down the climate history displayed in a core taken from an ice cap off Greenland’s western coast. According to the study’s researchers, while ice core drilling has been ongoing in Greenland since the mid-20th century, coastal ice core studies remain extremely limited, and these new findings are providing a new perspective on climate change compared to what scientists previously understood by using ice cores from the interior portions of the Greenland ice sheet alone.
“Glaciers and ice caps are unique high-resolution repositories of Earth’s climate history, and ice core analysis allows scientists to examine how environmental changes – like shifts in precipitation patterns and global warming – affect rates of snowfall, melting, and in turn influence ice cap growth and retreat,” said Sarah Das, Associate Scientist of Geology and Geophysics at WHOI. “Looking at differences in climate change recorded across several ice core records allows us to compare and contrast the climate history and ice response across different regions of the Arctic.” However, during the course of this study, it also became clear that many of these coastal ice caps are now melting so substantially that these incredible archives are in great peril of disappearing forever.
The research team on the ground of a coastal West Greenland ice cap, preparing to extract and examine ice cores.
Credit: Sarah Das © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Due to the challenging nature of studying and accessing these ice caps, this team was the first to do such work, centering their study, which began in 2015, around a core collected from the Nuussuaq Peninsula in Greenland. This single core offers insight into how coastal climate conditions and ice cap changes covaried during the last 2,000 years, due to tracked changes in its chemical composition and the amount of snowfall archived year after year in the core. Through their analysis, investigators found that during periods of past warming, ice caps were growing rather than melting, contradicting what we see in the present day.
“Currently, we know Greenland’s ice caps are melting due to warming, further contributing to sea level rise. But, we have yet to explore how these ice caps have changed in the past due to changes in climate,” said Matthew Osman, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Arizona and a 2019 graduate of the MIT-WHOI Joint program. “The findings of this study were a surprise because we see that there is an ongoing shift in the fundamental response of these ice caps to climate: today, they’re disappearing, but in the past, within small degrees of warming, they actually tended to grow.”
According to Das and Osman, this phenomenon happens because of a “tug-of-war” between what causes an ice cap to grow (increased precipitation) or recede (increased melting) during periods of warming. Today, scientists observe melting rates that are outpacing the rate of annual snowfall atop ice caps. However, in past centuries these ice caps would expand due to increased levels of precipitation brought about by warmer temperatures. The difference between the past and present is the severity of modern anthropogenic warming.
The team gathered this data by drilling through an ice cap on top of one of the higher peaks of the Nuussuaq Peninsula. The entire core, about 140 meters in length, took about a week to retrieve. They then brought the meter-long pieces of core to the National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility in Denver, Colorado, and stored at -20 degrees Celsius. The core pieces were then analyzed by their layers for melt features and trace chemistry at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. By looking at different properties of the core’s chemical content, such as parts per billion of lead and sulfur, investigators were able to accurately date the core by combining these measurements with a model of past glacier flow.
“These model estimates of ice cap flow, coupled with the actual ages that we have from this high precision chemistry, help us outline changes in ice cap growth over time. This method provides a new way of understanding past ice cap changes and how that is correlated with climate,” said Das. “Because we’re collecting a climate record from the coast, we’re able to document for the first time that there were these large shifts in temperature, snowfall and melt over the last 2,000 years, showing much more variability than is observed in records from the interior of Greenland,” Das added.
“Our findings should urge researchers to return to these remaining ice caps and collect new climate records while they still exist,” added Osman.
The research team on the ground of a coastal West Greenland ice cap, preparing to extract and examine ice cores.
Credit: Sarah Das © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Additional collaborators and institutions:
- Benjamin Smith, University of Washington
- Luke Trusel, Pennsylvania State University
- Joseph McConnell, Desert Research Institute
- Nathan Chellman, Desert Research Institute
- Monica Arienzo, Desert Research Institute
- Harold Sodemann, University of Bergen and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
This research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), with further support from the U.S. Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship; and an Ocean Outlook Fellowship to the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research; the National Infrastructure for High Performance Computing and Data Storage in Norway; Norwegian Research Council; and Air Greenland.
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About Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment. WHOI’s pioneering discoveries stem from an ideal combination of science and engineering—one that has made it one of the most trusted and technically advanced leaders in basic and applied ocean research and exploration anywhere. WHOI is known for its multidisciplinary approach, superior ship operations, and unparalleled deep-sea robotics capabilities. We play a leading role in ocean observation and operate the most extensive suite of data-gathering platforms in the world. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide—both above and below the waves—pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility. For more information, please visit www.whoi.edu
About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Jul 27, 2021 | Blog, Featured projects
From COVID-19 to Drought:
Collaborating on Emerging Challenges Across Indian Country
July 27, 2021
RENO, NEV.
By Kelsey Fitzgerald
COVID-19
Drought
Emergency Response
Featured work by the Native Waters on Arid Lands project’s COVID-19 Working Group.
On a recent Friday, Maureen McCarthy, Ph.D., of the Desert Research Institute (DRI) and Vicki Hebb of the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) did the same thing they’ve done each Friday since the COVID-19 pandemic began, nearly 70 Fridays ago: they kicked off a weekly Zoom call with the Native Waters on Arid Lands (NWAL) project’s COVID-19 Working Group, an ever-expanding network of Tribal Extension Agents, agricultural producers, educators, and federal agency leaders from U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other agencies across the U.S. that are working together to solve problems and share information across Indian Country.
On the call were many regulars and a few new faces, whom McCarthy and Hebb greeted warmly, chatting about recent hot weather in South Dakota, Montana, and elsewhere around the U.S. before getting into the day’s agenda. First, weekly updates from program leaders of the USDA Office of Tribal Relations, USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), FEMA, and the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) on new programs, grant opportunities, and upcoming events. Then, a presentation on the week’s featured topic – an update on wildfire projections for the coming summer from Nick Nauslar, Bureau of Land Management fire meteorologist with the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.
“Basically, we’re just problem solving and information sharing,” said McCarthy, program director for NWAL. “We have people each week who give regular updates from their agencies, and then we have a featured topic that’s related to the ongoing challenges or interests of the group – which could be anything from food security to COVID vaccine education to drought briefings. We’ve created a platform that didn’t exist before in Indian Country for people to share information among themselves.”
NWAL Team member Kyle Bocinsky presents information on drought to the COVID-19 Working Group during a Zoom call in April 2021.
New problems, new platform
The COVID-19 pandemic produced unexpected challenges for people in all parts of the world, but hit particularly hard in many reservation communities across the U.S. due to factors such as lack of access to clean water, overcrowded homes, intergenerational families, high rates of disease, lack of access to health care, and economic challenges. In mid-March of 2020, several members of the NWAL team reported to McCarthy that tribes in their regions were facing a number of dire pandemic-related problems; in response, McCarthy, Hebb, Trent Teegerstrom (tribal extension director for the University of Arizona), and Staci Emm (tribal extension coordinator for UNR) began organizing weekly Zoom calls with USDA program leaders and NWAL tribal partners from across Indian Country to facilitate direct communication about urgent on-the-ground issues.
“There were loads of problems,” McCarthy said. “People were confused about what COVID was. They didn’t know what was going on. Hopi and Navajo didn’t have wood, they didn’t have water, they didn’t have PPE (personal protective equipment), they were running out of food. They were running out of hay for their livestock.”
The first several calls provided a platform for tribal members and tribal extension agents from various reservations to communicate their most urgent challenges and needs. They also featured briefings from medical professionals about what COVID-19 was, how it was spreading, and what actions could be taken by tribal communities and educators. From there, connections were made, and the group slowly expanded in size and scope.
“When we started, we thought we would do these calls for a few weeks or a few months,” Hebb said. “It grew from our immediate group – the Native Waters on Arid Lands team – to now having representatives from tribes all over the country, including Alaska, as well as key tribal agricultural organizations and federal agency partners. Now we’re more than a year into it, with close to 200 people on the weekly invite list.”
The NWAL team’s ArcGIS StoryMap, “COVID-19 in Indian Country,” tracked impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic shared on the weekly Zoom calls, as well as the group’s COVID-19 response projects. Click the photo above to view the StoryMap.
Projects and accomplishments
One of the group’s earliest accomplishments was to develop a list of urgent issues and actionable items for federal agency partners. Requests included reimbursements for farmers who had to keep animals alive during livestock trading shutdowns, loan relief to cover grazing leases, funding for local food production programs, and improved access to medical supplies and COVID-19 test kits.
Certain problems voiced on the calls were solved just by putting the right people in touch with each other. For example, on a call in May 2020, representatives from the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation spoke to the desperate need for firewood to heat their homes. A Forest Service representative offered up a supply of wood from a nearby forest thinning project and others from the Working Group joined forces to locate a trucking company and make it happen, resulting in the delivery of more than 100 cords of wood to Hopi and Navajo communities.
As other challenges surfaced, the Working Group mobilized to assist. When hay was in short supply on the Hopi Reservation last June, the group coordinated a donation of 350 bales to feed hungry livestock. When water quality became a concern in tribal buildings that were left vacant during COVID-19 closures, the group partnered with a water testing and purification company, Nephros, to analyze water samples. When a representative from an Alaskan Native community spoke to the need for essential non-food items in villages hit hard by COVID-19 last December, the group organized a successful donation drive for items such as cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, and winter clothing for children. And in February 2021, when call participants voiced concerns about rumors and misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccines, the Working Group created a new website called “Facts Not Fear” to supply accurate information and educational resources to individuals in Indian Country.
“I think this group has just done an enormous amount – we’ve changed a lot of people’s lives, in little ways that were really, really important, especially during COVID,” said Erin Riley, national program leader for USDA-NIFA. “A lot of people really needed assistance, and we were able to provide that. I also think that one thing that we did that was special was we were really able to work together between the government, project directors, non-government organizations, and communities in a way that is a model for how things are supposed to work under our particular political structure.”
Pam Lalo, Hopi Veterinarian Technician, unloads hay bales after a hay delivery to the Hopi Nation on June 27, 2020. Credit: Robinson Honani, Hopi Department of Natural Resources. Click photo above to read full story.
In May 2020, the COVID-19 Working Group arranged for the delivery of more than 100 cords of wood to the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation. Click the photo above to read the full story.
When a representative from an Alaskan Native community spoke to the need for essential non-food items, the COVID-19 Working Group organized a successful donation drive. Click photo above to read the full story.
In response to concerns about rumors and misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines, the Working Group created a website called “Facts Not Fear.” Click the image above to visit the site.
Looking forward: From the challenges of COVID-19 to ongoing impacts of extreme drought
Over time, it has become clear that the weekly calls are meeting a need. Although the problems may change from week to week, the benefits of connecting with like-minded partners and tackling big problems together won’t be going away any time soon.
As certain pandemic-related challenges have begun to fade, new challenges are emerging. The southwestern U.S. is now experiencing extreme to exceptional levels of drought, and the Working Group continues to meet weekly via Zoom for a presentation on a timely issue and collaboration on what the group can do to assist. Recent call topics have included drought projections, COVID-19 vaccine information, mental health and farm stress, drought impacts on pollinators and invasive species, and wildfire forecasts.
“I think the most important thing that’s come out of our weekly calls is that there’s a trusted place to exchange information and that we are able to get reliable information out to people on the ground really fast,” Hebb said. “This is really helping tribal producers make decisions that improve their livelihoods.”
More information:
The Native Waters on Arid Lands Project: https://nativewaters-aridlands.com
The NWAL COVID-19 Working Group StoryMap- https://nativewaters-aridlands.com/covid19
Facts Not Fear: https://factsnotfearcovid.com
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About DRI
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied environmental research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students who work alongside them, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge on topics ranging from humans’ impact on the environment to the environment’s impact on humans. DRI’s impactful science and inspiring solutions support Nevada’s diverse economy, provide science-based educational opportunities, and inform policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Las Vegas and Reno, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
About Native Waters on Arid Lands
The Native Waters on Arid Lands (NWAL; https://nativewaters-aridlands.com) project seeks to enhance the climate resiliency of agriculture on American Indian lands of the Great Basin and Southwest by building the capacity within tribal communities to develop and implement reservation-wide plans, policies, and practices to support sustainable agriculture and water management. Partners in the project include the Desert Research Institute; the University of Nevada, Reno; the University of Arizona; First Americans Land-Grant Consortium; Utah State University; Ohio University; and the Federally Recognized Tribal Extension Program in Nevada and Arizona. This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Jul 20, 2021 | News releases, Research findings
DRI Research Highlight
Mercury is deposited from the atmosphere into forests worldwide in greater quantities than previously thought, according to new research in the journal PNAS led by former Desert Research Institute (DRI) scientist Daniel Obrist (currently with University of Massachusets, Lowell) and a team that included Hans Moosmüller of DRI in Reno. Moosmüller contributed analytical tools for the measurement of mercury fluxes in this study, and also participated in writing the paper. The full news release from UMass Lowell is below.
The full study, Previously unaccounted atmospheric mercury deposition in a midlatitude deciduous forest, is available from PNAS.
Study Shows Forests Play Grater Role in Depositing Toxic Mercury Across the Globe
Reposted from UMass Lowell
LOWELL, Mass. – Researchers led by a UMass Lowell environmental science professor say mercury measurements in a Massachusetts forest indicate the toxic element is deposited in forests across the globe in much greater quantities than previously understood.
The team’s results underscore concern for the health and well-being of people, wildlife and waterways, according to Prof. Daniel Obrist, as mercury accumulating in forests ultimately runs off into streams and rivers, ending up in lakes and oceans.
Mercury is a highly toxic pollutant that threatens fish, birds, mammals and humans. Hundreds of tons of it are released into the atmosphere each year by coal-burning power plants, as well as through gold mining and other industrial processes, and the pollutant is distributed by winds and currents across the globe. Long-term exposure to mercury, or consuming food containing high levels of the pollutant, can lead to reproductive, immune, neurological and cardiovascular problems, according to Obrist, chair of UMass Lowell’s Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
Forests constitute the world’s most abundant, productive and widespread ecosystems on land, according to Obrist, who said the study is the first that examines a full picture of how mercury in the atmosphere is deposited at any rural forest in the world, including the deposition of mercury in its gaseous form, which most previous studies do not address.
“Trees take up gaseous mercury from the atmosphere through their leaves and as plants shed their leaves or die off, they basically transfer that atmospheric mercury to the ecosystems,” he said.
The results of the project, which is supported by a three-year, $873,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), were published this week in an issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. UMass Lowell student Eric Roy, a double-major in meteorology and mathematics from Lowell, is among the study’s co-authors.
For the past 16 months, the team has measured how mercury in the atmosphere gets deposited at Harvard Forest in Petersham, a nearly 4,000-acre site that includes hardwood deciduous broadleaf trees such as red oak and red maple that shed their leaves every year. A set of measurement systems placed at various heights on the forest’s 100-foot-tall research tower assessed the site’s gaseous mercury deposition from the tree canopy to the forest floor.
“Seventy-six percent of the mercury deposition at this forest comes from gaseous atmospheric mercury. It’s five times greater than mercury deposited by rain and snow and three times greater than mercury that gets deposited through litterfall, which is mercury transferred by leaves falling to the ground and which has previously been used by other researchers as a proxy for estimating gaseous mercury deposition in forests,” Obrist said.
“Our study suggests that mercury loading in forests has been underestimated by a factor of about two and that forests worldwide may be a much larger global absorber and collector of gaseous mercury than currently assumed. This larger-than-anticipated accumulation may explain surprisingly high mercury levels observed in soils across rural forests,” he said.
Plants seem to dominate as a source of mercury on land, accounting for 54 to 94 percent of the deposits in soils across North America. The total global amount of mercury deposited to land currently is estimated at about 1,500 to 1,800 metric tons per year, but it may be more than double if other forests show similar levels of deposition, according to Obrist.
The researchers are continuing their work at a second forest in Howland in northern Maine. Howland Forest, a nearly 600-acre research site full of evergreens that retain their leaves year-round, offers a distinctly different habitat than the deciduous forest in Petersham. Assessing both forests will allow researchers to examine differences in mercury accumulation between different forest types, Obrist said.
The work is providing a hands-on research experience for Roy, a UMass Lowell Honors College student who was invited to become a member of the university’s Immersive Scholar program in 2019. The initiative enables first-year students with outstanding academic credentials to participate in lab work and research right from the start of their academic studies.
“It’s really exciting to be a co-author,” Roy said. “This study allowed us to quantify how much mercury is being accumulated in this type of forest. Modelers can use these results to improve their understanding of how mercury cycles through the environment on a global scale and how that might change in the future.”
Roy helped analyze the data collected in the field.
“Eric’s contributions to the study are tremendous. It’s not very common for an undergrad to play such an important role in a major, federally funded research project,” Obrist said. “His work is really impressive and he has become more and more active in data analysis and doing complex flux calculations and data processing. He really earned himself second author position in the paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”
Other contributors to the study include Asst. Prof. Róisín Commane of Columbia University; students and postdoctoral researchers from UMass Lowell and Columbia University; and collaborators from Harvard University; the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada; and the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Lanzhou. Additional research support was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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UMass Lowell is a national research university offering its more than 18,000 students bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in business, education, engineering, fine arts, health, humanities, sciences and social sciences. UMass Lowell delivers high-quality educational programs and personal attention from leading faculty and staff, all of which prepare graduates to be leaders in their communities and around the globe. www.uml.edu
May 25, 2021 | News releases, Research findings
Does Cold Wildfire Smoke Contribute to Water Repellent Soils in Burned Areas?
May 25, 2021
RENO, NEV.
By Kelsey Fitzgerald
Soil Science
Wildfires
Hydrology
Above: After a wildfire, soils in burned areas often become water repellent, leading to increased erosion and flooding after rainfall events. The hillside shown here burned in California’s Loyalton Fire during August 2020.
Credit: Kelsey Fitzgerald/DRI.
A new DRI pilot study finds severe water repellency in sand samples after treatment with both hot and cold smoke.
After a wildfire, soils in burned areas often become water repellent, leading to increased erosion and flooding after rainfall events – a phenomenon that many scientists have attributed to smoke and heat-induced changes in soil chemistry. But this post-fire water repellency may also be caused by wildfire smoke in the absence of heat, according to a new paper from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Nevada.
In this pilot study (exploratory research that takes place before a larger-scale study), an interdisciplinary team of scientists led by DRI Associate Research Professor of Atmospheric Science Vera Samburova, Ph.D., exposed samples of clean sand to smoke from burning Jeffrey pine needles and branches in DRI’s combustion chamber, then analyzed the time it took for water droplets placed on the sand surface to be absorbed – a measure of water repellency.
A new pilot study by an interdisciplinary team from DRI exposed samples of clean sand to smoke from burning Jeffrey pine needles and branches, then analyzed the time it took for water droplets placed on the sand surface to be absorbed — a measure of water repellency. After exposure to smoke, water droplets sometimes remained on the sand surface for more than 50 minutes without soaking in.
Credit: Vera Samburova/DRI.
The pilot study investigated the effects of smoke and heat on water repellency of the sand and was the first study to also incorporate an analysis of cold smoke. In the experiments, sand was used in place of soil because it could be cleaned thoroughly and analyzed accurately, and Jeffrey pine for a fuel source because it represents a common wildland fire fuel in the Western U.S.
Before exposure to Jeffrey pine smoke, water droplets placed on the surface of the sand samples were quickly absorbed. But after exposure to smoke, the sand samples showed severe-to-extreme water repellency, in some cases retaining water droplets on the sand surface for more than 50 minutes without soaking in. It made little difference whether or not samples had been exposed to heat and smoke, or just cold smoke.
“The classic explanation for fire-induced water repellency is that it is caused as smoke diffuses under rather hot conditions and settles down into the soils, but our work shows that the smoke does not have to be hot to turn the sand hydrophobic — simply the presence of the chemical substances in the smoke is enough,” Samburova said. “This is something we really need to look deeper into because soil water repellency leads to increases in flooding, erosion, and surface runoff.”
Above, left: Jeffrey pine needles and sticks were used as a fuel source in the new DRI study because Jeffrey pine represents a common wildland fire fuel in the Western U.S.
Credit: Vera Samburova/DRI.
Above, right: Jeffrey pine needles and branches burn inside of the combustion chamber at DRI during a new study that investigated the effects of smoke and heat on water repellent of sand samples.
Credit: Vera Samburova/DRI.
This study built on previously published work by former DRI postdoctoral researcher Rose Shillito, Ph.D., (currently with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), Markus Berli, Ph.D., of DRI, and Teamrat Ghezzehei, Ph.D., of University of California, Merced, in which the researchers developed an analytical model for relating soil water repellency to infiltration of water.
“Our earlier paper focused on how fire changes the properties of soils, from a hydrology perspective,” Berli explained. “In our current study, we were interested in learning more about the chemistry behind the process of how soils come to be hydrophobic. We’re bringing together geochemistry and organic geochemistry with soil physics and hydrology to understand the impact of fire-induced water repellency on hydrology.”
The project team is now working on a larger proposal to further investigate questions touched on by this study about the roles of heat and smoke in fire-induced water repellency. Among other things, they would like to know how long soil water repellency lasts after a fire, and gain a better understanding of the detailed processes and mechanisms through which cold smoke affects the soil.
DRI’s combustion chamber, pictured here, is a specialized facility that has been designed and built for the open combustion of solid fuels under controlled conditions. In this experiment, it was used to expose samples of clean sand to Jeffrey pine smoke.
Credit: Kelsey Fitzgerald/DRI.
Gaining a thorough understanding of the process that leads to fire-induced soil water repellency is important because land managers need this information in order to accurately predict where soils are likely to be hydrophobic after a fire, Berli explained.
“We still don’t really understand the processes that lead to this fire-induced soil water repellency,” Berli said. “Depending on what we find, the measures to predict fire-induced water repellency might be different, and this can have a significant impact on how we can predict and prevent flooding or debris flows that happen after a fire.”
“This study was one big step forward, but it highlights the importance of future research on how fires affect soil, because wildfires are affecting thousands and thousands of square kilometers of land each year in the Western U.S., ” Samburova added. “Some of our future goals are to find out how exactly this soil water repellent happens, where it happens and how long it lasts.”
Additional Information:
This study was made possible with support from DRI and the National Science Foundation. Study authors included Vera Samburova, Ph.D., Rose Shillito, Ph.D. (currently with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), Markus Berli, Ph.D., Andrey Khlystov, Ph.D., and Hans Moosmüller, Ph.D., all from DRI.
The full text of the paper, Effect of Biomass-Burning Emissions on Soil Water Repellency: A Pilot Laboratory Study, is available from Fire: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/4/2/24
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About the Desert Research Institute
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied interdisciplinary research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge, supported Nevada’s diversifying economy, provided science-based educational opportunities, and informed policy makers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Reno and Las Vegas, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu
May 18, 2021 | News releases, Research findings
Above: DeMMO field team from left to right: Lily Momper, Brittany Kruger, and Caitlin Casar sampling fracture fluids from a DeMMO borehole installation. Credit: Matt Kapust.
Las Vegas, Nev. – Below the Earth’s surface, a zone of life known as the continental deep subsurface is home to large populations of bacteria and archaea, but little is known about how these microbial populations are distributed. To learn whether they are spread evenly across rock surfaces or prefer to colonize specific minerals in the rocks, scientists from Northwestern University and the Desert Research Institute (DRI) went deep inside of a former gold mine in South Dakota and grew biofilms (collections of microorganisms) on rocks. Their results, which published in April in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, show that the microbes formed “hotspots” around certain minerals in the rocks. Brittany Kruger, Ph.D., Assistant Research Scientist in Biogeochemistry from DRI in Las Vegas, served as field lead for the Northwestern research team at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), where this study was conducted.
The full text of the paper Rock-Hosted Subsurface Biofilms: Mineral Selectivity Drives Hotspots for Intraterrestrial Life is available from Frontiers in the Environment: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2021.658988/full
The press release below was reposted with permission from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL:
Earth’s crust mineralogy drives hotspots for intraterrestrial life
Northwestern University – Evanston, IL
April 9, 2021 – Below the verdant surface and organic rich soil, life extends kilometers into Earth’s deep rocky crust. The continental deep subsurface is likely one of the largest reservoirs of bacteria and archaea on Earth, many forming biofilms – like a microbial coating of the rock surface. This microbial population survives without light or oxygen and with minimal organic carbon sources, and can get energy by eating or respiring minerals. Distributed throughout the deep subsurface, these biofilms could represent 20-80% of the total bacterial and archaeal biomass in the continental subsurface according to the most recent estimate. But are these microbial populations spread evenly on rock surfaces, or do they prefer to colonize specific minerals in the rocks?
To answer this question, researchers from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, led a study to analyze the growth and distribution of microbial communities in deep continental subsurface settings. This work shows that the host rock mineral composition drives biofilm distribution, producing “hotspots” of microbial life. The study was published in Frontiers in Microbiology.
Hotspots of microbial life
To realize this study, the researchers went 1.5 kilometers below the surface in the Deep Mine Microbial Observatory (DeMMO), housed within a former gold mine now known as the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), located in Lead, South Dakota. There, below-ground, the researchers cultivated biofilms on native rocks rich in iron and sulfur-bearing minerals. After six months, the researchers analyzed the microbial composition and physical characteristics of newly grown biofilms, as well as its distributions using microscopy, spectroscopy and spatial modeling approaches.
The spatial analyses conducted by the researchers revealed hotspots where the biofilm was denser. These hotspots correlate with iron-rich mineral grains in the rocks, highlighting some mineral preferences for biofilm colonization. “Our results demonstrate the strong spatial dependence of biofilm colonization on minerals in rock surfaces. We think that this spatial dependence is due to microbes getting their energy from the minerals they colonize,” explains Caitlin Casar, first author of the study.
Future research
Altogether, these results demonstrate that host rock mineralogy is a key driver of biofilm distribution, which could help improve estimates of the microbial distribution of the Earth’s deep continental subsurface. But leading intraterrestrial studies could also inform other topics. “Our findings could inform the contribution of biofilms to global nutrient cycles, and also have astrobiological implications as these findings provide insight into biomass distributions in a Mars analog system” says Caitlin Casar.
Indeed, extraterrestrial life could exist in similar subsurface environments where the microorganisms are protected from both radiation and extreme temperatures. Mars, for example, has an iron and sulfur-rich composition similar to DeMMO’s rock formations, which we now know are capable of driving the formation of microbial hotspots below-ground.
May 11, 2021 | Blog, Featured researchers
Meet Natasha Sushenko, Graduate Researcher
May 11, 2021
LAS VEGAS, NEV.
By Kaylynn Perez
Environmental Microbiology
Pathogenic Bacteria
Space
Natasha Sushenko is a graduate research assistant with the Division of Hydrologic Sciences at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Las Vegas. She is a Master’s student in Biological Sciences in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), and is co-mentored by Duane Moser, Ph.D., of DRI and Brian Hedlund, Ph.D., of UNLV. Funding for Natasha’s position is provided by the NASA EPSCOR Rapid Response Research Program. Learn more about Natasha and her graduate research in this interview with DRI’s Behind the Science Blog!
Natasha Sushenko processes samples using a biosafety cabinet in the Environmental Microbiology Lab at the Desert Research Institute in December of 2020 during a SARS-CoV-2 wastewater monitoring study. Sushenko is a graduate research assistant with the Division of Hydrologic Sciences at DRI in Las Vegas.
DRI: What brought you to DRI?
Sushenko: Dr. Duane Moser spoke in my undergraduate Microbial Ecology class at UNLV, and I was really interested in how his lab studies the deep biosphere, the zone of life that exists far below Earth’s surface. His lab does fascinating research on “microbial dark matter,” yet-to-be-classified microorganisms that live under extreme conditions within the deep biosphere and are difficult to culture in the lab. We kept in touch, and even though I considered leaving Las Vegas to do my graduate studies, the opportunities that he and DRI offered were too good to pass up.
What research projects are you working on? And who at DRI are you working with?
Sushenko: I work in Dr. Moser’s Environmental Microbiology Lab here at DRI. We completed a COVID-19 wastewater monitoring study this winter, but my main research project is a NASA collaboration with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). They sent our lab strains of a pathogen (disease-causing bacterium) called Klebsiella pneumoniae that were isolated from the International Space Station (ISS). This microbe is a common cause of hospital-borne pneumonia and other infections, but in this case, it was found living on surfaces on the ISS, including on their space toilet. This pathogen is of particular concern to NASA because it has appeared in multiple samples across several years of microbiome monitoring, and it is growing more prevalent over time. While no astronauts on the space station have gotten sick, future human spaceflight to Mars and beyond may require astronauts to go on trips lasting years before returning to Earth. Because of this, NASA wants to know how pathogens like K. pneumoniae respond and adapt to living in space.
Our goal is to study how this pathogen’s virulence, or ability to cause severe illness, and its resistance to antimicrobial drugs and cleaners changes when exposed to the stresses of microgravity. Microgravity is the condition in space where people or objects appear to be weightless. This is something we can study here on Earth, at DRI, with a machine that simulates microgravity.
Above, left: Natasha Sushenko processes samples using a biosafety cabinet in the Environmental Microbiology Lab at the Desert Research Institute in December of 2020 during a SARS-CoV-2 wastewater monitoring study.
Above, right: Natasha Sushenko performs field chemistries on deep borehole samples in the Funeral Mountains near Death Valley on 28-April, 2021. Here Natasha is using a Hach Colorimeter to measure dissolved oxygen, iron, sulfate, and sulfide to test whether increased rates of pumping from a deep well facilitated collection of deeper samples from a geologic fracture zone. Natasha contributed to the DRI-led portion of an NSF-funded collaboration with Bigelow Lab in ME and others focused on applying cutting-edge genomic approaches to the oceans, marine crustal fluids, and the continental subsurface.
DRI: What are your short-term and long-term goals while at DRI?
Sushenko: Right now, I’m on the master’s degree plan, but I’m considering changing to Ph.D. track to continue working on my project to completion and beyond. The issue of the microbiome of the built environment in closed systems like spacecraft will only become more important as agencies and companies explore travel to the moon and Mars. You don’t get opportunities to work with NASA at every institution, and I’m excited that DRI gives me this opportunity.
DRI: Tell us about yourself. What do you do for fun?
The pandemic has cramped a lot of my favorite hobbies, but usually, I love to travel to visit friends, go camping, hike, and just being outside with others. This past year I’ve instead spent more time hanging out with my dog, gardening (indoors and outdoors), and baking.
In her free time, Natasha enjoys hiking and being outside in beautiful areas like the Desolation Wilderness in California.
May 3, 2021 | Blog, Featured researchers
DRI and partners test new method for reseeding native forests after wildfire
MAY 3, 2021
RENO, NEV.
By Kelsey Fitzgerald
Forest Restoration
Technology
Wildfire
Patrick Melarkey of the Desert Research Institute flies the drone during a reseeding flight at the Loyalton Fire burn area on April 22, 2021.
Drones are being tested for use in reseeding projects in other parts of the world, including California and the Pacific Northwest, but this project marks the first time this technology has been tested in the Eastern Sierra. For a trial area, the group selected a 25-acre site in a portion of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest that burned in the Loyalton Fire of August, 2020.
A hillside burned by the Loyalton Fire during August 2020. On April 22, 2021, the Desert Research Institute, Flying Forests, the Sugar Pine Foundation, and the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest conducted a reseeding project at this site using new drone technology.
Prior to the drone reseeding event, DRI archaeologist Dave Page, M.A., conducted aerial mapping at the burn site. This detailed imagery was used to determine an appropriate flight path for dispersing seeds evenly across the burn area, and was programmed into software that guided the drone during the reseeding mission.
A drone carrying small seed balls of Jeffrey pine takes flight during a reseeding project at the Loyalton Fire burn area on April 22, 2021.
On April 22nd and 23rd, 2021, DRI scientists Patrick Melarkey and Jesse Juchtzer provided technical expertise as drone pilots for the reseeding portion of the project. Over the course of two days of flying, Melarkey and Juchtzer dropped 25,000 Jeffrey pine seedballs across the 25-acre burn area. The drone made a total of 35 flights, carrying approximately 700-750 seedballs per flight.
Above: Patrick Melarkey and Jesse Juchtzer from DRI fly a drone carrying small seed balls of Jeffrey pine during a reseeding project at the Loyalton Fire burn area on April 22, 2021.
The seed balls were provided by the Sugar Pine Foundation, which worked with local community volunteers to collect more than 30 pounds of Jeffrey pine seed during the past year. The seed was combined with soil and nutrients into small balls that could be carried and distributed by the drone.
Small seedballs containing seeds of Jeffrey pine were prepared by the Sugar Pine Foundation in preparation for reseeding the Loyalton Fire burn area by drone. Each seedball contains approximately 3 seeds of Jeffrey pine. April 22, 2021.
The technology used on this project to plant with drones was invented by Dr. Lauren Fletcher of Flying Forests. Fletcher is a 5th generation Nevadan and graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno, Stanford, and Oxford.
Above, left: Personnel from Flying Forests load seedballs of Jeffrey pine into a drone prior to a reseeding flight at the Loyalton Fire burn area on April 22, 2021. Above, right: Lauren Fletcher of Flying Forests invented the seed-spreading technology that was used during the drone reseeding project.
Replanting native trees in burned areas can help stabilize slopes, reduce erosion, discourage growth of non-native plant species, and speed up the recovery of critical habitat for wildlife. Reforestation of burned areas is often done by planting small tree seedlings – but in areas far from roads or areas with especially steep terrain, this method can be expensive, labor-intensive, and dangerous. Spreading seeds by drone may provide a safer, cheaper, and easier alternative.
Next, the group will monitor and study the area to observe the success rate of this method of restoration.
Looking west from a hillside burned by the Loyalton Fire during August 2020. On April 22, 2021, the Desert Research Institute, Flying Forests, the Sugar Pine Foundation, and the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest conducted a reseeding project on the burn area using new drone technology.
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About Desert Research Institute
The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied interdisciplinary research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge, supported Nevada’s diversifying economy, provided science-based educational opportunities, and informed policy makers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Reno and Las Vegas, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Apr 19, 2021 | Blog, Featured researchers
Meet Dylan Person, Graduate Researcher
APRIL 19, 2021
LAS VEGAS, NEV.
By Kaylynn Perez
Archaeology
Cultural Resource Management
Antrhopology
Dylan Person is a graduate research assistant with the Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Las Vegas. He is a Ph.D. student in Anthropology, Archaeology subfield, at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Learn more about Dylan and his graduate research in this interview with DRI’s Behind the Science Blog!
Dylan Person is a graduate research assistant with the Division of Earth and Ecosystems Sciences at DRI in Las Vegas.
DRI: What brought you to DRI?
Person: I was introduced to DRI through the UNLV Department of Anthropology. I became interested in coming to DRI as a graduate assistant when I learned that a position at DRI gave students the opportunity to perform fieldwork as well as write reports and plan projects for cultural resource management archaeology. In addition to this great opportunity for learning new aspects of this area of archaeology, I jumped at the chance to learn more about Native American archaeology in the Great Basin since my research focus at UNLV is primarily based in New Mexico. I also got really excited when I learned that I’d be working with historic nuclear testing resources since that’s such a major part of America’s scientific history.
DRI: What are you studying?
Person: I study stone tool technology and how it interrelated with cultural and social life at sites in the Mimbres Mogollon region of southwestern New Mexico. The time period I study was around AD 550-1130 and during this time these people changed from highly mobile foragers to living in settled agricultural villages. This resulted in changes in their social organization that I think also impacted the way they made and used stone tools. Though this is not directly related to DRI’s work, experience with similar artifacts in the Great Basin has added a new dimension to my own work.
Archaeology in the Great Basin is very focused on mobile groups and studying here and working with these archaeological sites at DRI has taught me a lot about how mobile people moved around and interacted with their environment. This knowledge has really deepened my understanding of how groups of people in my study area acted when practicing this lifeway and expanded the range of my research.
Above, left: Dylan Person and his boxer, Wiggles, hike along the McCullough Hills Trail in the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area of Nevada. Above, right: One of Dylan’s fieldwork sites in San Bernardino, California.
Credit: Lizzie Person (left photo); Jared Miles (right photo).
DRI: What research projects are you working on? And who at DRI are you working with?
Person: I work with the Cultural Resource Management Program team. They’re a great group of archaeologists and historians who have a variety of interesting projects in addition to their cultural resource work. My supervisor is Maureen King, who has been very supportive of my academic progress and has helped me a lot in my professional development. Though I work with a combination of United States history and earlier Native American history, Maureen is great about involving me with program projects that align with my research interests here in Nevada, which I’ll talk a little more about below.
Currently, I am working on my dissertation research which involves the stone tool study that I mentioned previously. At DRI I have mostly been focusing on working with historic nuclear testing activities for cultural resource management. Informally at DRI, I have been looking at how groups moved throughout southern and central Nevada and adjacent regions. I’m interested in how these travel routes map on to environmental features such as water sources like springs, rivers, and wetlands as well as other resource-rich areas. Since these resources included plants, animals, rocks for tools, and culturally significant areas I have a lot to work with when it comes to investigating the how and why of people’s interaction with these areas over a long period of time.
Additionally, our program at DRI has a long history of working closely with Native American groups who live in the region. Being exposed to Native perspectives on the land and environment is a really valuable addition, since they have inherited a cultural understanding of this area that only comes from lived experience and long tradition. Though I don’t presume to fully understand how previous generations of Native Americans of the Mojave and Great Basin thought about their environment and lives, being around these perspectives has really opened up my mind to ideas and viewpoints that I wouldn’t have developed on my own. I’m really grateful for that!
DRI: What are your short-term and long-term goals while at DRI?
Person: In the short term, I hope to continue making contributions to our program and its support of projects through cultural resource management.
In the long term, I want to learn everything I can during my time in our program so that I am well-situated for both academic and non-academic archaeological work. I also want to formalize some of my research interests into a developed research plan, one that ideally would contain public science-focused elements. I’m really interested in public science and supporting science education in general.
Above, left: Dylan Person at the office on DRI’s Las Vegas campus. Above, right: One of Dylan’s field sites in San Bernardino County, California.
Credit: Dylan Person/DRI (left photo), Jared Miles (right photo).
DRI: Tell us about yourself. What do you do for fun?
Person: I like to get out in nature. So hiking, camping, bouldering, and other types of outdoor activities are always a good time. I’m a sort of amateur geologist, so I also like checking out interesting rock formations and the overall geology of a place. Nevada is a really great place for all that so I have a lot of options!
When I’m not running around outside, I play music. I play a few instruments but I’m best at the guitar and I play just about any style that a guitar can do, so rock/blues, country, bluegrass, jazz and even classical music. I also like cooking and especially grilling, backyard hangouts, and spending time with my wife Lizzie and our Boxer dog Wiggles, who are my companions in all these things I do for fun. One of these days I’ll have the space to get a project car so I can finally finish learning auto mechanics without worrying about messing up my daily driver!
In his free time, Dylan enjoys spending time with his wife Lizzie and their boxer, Wiggles.
Mar 25, 2021 | Blog, Featured researchers
Meet Nathan Chellman, Ph.D.
Ice Cores
Climate Change
Environment
Meet DRI scientist Nathan Chellman and learn about his work in the Ice Core Laboratory in this interview with DRI’s Behind the Science Blog.
Nathan Chellman, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow with the Division of Hydrologic Sciences at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nev. He specializes in the collection, processing and analysis of ice cores — cylindrical samples of ice drilled from glaciers and ice sheets around the world. Nathan grew up in Reno, and holds a B.Sc. in Geology/Biology from Brown University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Hydrology from the University of Nevada, Reno. He first worked at DRI as a high school intern in 2008, then later returned to DRI during and after college to work with Joe McConnell in the Ice Core Lab. He received his helicopter private pilot license in 2014 and volunteered as an EMT while he was an undergraduate. In his free time, Nathan enjoys running, skiing, and backpacking in the Sierras and central Nevada.
Nathan Chellman, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow with the Division of Hydrologic Sciences at the Desert Research Institute in Reno.
DRI: What do you do here at DRI?
Chellman: I work in the Ice Core Lab, where we do analyses and measurements on snow and ice from polar and alpine regions to learn about how the environment has changed over the past several centuries and millennia. I also do some work with tree rings and sediment cores from areas a little closer to home, like the Rocky Mountains, primarily looking at pollution and climate reconstructions.
DRI: What does an ice core look like, and how do you collect one?
Chellman: An ice core is a long, narrow cylinder of ice. To recover an ice core from an ice sheet or a glacier we use an ice core drill, which is a hollow tube with sharp cutters at one end and a big motor at the top. The motor spins the hollow tube, the cutters cut the ice away, and the ice core then ends up in the center of the hollow tube. You send the ice core drill down through the ice about 1 meter (3 feet) at a time, bring up the entire drill with an ice core inside, push the ice core out of the hollow drill section, send the drill back down the borehole, and then repeat that until you’re the whole way through the ice feature. For polar ice cores, we sometimes drill down hundreds of meters. So, we end up with hundreds or thousands of those meter-long sections back-to-back that represent a whole profile through the ice.
Above, left: Researchers process an ice core sample collected from a glacier in Greenland. Above, right: Closeup of an ice core drill.
Credit: Michaeol Sigl (left photo); Nathan Chellman/DRI (right photo).
DRI: What can you learn from all of these samples of ice? Can you tell us about one of your projects?
Chellman: One of my favorite projects right now is a study on some really old ice patches in Wyoming. These ice patches are about the size of a football field or smaller, so they are too small to be glaciers. They look just like little remnant snow patches that you might see in the Sierra Nevada if you go out hiking in the late summer. However, they’re not snowdrifts, they’re actual ice – and some of these ice patches are turning out to be thousands and thousands of years old.
I was invited to join the project by a group of archaeologists and climate scientists who were interested in looking at how old the ice patches were, and studying the organic debris inside of them and the artifacts that were melting out around the edges. They didn’t know what to do with the ice itself, but since we specialize in measuring ice chemistry, I volunteered to go to their field site when they were drilling through a shallow ice patch and bring some ice back to DRI. Those samples ended up being a very nice record of ice chemistry. The ice patch turned out to be 10,000 years old at the bottom, with about 30 organic layers cutting through the ice.
Normally in an ice core project, if you have dirt and organic layers in your ice core you’ve done something terribly wrong. In this case, the dirt was the key to unlocking how old the ice patch was, since the age of the organic material can be accurately dated. It turned out that the chemistry of the ice was really interesting as well, and preserved some climate information going back over ten thousand years. You can see distinct warm and cold periods that paralleled lake sediment records from nearby, and also some anthropological records of population. So, that suggested that people living in the area were affected by the general climate conditions as indicated by the ice patch chemistry.
Above, left: Nathan Chellman carries ice coring equipment to an alpine ice patch, where he and his colleagues are using ice core records from an isolated ice patch to learn about ancient climate in the region. Above, right: Chellman holds an ice core sample collected from an alpine ice patch.
Credit: Monica Arienzo/DRI.
DRI: Have you ever been part of a polar drilling operation?
Chellman: Yes, in 2013 I was in northeastern Greenland. That year we recovered a 212-meter ice core, which went back about 1,700 years. It took about two weeks working normal 8- or 10-hour days – but as you drill deeper and deeper into the ice, it takes longer and longer for the drill to go up and down the borehole. On the first day you can go about 20 meters in a day, and the next day you can go a little less, and by the end you’re only drilling 6 to 10 meters per day because it takes so long for the drill to go up and down the hole.
The first day was terrifying. The plane landed out in the middle of the ice sheet, hundreds of miles from any other camps or bases. The pilot dropped us and our gear out in the snow, and then took off and left. Help was a few days away at best, so we had to just get working and get camp set up before everything blew away, because it’s always windy there. There were no buildings, no infrastructure, just us and our camping gear. We had personal sleeping tents (we each used two sleeping bags!), a kitchen tent, and a science tent, as well as plenty of food, Coleman stoves for cooking, and the ice core drill.
DRI: What were the working conditions like in Greenland?
Chellman: The strangest part about working in Greenland during the summer is that it’s never night. The sun never completely goes down, even at night. The sun goes low on the horizon and it gets colder, but it’s never actually dark. It’s a little disorienting at first. You have to sleep with eye covers or pull your hat down over your eyes so you can pretend like you’re in a little bit of darkness.
It was also really cold. Between -25 and -35C (-13 to -31F) at night, and anywhere between -5 and -15C (23F to 5F) during the day. When it’s that cold, it’s really interesting because you have to consider that everything is going to be frozen. Your toothpaste is going to be frozen, if you leave your water in a mug it’s going to be frozen. It requires some adaptations from a lifestyle perspective to make sure what you need isn’t going to be a total block of ice.
In 2013, Chellman and his colleagues traveled to northeastern Greenland to collect a 212-meter ice core that went back 1,700 years. Their field camp is pictured here.
Credit: Nathan Chellman/DRI.
DRI: Do you have any plans to return?
Chellman: We were supposed to go back last year to that same place in Greenland and get an ice core that was twice as long, but that was postponed. We’re rescheduling for this spring, but everything is still very much up in the air. If we go, we’ll be gathering data for a study that is trying to understand pollution from ancient societies. For example, we will be looking to see if we can detect Bronze Age pollution from 2,000-3,000 years ago in the ice. The pollution would have been caused by mining and smelting of metals.
DRI: It sounds like you have a very exciting job. What do you like best about what you do?
Chellman: One of my favorite things is actually being in the lab and making the measurements, and taking all the time to make sure everything is running right, and that the analytical system and all the instruments are making high-quality measurements. When you’re analyzing ice cores, you have to be consistent day to day and week to week, since sometimes it can take a month or two to analyze all the samples from an ice core. But it’s really fun to get in the groove in the lab, run long days, and generate really consistent, nice datasets. There’s a lot of troubleshooting involved, but once the system is running smoothly, it’s really amazing to be able to generate unique, one-of-a-kind data that can be trusted to inform really big picture questions.
Additional Information:
For more information on Nathan Chellman and his research, please visit: https://www.dri.edu/directory/nathan-chellman/
For more information on the DRI Ice Core Laboratory, please visit: https://www.dri.edu/labs/trace-chemistry-laboratory/
DRI scientist Nathan Chellman.
Credit: Nathan Chellman/DRI.
Mar 11, 2021 | News releases, Research findings
Above: WestWide Drought Tracker data for winter 2020-21 show that precipitation levels across California and Nevada have fallen far below normal. Credit: WRCC/DRI.
91 percent of California and 100 percent of Nevada now in drought
Reno, Nev. (Mar 11, 2021) – Drought conditions are intensifying across California and Nevada, with U.S. Drought Monitor showing 91 percent of California and 100 percent of Nevada now in drought, according to a Drought Status Update released this morning by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), the California-Nevada Applications Program (CNAP), and the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute.
The Drought Status Update is issued every two weeks on Drought.gov as part of the California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System and communicates the current state of drought conditions in California and Nevada using information from sources such as the U.S. Drought Monitor, NOAA, CNAP, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E), and others.
According to today’s update, California and Nevada remain entrenched in moderate-to-exceptional levels of drought, with precipitation totals and snowpack falling below normal. Although recent spring storms have brought moisture to certain areas of the region, those and other potential spring storms are not expected to significantly improve the drought conditions.
“The chance of getting back to an average snowpack for this winter is looking less and less likely,” said Tamara Wall, Ph.D., Associate Research Professor at DRI and Co-Principal Investigator of the CNAP program. “It is time to really start thinking about the impact that this will have across California and Nevada as we move into the warmer months.”
In Nevada, conditions are especially dire, with 40 percent of the state now classified by the U.S. Drought Monitor as “exceptional drought,” or D4 – more area than at any point during the previous drought of 2012-2016. In the Carson, Truckee, and Walker Basins, reservoir storage is also lower than it was this time last year, all currently at less than 40 percent of capacity.
During the last two weeks, the authors have noted a significant increase in drought impact reports from water utilities to agriculture as it has become clearer that drought is here to stay in California and Nevada and the region’s odds of reaching normal are low.
“Recently, we’ve seen confirmation that any remaining storms won’t bring much drought relief and drought impacts are intensifying and expanding,” said Amanda Sheffield, Ph.D., NOAA NIDIS Regional Drought Information Coordinator for California-Nevada.
Seasonal forecasts predict a continuation of warm, dry conditions over the Great Basin and Southwestern U.S. as we head into spring and early summer. As drought conditions intensify, impacts to agriculture, water supplies, and forests are expected, as well as increased wildfire potential.
“The abnormally dry conditions that we’ve had this winter mean a second dry year for much of California and Nevada, which means that working on our drought preparedness right now is essential,” said Julie Kalansky, CNAP Program Manager, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “These conditions have potential implications for agriculture, ecosystem health, water supply, and fire potential.”
Additional information:
To view the full Drought Status Update for March 11, 2021, on Drought.gov, please visit: https://www.drought.gov/drought-status-updates/drought-status-update-california-nevada-2
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The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied interdisciplinary research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge, supported Nevada’s diversifying economy, provided science-based educational opportunities, and informed policy makers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Reno and Las Vegas, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Feb 22, 2021 | News releases, Research findings
Traditional hydrologic models may misidentify snow as rain, new citizen science data shows
Weather Forecasting
Climate
Citizen Science
Tahoe Rain or Snow weather spotters help reduce inaccuracies in estimating precipitation
Normally, we think of the freezing point of water as 32°F – but in the world of weather forecasting and hydrologic prediction, that isn’t always the case. In the Lake Tahoe region of the Sierra Nevada, the shift from snow to rain during winter storms may actually occur at temperatures closer to 39.5°F, according to new research from the Desert Research Institute (DRI), Lynker Technologies, and citizen scientists from the Tahoe Rain or Snow project.
The new paper, which published this month in Frontiers in Earth Science, used data collected by 200 volunteer weather spotters to identify the temperature cutoff between rain and snow in winter storms that occurred during the 2020 season. Their results have implications for the accuracy of water resources management, weather forecasting, and more.
“Scientists use a temperature threshold to determine where and when a storm will transition from rain to snow, but if that threshold is off, it can affect our predictions of flooding, snow accumulation, and even avalanche formation,” said Keith Jennings, Ph.D., Water Resources Scientist at Lynker Technologies and one of the lead authors on the study.
From a backcountry area near Lake Tahoe, Desert Research Institute scientist Monica Arienzo collects field data from her smartphone for the Tahoe Rain or Snow project. January 2021.
Previous studies have found that thresholds used are particularly problematic in the Sierra Nevada, where a significant proportion of winter precipitation falls near 32°F. When the temperature is near freezing, weather forecasts and hydrologic models have difficulty correctly predicting whether it will be raining or snowing.
Tahoe Rain or Snow was launched in 2019 to take on the challenge of enhancing the prediction of snow accumulation and rainfall that may lead to flooding by making real-time observations of winter weather. The team is comprised of two scientists, one education specialist, and about 200 volunteer weather spotters from the Lake Tahoe and western slope regions of the Sierra Nevada and Truckee Meadows.
“Tahoe Rain or Snow harnesses the power of hundreds of local volunteers. The real-time observations that they share with scientists add an incredible amount of value to the study of hydrology and clarify crucial gaps left by weather models,” said Meghan Collins, M.S., Education Program Manager for DRI and another lead author on the paper.
Above: Desert Research Institute scientist Meghan Collins collects data from her smartphone for the Tahoe Rain or Snow project using the Citizen Science Tahoe app during January 2021.
Credit: DRI (left) and Keith Jennings/Lynker Techologies (right)
In 2020, these citizen scientists submitted over 1,000 timestamped, geotagged observations of precipitation phases through the Citizen Science Tahoe mobile phone app.
Ground-based observations submitted by the Tahoe Rain or Snow team in 2020 showed that a much warmer temperature threshold of 39.5°F for splitting precipitation into rain and snow may be more accurate for our mountain region. In contrast, a 32°F rain-snow temperature threshold would have vastly overpredicted rainfall, leading to pronounced underestimates of snow accumulation. Such model errors can lead to issues in water resources management, travel planning, and avalanche risk prediction.
“Tahoe Rain or Snow citizen scientists across our region open a door to improve our understanding of winter storms”, said Monica Arienzo, Ph.D., Assistant Research Professor of Hydrology at DRI and another lead author on the paper. “Growing our team of volunteer scientists is important given that climate change is causing the proportion of precipitation falling as snow to decrease, and they help enhance the predictions of precipitation that we rely on in the Sierra Nevada and Truckee Meadows.”
Tahoe Rain or Snow is continuing in 2021. To join, text WINTER to 877-909-0798. You will find out how to download the Citizen Science Tahoe app and receive alerts as to good times to send weather observations. Tahoe Rain or Snow particularly needs observations from sparsely populated, remote, or backcountry areas of the Sierra Nevada.
Desert Research Institute scientist Monica Arienzo collects field data from her smartphone for the Tahoe Rain or Snow project. January 2021.
Additional Information:
This study was funded by Nevada NASA EPSCoR Grant 20-23, 19-40.
The full text of the study “Enhancing Engagement of Citizen Scientists to Monitor Precipitation Phase” is available from Frontiers in Environmental Science: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2021.617594/full
To learn more about the Tahoe Rain or Snow project, please visit: https://www.dri.edu/project/tahoe-rain-or-snow/
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The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied interdisciplinary research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge, supported Nevada’s diversifying economy, provided science-based educational opportunities, and informed policymakers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Reno and Las Vegas, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Lynker Technologies delivers innovative solutions to support global environmental sustainability and economic prosperity as a trusted partner to governments, communities, research institutions, and industry. We are passionate about what we do and the high value we provide to water resources management, hydrologic science, and conservation across the US and beyond. For more information, please visit https://www.lynker.com/.
Feb 1, 2021 | News releases, Research findings
Photo caption: A monsoon rain event in the East River watershed of Colorado, a pristine, high elevation, snow-dominated headwater basin of the Colorado River. Credit: Xavier Fane.
New study holds implications for future water supply in the Colorado River Basin
Las Vegas, Nev. (Monday, Feb. 1, 2021) – In the summer of 2019, Desert Research Institute (DRI) scientist Rosemary Carroll, Ph.D., waited for the arrival of the North American Monsoon, which normally brings a needed dose of summer moisture to the area where she lives in Crested Butte, Colo. – but for the fourth year in a row, the rains never really came.
“2019 had just a horrendous monsoon,” Carroll said. “Just the weakest monsoon. And we’d had a few years of weak monsoons before that, which had really gotten me wondering, how important is the monsoon to late summer streamflow here in the Upper Colorado River basin? And how do monsoons influence the following year’s streamflow?”
Working in partnership with colleagues David Gochis, Ph.D., of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Kenneth Williams, Ph.D., of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Carroll set out to explore the importance of monsoon rain in streamflow generation in a Colorado River headwater basin.
The team’s findings, which are published in a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters, point to both the importance of monsoon rains in maintaining the Upper Colorado River’s water supply and the diminishing ability of monsoons to replenish summer streamflow in a warmer future with less snow accumulation.
Their study focuses on the East River watershed, a pristine, high elevation, snow-dominated headwater basin of the Colorado River and part of the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area (SFA) program that is exploring how disturbances in mountain systems – such as floods, drought, changing snowpack and earlier snowmelt – impact the downstream delivery of water, nutrients, carbon, and metals.
Using a hydrologic model and multiple decades of climate data from the East River watershed, Carroll and her colleagues found that monsoon rains normally deliver about 18 percent of the basin’s water and produce about 10 percent of the annual streamflow, with streamflow generated primarily in the higher elevations of the basin.
“The amount of streamflow produced by monsoons, while not geographically extensive, is actually somewhat substantial,” Carroll said. “It was larger than I thought it would be. That doesn’t mean all of that water gets to a reservoir – some likely is used by riparian vegetation or irrigation, but it still does go to meet some need within the basin.”
Desert Research Institute scientist Rosemary Carroll measures stream discharge in the East River, Colorado. Credit: Kenneth H. Williams.
Next, the team explored the ability of these summer rains to produce streamflow during cool years with high snow accumulation, and during warm years with less snow accumulation. During cool years with more snow, soil moisture levels were higher going into summer, and greater streamflow was generated by the monsoon rains. During warmer years with low snowpack, dry soils absorbed much of the monsoonal rains, and less runoff made it to the streams.
“You can think of the soil zone as a sponge that needs to fill up before it can allow water to move through it,” Carroll said. “So, if it’s already depleted because you had low snowpack, the monsoon then has to fill it back up, and that decreases the amount of water you actually get in the river.”
As the climate warms, snowpack in the Rocky Mountains and other mountain systems is expected to decline, leading to reduced streamflow. Rising temperatures also lead to increased soil evaporation and increased water use by plants. According to the results of Carroll’s study, these changes will reduce the ability of water from the monsoon to make it to the river as streamflow.
“Our results indicate that as we move toward a climate that is warmer and our snowpack decreases, the ability of monsoon rain to buffer these losses in streamflow is also going to go down,” Carroll said. “So, the monsoon is not some silver bullet that is going to help mitigate those changes.”
The Colorado River is a critically important resource for people living in Southern Nevada, where it accounts for about 90 percent of the water supply. Although runoff from winter snowpack provides a much larger proportion of streamflow each year than the monsoons, the monsoonal moisture is important to both ecosystems and people in part because it arrives at a different time of year. And in a system like the Colorado River, where every drop of water is allocated, if monsoon rains do not arrive, it creates a shortage somewhere downstream.
“In terms of water resources, if monsoon rains are useful and contribute to late-season streamflow, then the loss of that water obviously has implications for the ecology of these systems,” Carroll said. “This water is really important in supporting aquatic habitat there. But it’s also really important for human use. If any amount of water that we rely on isn’t there, then something has to give. The Upper Basin will have to consider how they are going to manage their water to meet those downstream obligations.”
Additional information:
The full text of the study, Efficiency of the Summer Monsoon in Generating Streamflow Within a Snow‐Dominated Headwater Basin of the Colorado River, is available from Geophysical Research Letters: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090856
For more information on Rosemary Carroll, please visit: https://www.dri.edu/directory/rosemary-carroll/
For more information on the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area (SFA) program, please visit: http://watershed.lbl.gov/
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The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied interdisciplinary research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge, supported Nevada’s diversifying economy, provided science-based educational opportunities, and informed policy makers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Reno and Las Vegas, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Dec 14, 2020 | News releases, Research findings
What happens when rain falls on desert soils?
DEC. 14, 2020
LAS VEGAS, NEV.
An updated model from DRI scientists in Las Vegas provides a new understanding of water movement in dry soils
Several years ago, while studying the environmental impacts of large-scale solar farms in the Nevada desert, Desert Research Institute (DRI) scientists Yuan Luo, Ph.D. and Markus Berli, Ph.D. became interested in one particular question: how does the presence of thousands of solar panels impact desert hydrology?
This question led to more questions. “How do solar panels change the way water hits the ground when it rains?” they asked. “Where does the water go? How much of the rain water stays in the soil? How deep does it go into the soil?”
“To understand how solar panels impact desert hydrology, we basically needed a better understanding of how desert soils function hydraulically,” explained Luo, postdoctoral researcher with DRI’s Division of Hydrologic Sciences and lead author of a new study in Vadose Zone Journal.
DRI scientists Yuan Luo (left) and Markus Berli (right) conducting research at DRI’s SEPHAS Lysimeter facility in Boulder City, Nev. November 2020.
Photograph by Ali Swallow/DRI.
In the study, Luo, Berli, and colleagues Teamrat Ghezzehei, Ph.D. of the University of California, Merced, and Zhongbo Yu, Ph.D. of the University of Hohai, China, make important improvements to our understanding of how water moves through and gets stored in dry soils by refining an existing computer model.
The model, called HYDRUS-1D, simulates how water redistributes in a sandy desert soil based on precipitation and evaporation data. A first version of the model was developed by a previous DRI graduate student named Jelle Dijkema, but was not working well under conditions where soil moisture levels near the soil surface were very low.
To refine and expand the usefulness of Dijkema’s model, Luo analyzed data from DRI’s SEPHAS Lysimeter facility, located in Boulder City, Nev. Here, large, underground, soil-filled steel tanks have been installed over truck scales to allow researchers to study natural water gains and losses in a soil column under controlled conditions.
Above: Yuan Luo and Markus Berli of DRI’s Division of Hydrologic Sciences used data from DRI’s SEPHAS Lysimeter facility (shown here) to refine an existing model called HYDRUS-1D, which simulates how water moves through dry soils.
Photographs by Ali Swallow/DRI.
Using data from the lysimeters, Luo explored the use of several hydraulic equations to refine Dijkema’s model. The end result, which is described in the new paper, was an improved understanding and model of how moisture moves through and is stored in the upper layers of dry desert soils.
“The first version of the model had some shortcomings,” Luo explained. “It wasn’t working well for very dry soils with volumetric water content lower than 10 percent. The SEPHAS lysimeters provided us with really good data to help understand the phenomenon of how water moves through dry soils as a result of rainfall and evaporation.”
In desert environments, understanding the movement of water through soils is helpful for a variety of practical uses, including soil restoration, erosion and dust management, and flood risk mitigation. For example, this model will be useful for desert restoration projects, where project managers need to know how much water will be available in the soil for plants after a desert rainstorm, Berli said. It is also a key piece of the puzzle needed to help answer their original question about how solar farms impact desert hydrology.
“The model is very technical, but all of this technical stuff is just a mathematical way to describe how rainwater moves in the soil once the water hits the soil,” Berli said. “In the bigger picture, this study was motivated by the very practical question of what happens to rainwater when falling on solar farms with thousands and thousands of solar panels in the desert – but to answer questions like that, sometimes you have to dig deep and answer more fundamental questions first.”
DRI scientist Yuan Luo standes near a weighing lysimeter at DRI’s SEPHAS Lysimeter facility in Boulder City, Nev. November 2020.
Photograph by Ali Swallow/DRI.
“In the bigger picture, this study was motivated by the very practical question of what happens to rainwater when falling on solar farms with thousands and thousands of solar panels in the desert – but to answer questions like that, sometimes you have to dig deep and answer more fundamental questions first.”
Additional Information:
This study was funded by the DRI Foundation Innovative Research Program, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Rose Shillito, Ph.D. (DRI/ACOE) and Nicole Damon (DRI) also contributed to the success of this project.
The full text of the paper “Modeling near-surface water redistribution in a desert soil”, is available from Vadose Zone Journal: https://doi.org/10.1002/vzj2.20081
To learn more about DRI’s SEPHAS Lysimeter facility, please visit: https://www.dri.edu/sephas/lysimeters/
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The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied interdisciplinary research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge, supported Nevada’s diversifying economy, provided science-based educational opportunities, and informed policy makers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Reno and Las Vegas, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
DRI scientists Markus Berli and Yuan Luo. November 2020.
Photograph by Ali Swallow/DRI.
Nov 19, 2020 | News releases, Research findings
Climate change and “atmospheric thirst” to increase fire danger and drought in Nevada and California
Climate Change
Wildfire
Drought
New study shows impacts of increased levels of evaporative demand as climate grows warmer and drier
Climate change and a “thirsty atmosphere” will bring more extreme wildfire danger and multi-year droughts to Nevada and California by the end of this century, according to new research from the Desert Research Institute (DRI), the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Merced.
In a new study published in Earth’s Future, scientists looked at future projections of evaporative demand – a measure of how dry the air is – in California and Nevada through the end of the 21st century. They then examined how changes in evaporative demand would impact the frequency of extreme fire danger and three-year droughts, based on metrics from the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI).
According to their results, climate change projections show consistent future increases in atmospheric evaporative demand (or the “atmospheric thirst”) over California and Nevada. These changes were largely driven by warmer temperatures, and would likely lead to significant on-the-ground environmental impacts.
Study results show increases of 13 to 18 percent in evaporative demand during all four seasons by the end of the century.
“Higher evaporative demand during summer and autumn—peak fire season in the region—means faster drying of soil moisture and vegetation, and available fuels becoming more flammable, leading to fires that can burn faster and hotter,” explained lead author Dan McEvoy, Ph.D., Assistant Research Professor of Climatology at DRI.
“Increased evaporative demand with warming enables fuels to be drier for longer periods,” added coauthor John Abatzoglou, Ph.D., Associate Professor with the University of California, Merced. “This is a recipe for more active fire seasons.”
The research team found that days with extreme fire danger in summer and autumn are expected to increase four to 10 times by the end of the century. Their results also showed that multi-year droughts, similar to that experienced in California and Nevada during 2012-2016, were projected to increase three to 15 times by the end of the century.
“One major takeaway was that we can expect to see a lot more days in the summer and autumn with extreme fire danger related to increased temperature and evaporative demand,” McEvoy said. “Another takeaway was that even in locations where precipitation may not change that much in future, droughts are going to become more severe due to higher evaporative demand.”
California and Nevada on average experienced a record-setting number of “extreme fire danger” days in 2020, as indicated by the line on the graph above. Extreme fire danger days were calculated using the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI), with methods described in McEvoy et al. (2020). Data source: http://www.climatologylab.org/gridmet.html.
Study authors say that the cumulative effects of increases in evaporative demand will stress native ecosystems, increase fire danger, negatively impact agriculture where water demands cannot be met, and exacerbate impacts to society during periods of prolonged dryness. Several members of the research team are part of the California-Nevada Applications Program (CNAP), and will use these study results to provide resource managers with a view of possible future scenarios.
“These results provide information to support science-based, long-term planning for fire management agencies, forest management agencies, and water resource managers,” said coauthor Julie Kalansky, Ph.D., Program Manager for CNAP. “We plan to work with partners to help integrate the findings from this paper to support building climate resilience.”
Additional Information:
This study was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) California-Nevada Climate Applications Program (CNAP) and the NOAA National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System.
The full text of the paper, “Projected Changes in Reference Evapotranspiration in California and Nevada: Implications for Drought and Wildland Fire Danger,” is available from Earth’s Future: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001736.
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The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied interdisciplinary research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge, supported Nevada’s diversifying economy, provided science-based educational opportunities, and informed policy makers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Reno and Las Vegas, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Nov 10, 2020 | Announcements, News releases
Caption: Pictographs from a site at Fort Hunter Liggett, processed with D-stretch imagery. DRI Archaeologists will soon travel to Fort Hunter Liggett, in California, to document rock art in high resolution. Credit: Fort Hunter Liggett.
Las Vegas, Nev. (Nov. 10, 2020) – Long ago, before widespread European-American settlement, ancestors of the Salinan Tribe left rock art featuring colorful handprints and abstract symbols at various sites located along narrow valleys and rugged hills in southern Monterey County, Calif. This month, a group of Desert Research Institute (DRI) archaeologists will document several of these sites using high resolution photography, in partnership with the U.S. Army’s Fort Hunter Liggett Cultural Resources Management Program.
The project, which is co-led by DRI’s Greg Haynes, Ph.D. and Dave Page, M.A., with technical support from staff at Fort Hunter Liggett, will provide updated photographic documentation and a rock art management plan for pictographs (images painted on rock) and petroglyphs (images carved into rock) at eight different sites located on the grounds of Fort Hunter Liggett. One site, called La Cueva Pintada, or the Painted Cave, is estimated to have hundreds of pictographs and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Many of the pictographs are handprints, but kind of unusual – they look like they were made by people swiping their fingers across the rock face,” Haynes said. “There are also various abstract symbols. They’re multicolored – red, white, black, yellow, and possibly blue or green – so part of our work will be to determine what pigments were used and to advise the Army on how to best preserve them.”
The DRI project team includes Megan Stueve, M.A., who will provide expertise in rock art recording and in the photographic documentation of pictographs using D-stretch imagery, a computer program that helps bring out colors that can’t be seen with the naked eye.
“D-stretch, short for decorrelation stretching, is a type of image processing that essentially stretches or exaggerates the colors to make them easier to see,” Stueve explained. “Images that you can already see become very visible and that those are faint hopefully become more visible.”
DRI Archaeologists will use D-Stretch imagery to document rock art at Fort Hunter Liggett in high resolution. The photographs on the left, showing pictographs from a site at Fort Hunter Liggett, have not been altered; The photographs on the right, processed with D-stretch imagery, show the pictographs in greater detail. Credit: Fort Hunter Liggett.
In addition to petroglyphs and pictographs, the Salinan people of this region left behind an abundance of bedrock mortars, circular depressions in rock outcrops that were likely used for grinding food items such as acorns, but may also have been used to grind the pigment to make the pictographs. The extensive use of the area might indicate it was used as a habitation locale or meeting area, or possibly for ceremonial purposes, Stueve said.
Although all of the sites that the DRI team will visit have been documented previously, some site records have not been updated in more than 30 years. As part of this project, they will provide Fort Hunter Liggett with up-to-date site records and photographs, and also make recommendations for future study and preservation of these pictographs and petroglyphs.
“The Army wants a management plan for the preservation of these historical resources,” Haynes said. “In addition to these pictographs, there are a few other important historic sites nearby. There’s a mission called Mission San Antonio de Padua that was founded in 1771 by Father Junipero Serra, and a hacienda that was built for William Randolph Hearst. It’s an important area with an interesting history.”
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The Desert Research Institute (DRI) is a recognized world leader in basic and applied interdisciplinary research. Committed to scientific excellence and integrity, DRI faculty, students, and staff have developed scientific knowledge and innovative technologies in research projects around the globe. Since 1959, DRI’s research has advanced scientific knowledge, supported Nevada’s diversifying economy, provided science-based educational opportunities, and informed policy makers, business leaders, and community members. With campuses in Reno and Las Vegas, DRI serves as the non-profit research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education. For more information, please visit www.dri.edu.
Oct 7, 2020 | Awards and Honors, Blog
Reno, Nev. (Oct 7, 2020) – Xiaoliang Wang, Ph.D. of the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nev. is the winner of this year’s Benjamin Y. H. Liu Award from the American Association of Aerosol Research (AAAR). He was recognized for this honor today at a virtual ceremony during the AAAR’s Annual Conference.
Wang, a research professor with DRI’s Division of Atmospheric Science, studies aerosols – tiny solid particles or droplets that are suspended in the air. His research interests include physical and chemical characterization of aerosols, pollution source characterization, air quality measurement, and aerosol instrument development. He is being honored with this award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to aerosol instrumentation and experimental techniques that have significantly advanced the science and technology of aerosols.
Wang is the co-inventor of the nanoparticle aerodynamic lenses and the DustTrak DRX aerosol monitor, an instrument named after him. He developed the new the data inversion algorithms for the TSI Engine Exhaust Particle Sizer Spectrometer (EEPS) for compact shape and soot particles. He led the development of the Aerodynamic Lens Calculator, the DRI portable emissions measurement system, and the DRI Model 2015 multi-wavelength thermal/optical carbon analyzer.
Wang holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota, and B.E. degrees in thermal engineering and environmental engineering from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He has been a member of the DRI community since 2009.
The award honors Professor Benjamin Liu for his leadership in the aerosol community and his own seminal contributions to aerosol science through instrumentation and experimental research. Professor Liu is a founding father of the AAAR and of the society’s journal, Aerosol Science and Technology, and helped establish the International Aerosol Research Assembly. He received the Fuchs Memorial Award in 1994 and retired as Regents’ Professor from the University of Minnesota in 2002, where he also served as the director of the Particle Technology Laboratory from 1973 to 1997.
DRI Research Professor Xiaoliang Wang received the 2020 Benjamin Y. H. Liu Award in a virtual ceremony during the American Association of Aerosol Research’s Annual Conference on October 7, 2020.
Additional information:
For more information about Xiaoliang Wang and his research, please visit: https://www.dri.edu/directory/xiaoliang-wang/
For more information about the Benjamin Y.H. Liu Award, please visit: https://www.aaar.org/awards/annual-awards/benjamin-y-h-liu-award/
Sep 28, 2020 | Blog, Featured researchers
Making Sense of Remote Sensing
Remote Sensing
Evapotranspiration
Hydrologic Sciences
A Q&A with Matt Bromley on remote sensing and the OpenET project
Matt Bromley, M.S., is an Assistant Research Scientist with the Division of Hydrologic Sciences at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, and specializes in GIS and remote sensing. He holds a B.S. in Environmental Science and a M.S. in Geography from the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a native Nevadan, an Army veteran, and has been a member of the DRI community for ten years.
Matt is currently working alongside a team of scientists and web developers from DRI, NASA, Google and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to develop a new web application called OpenET (https://openetdata.org/), which will make satellite-based data on evapotranspiration widely accessible to farmers, landowners, and water managers. We recently sat down with Matt to learn the basics of remote sensing and how it is used in the OpenET project.
Matt Bromley, M.S. is a an Assistant Research Scientist with the Division of Hydrologic Sciences at DRI in Reno.
DRI: You specialize in remote sensing. Can you tell us a little bit about this field of study?
Bromley: Technically, remote sensing means “the acquisition of data from a distance.” In the context of the work that I do, it means studying the earth’s surface with satellites. These satellites are often sensitive to same portions of the light-spectrum that our human eyes can see, as well as portions of the light spectrum that we can’t see, such as infrared (thermal). The images and data that Earth-focused satellites provide are a great way to learn about the Earth from a distance. There are also other types of remote sensing data, such as aerial images from planes, Radar, and LIDAR, where you use laser light to determine distance which can allow you to measure terrain and geographic features.
DRI: What is OpenET, and what is your role in the project?
Bromley: To understand the importance of OpenET you have to first understand evapotranspiration (ET). ET is the process by which water is transferred from land to the atmosphere – through evaporation from soil and transpiration from plant leaves – which is approximately the amount of water used by crops to grow our food and other resources. OpenET is a new web application that will provide ET data to water managers, land owners, and farmers in 17 western states. We started building this tool in 2018 and it’s scheduled to launch in 2021.
My role is pretty varied within the project. I have a foot in the technical side of it, in that I’m working on some of the data used in the ET models as well as contributing to the analysis. I also have an outward facing role in that I engage with people and organizations who are the preliminary users of the data. I provide some analysis, answer questions, and act as the bridge between the teams developing the evapotranspiration data and the people using it.
OpenET is a new web application that will provide evapotranspiration data to water managers, land owners and farmers across 17 western states.
To learn more about OpenET project, visit their website at openetdata.org.
DRI: How do you use remote sensing data in the OpenET project?
Bromley: The team that I work with uses remote sensing to measure water use from irrigation. We use both optical and thermal data to get information from the land surface. Among other things, the optical data shows how green and healthy the vegetation is, and with the thermal data we can actually detect the cooling effect that’s produced when water evaporates.
When I started at DRI, remote sensing data was generally processed on individual computers. You had to download all the data yourself and then process it with specialized software. About ten years ago, Google started hosting climate and remote sensing data in the cloud. So, rather than having to download all the data to do your analysis on a desktop computer, you can instead send your analysis to the cloud (lots of computers), allowing you to get some of your answers much, much faster. OpenET makes use of that platform, processing remote sensing data through five different models. Through OpenET we’re able to produce not only individual model ET estimates, but also an ensemble estimate using all of those models.
DRI: What type of remote sensing data do you use to calculate evapotranspiration (ET)?
Bromley: All of it right now is from the Landsat series of satellites, which gives us the optical and thermal data that we need to calculate ET. Landsat is a series of earth-observations satellites which are operated as a joint program between NASA and the USGS. The modern series of Landsat satellites started in the early 1980s, so with this collection of data we can actually look back in time and see how water use has changed over the decades. The duration and consistency of the Landsat program really sets it apart from other sources of remote sensing data.
OpenET is being built by scientists and web developers from DRI, NASA, Google and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The web application is scheduled to launch in 2021.
DRI: How did you become interested in working in this field?
Bromley: Being a native Nevadan, you grow up being aware of how special water is. As a kid my family would go on road trips through the Great Basin and as much as I loved seeing the sagebrush and mountains, it felt like we were discovering an oasis whenever we’d drive past a river or lake. In working to understand water use, I’m providing information to the people who manage that precious resource, as well as to the farmers and ranchers who grow our food. It feels like I’m helping not just my community but the state and the region.
The work that we’re doing at DRI and with OpenET is especially important, because detailed information on water use at a large scale has typically been hard to access and very expensive. OpenET is working to change that and make this data widely accessible to spark improvements an innovation in water management across the West.
“In working to understand water use, I’m providing information to the people who manage that precious resource, as well as to the farmers and ranchers who grow our food.”
