Scientific Theme: Advanced Modeling and Observing Systems

Theme report: Climate System Variability
significant amounts of precipitation into the region shortly after December 15. These storms began the process of
slowly saturating the soil, and flows in the Russian River and the Austin Creek tributary began rising slowly. Each
subsequent precipitation event brought the soils up to field capacity, which occurred just before Christmas Day. At
that time, the soil could no longer absorb water, and all the precipitation falling into the basin quickly made its way
into the basin‘s streams and rivers. A major synoptic-scale cyclone began making its way into the Coastal
Mountains around December 29. On December 31, the Russian River crested near 25 ft at Healdsburg, nearly six ft
above flood stage. Later that day, the River crested at 43 feet at Guerneville, twelve ft over flood stage. Major
portions of the town of Guerneville were flooded and California Highway 116 was closed by the event.
CSV-05: Climate Research Database Development
NSIDC01: Digitizing Analog Cryospheric Data under the Climate Database Modernization
Program
GOAL:
Scan and make available on-line data from NSIDC’s analogue collections so that it is more easily located, browsed,
and obtained by users.
MILESTONE NSIDC01.1:
Complete metadata entry for the several thousand scanned images now at NSIDC, and post the
images on-line.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR NSIDC01.1:
A total of 401 glacier photographs were added to the Online Glacier Photograph Database. In addition, a new
Climate Database Modernization Project task, Discovery and Access of Historical Literature of the IPYs (DAHLI),
digitized 52 books and approximately 1300 IGY glacier photographs.
NSIDC02: Observations for SEARCH–Data Integration for Arctic Reanalysis and Change
Detection
GOAL:
"Unaami," the changes in the Arctic that are the subject of the Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH)
program, became apparent to researchers in the context of long-term and pan-Arctic observations. This work aims
to assess what data are relevant to SEARCH reanalysis and change-detection activities, collect these data from a
wide variety of sources, and facilitate the SEARCH research community's access to the data. Another key element
of the effort is to assess the Arctic performance of existing atmospheric reanalyses, with the aim of identifying
shortcomings that will need to be addressed in developing a dedicated Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR). Note that
this work is funded through Task III, rather than Task II.
MILESTONE NSIDC02.1:
Report on the Indicator work in appropriate venues, and to provide data management support to
the NOAA SEARCH program. (Due to funding cuts, data development efforts under this project
will be in maintenance-mode in July 2006 - July 2007. It is hoped that funding will resume in
FY2008.)
ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR NSIDC02.1:
A presentation on the Cryospheric Climate Indicators Website and time series was given at the International
Glaciological Society meeting: A joint NSIDC/NCAR data-management proposal for the Arctic Observing Network
was funded by NSF. This will provide data management for some NOAA SEARCH activities.
MILESTONE NSIDC02.2:
Finalize ongoing assessments of the Arctic performance of the ERA-40 reanalysis. As
assessments of precipitation and surface temperature are nearly complete, efforts will thus focus
on other important aspects of the Arctic climate system, including its large-scale heat budget. In
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