Duane Waliser presenter, Bjorn Lambrigtsen, Eni Njoku, Noah Molotch, Son Nghiem, Eric Fetzer, Stepha

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Water Resources in a Changing Climate A Theme in
JPLs Global Change Energy Initiative
Duane Waliser (presenter), Bjorn Lambrigtsen,
Eni Njoku, Noah Molotch, Son Nghiem, Eric Fetzer,
Stephanie Granger, Joe Turk, Kevin Bowman, John
Worden, Joao Teixeira, Simon Yueh, Jennifer
Dooley, and others
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Motivation

• The present state of the global water cycle, and
  how it may be changing in response to climate
  variability/change, needs to be further
  quantified (e.g., ice sheet and sea-ice loss,
  regional snowpack/soil moisture, subsurface,
  cloud mass)
• Determining the state of the water cycle
  (e.g., climatology and present-day values of
  reservoirs and fluxes) is a near-term research
  imperative of NASA NEWS Program a program
  focused on the global water and energy cycle.

Regional Considerations

• Characterization, monitoring and prediciton of
  the water cycle on regional/local scales.
• Decision support guidance related to water that
  impacts food availability, natural hazards,
  national security, climate change adaptation,
  etc.

Oki and Kanae, 2006
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Motivation

• Maintaining fresh water supply is the 4th
  highest environmental concern of Americans based
  on a 2009 Gallup Poll. Similar sentiments in
  2002 poll.
• Water is a significant concern for the US
  populace.

http//www.gallup.com/
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Motivation

• Drinking Water - Global water consumption has
  quadrupled over the last 50 years. Almost half a
  billion people live in countries where water is
  already scarce. By the year 2050, it is predicted
  that at least a quarter of the worlds population
  will be living with chronic or regular water
  shortages.
• These shortages will manifest on regional scales
  how will this challenge be overcome?

http//www.umweltbundesamt.de/uba-info-e/wah20-e/1
-2.htm
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Motivation

• Water is intrinsically linked to our worlds food
  production, supply and shortages. National and
  economic security is intimately tied to stability
  abroad which most squarely starts with food and
  water availability/shortages.

The relations between climate, food and stability
are highly dependent on region.
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Motivation

• Water resources are becoming scrutinized to the
  level where their import and export via crop
  trading has become a consideration of merit.

WATER FLUX via CROP TRADING
Values are as large as small terms in global
water cycle (slide 2) 0.1 103 km3/yr
Will this become a consideration on a
regional/local scale?
Regional virtual water balances and net
interregional virtual water flows related to the
trade in agricultural products.Period 1997-2001.
Only the biggest net flows (gt10 Gm3/yr) are
shown.  Source  Water Footprint Network
Hoekstra, A.Y. and Chapagain, A.K. (2008)
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Motivation

• We have our own regional concerns about 60 of
  the water supply for Southern California comes
  from seasonal melting of the Sierra Nevada
  snowpack. The Snowmelt also affects hydropower
  generation in California.

IPCC AR4 Climate Projections indicate a loss of
Sierra snowpack of between 20-90 by 2050.
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Addressing these Challenges Scope of Initiative

• Propose establishing a Water Resources Research
  and Application Initiative that positions
  JPL/NASA as a key partner in research-to-operation
  s applications of regional-scale hydrologic
  monitoring and prediction.
• Leverages existing JPL/NASA satellite assets and
  expertise to address water availability at
  process-resolving spatial scales
• Will initially focus on
• Developing an integrated modeling and
  observations system using top-down simulations of
  global climate feeding regional climate and
  hydrologic models
• Delivering water availability impact estimates
  and derivative decision support tools for guiding
  seasonal and long-term water resource planning
• Western US
• Focus can later expand into other US regions as
  well as other regions of strategic and
  humanitarian interest, e.g. Africa and S/E Asia
• This objective is highly complimentary and
  synergistic with the need for JPL/NASA to
  continue developing an observation and modeling
  strategy for the global water cycle. (e.g., NEWS).

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Building on Core Strengths

• NASAs Global Observation Assets for
  Characterizing and Monitoring the Water Cycle are
  Substantial
• Existing and Planned
• Atmosphere (vapor, clouds) AIRS, MLS, CloudSat,
  MISR, TES, GPS, GPM, PATH
• Ocean (mass, P, E, sea-level) QuikSCAT, AMSR-E,
  JASON, GRACE, TRMM, Aquarius, GPM
• Cryosphere (mass, snow, sea-ice) GRACE, SAR,
  AMSR-E, MODIS, IceSat, SCLP, Ventures Submission
• Land (mass, soil moisture, surface water,
  vegetation) GRACE, SMAP, SWOT, DESDyni

Synergistic application for characterizing,
monitoring, and predicting the Water Cycle on
regional scales and with process-level
understanding needs to be accelerated.
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Refining the Observing Strategy for a Regional
and Process Level Focus

• Water resource observational needs in order of
  priority
• Surface Snowpack, glaciers, lake levels, river
  flow, vegetation
• Atmosphere Moisture, precipitation, clouds,
  extreme events
• Subsurface Soil moisture, groundwater
• Hazards Floods, droughts, fires, dust storms,
  extreme weather
• Interfaces PBL, salt/freshwater boundaries,
  evaporation
• Aerosol effects Cloud/precipitation, ice/snow
  albedo
• Strategy - JPL Core Strengths
• Satellites Initial/boundary conditions in models
  for routine predictions determine states
  trends use at native resolution
• Sub-orbital High-resolution data for model
  diagnostics upgrades situational
  reconnaissance of dynamic events
• Sensors Build on JPL technology portfolio to
  improve sensors wrt resolution, accuracy
  coverage

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Modeling and Analysis Strategy

• Key advances will involve the integration of the
  climate ocean-atmosphere models with land-surface
  hydrologic models to estimate/predict water
  availability on regional and local scales.
• Through data assimilation, JPL/NASA observational
  assets will be essential in prescribing initial
  and boundary conditions for model guidance and
  predictions.
• Key component models will reside in-house or with
  our closest partners (e.g., JIFRESSE/JPL-UCLA and
  CHRS at UCI) peripheral models are "owned" by
  service providers - e.g., weather forecasts for
  precipitation, streamflow, etc.
• Models will be performance tested and
  improvements recommended/requested as needed,
  using JPL observational systems and integrated
  multi-sensor evaluations/constraints.

• To complement exisiting agency support, research
  and decision-support focus will be on seasonal
  and longer time scales.

JIFRESSE
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Strengths and Challenges

• Strengths
• Observation Modeling Capabilites and Expertise
  
• cryosphere obs good, mod some
• atmosphere obs good, mod some/growing
• ocean obs good, mod good
• land obs some/growing, mod little,
• integrated analysis and modeling good/growing

• Challenges
• Customer concern about program sustainability in
  the face of typical funding scenarios
• Customers generally do not have operational
  capability
• Engaging stakeholders upfront

Existing Small Scale Decision Support Projects,
Relationships and Advocacy Paths
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Partnerships

• In general, individual peer-peer partnerships are
  strong, including connections to global climate
  modeling/prediction community (e.g., GMAO, NCAR,
  PCMDI, ECMWF, NCEP)
• Initial phase focus on western US
• JIFRESSE/UCLA Integrated land-atmosphere-ocean
  regional modeling
• UCI Precipitation and hydrologic analysis
• UCD Center for watershed sciences
• NWS NOHRSC (hydrology), NIDS (drought), NCEP
  (weather)
• CIT/UC/USC Socio-economics decision support
• Second phase include cryospheric elements,
  expand to other regions
• U. Colo. (INSTAAR, NSIDC, WWA) Snow/glacial
  modeling, water resource management

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Investments and Capabilities

• Initially, JPL should do a thorough "market
  survey" and identify potential customers and
  potential competitors. Our goal is to carve out a
  unique niche and provide needed services that
  nobody else currently provides. In building up
  the Initiative, we should first invest as follows
  in order of priority
• Modeling coupled regional climate-snowpack
  (JPL), land hydrology (partnered) - both need
  investments, primary effort is to integrate
  existing components
• Assimilation/forecasting integrated hydrologic
  cycle (in-house or partnered)
• Aircraft-based sensors snowpack (1),
  precipitation (2), moisture flux (3)
• Expertise in socio-economics and decision support
  (in partnership with CIT, UC, USC)
• Add expertise in land-atmosphere interface

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Funding Agencies and Opportunities

• Our strategy is to couple JPL scientific
  expertise and initially leverage off of existing
  JPL decision support activities and customer
  relationships.
• Examples
• Western Regional Decision Support Center focused
  on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed
  through monitoring the Sierra Nevada snowpack,
  river discharge along the San Joaquin and
  Sacramento rivers, and wetlands monitoring.
  Customers include local, regional and state
  agencies (LADWP, MWD, California DWR)
• National Drought Monitoring System focused on
  assimilation of AMSR-E, QuikSCAT and MODIS data
  into the United States Drought Monitor tool.
  Partners include USGS, NOAA, Dartmouth, National
  Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) and National
  Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).
• Regional and Global River Watch System uses
  satellite passive microwave data calibrated with
  in-situ measurements to monitor river discharge
  and flooding conditions. Partners include
  Dartmouth, GDACS-GFDS (international). Regional
  pilot includes Red River discharge monitoring for
  USGS.
• The new Ventures program offers a proposal
  opportunity to obtain detailed observations of
  Sierra Nevada snowpack.

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Advocacy/Customers

• Regional
• Western Governors Association
• Western States Water Council
• California Natural Resources Agency
• California Department of Water Resources
• California Water Resources Control Board
• California Public Interest Energy Research
• Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
• Arizona Department of Water Resources
• National
• DoI USGS, BoR
• NOAA
• USDA
• EPA
• Army Corp of Engineers

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Additional Motivation and Connections

• Elements of the global water cycle are central to
  the most paramount science questions and societal
  concerns associated with global climate change.

Ice/Snow Loss Sea Level
Snow-Ice Albedo Feedback
From the standpoint of global change science,
monitoring, understanding, predicting and
managing our planets water is essential.
Cloud Water Vapor Feedback
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Backup
Western Regional Decision Support Center
Proposed Ventures Instrument
The Snowpack Water and Hazard Surveyor will map
the fresh water stored in the Sierra Nevada and
Colorado Rocky mountainous snowpack.

• Instrument
• Microwave Synthetic Aperture Radar Data
• SnowSAR Dual-frequency X- and Ku-band
• AESMIR Conical scanning multi-frequency
  radiometer
• PALS Conical scanning passive/Active L-band
  Sensor
• Baseline Platform NASA P-3

LADWP watersheds in the Eastern Sierra (near
Bishop) along with snowpack data