Water on the Great Plains
Water on the Great Plains

Author: David W. Yoskowitz

Publisher: Texas Tech University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9780896724594

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The Great Plains of North America stretch from Texas to Alberta. The region's history is rich and its population diverse. But throughout this huge area, one issue has dominated culture and politics since before history began to be recorded. The need for water, the disputes over its use and ownership, and the consequences of those uses and disputes are concerns common to everyone who has ever lived here, concerns that grow sharper as water grows scarcer. Local and state governments have attempted to allocate water rights, but their efforts have been piecemeal and often short-sighted. In the absence of a coherent policy for protecting water resources, supplies are depleted, and what is left becomes more and more polluted by industrial, agricultural, and biological waste products. In fact, the Great Plains is on the brink of a water crisis, a silent crisis that threatens the health of people, environments, and economies. In Water on the Great Plains: Issues and Policies, Peter J. Longo and David W. Yoskowitz have collected current scholarship on the cultural, economic, environmental, legal, and political implications of water policy. The ten essays contained here tell a lively history of successful and unsuccessful water policies, and of how dedicated people and communities can work together to protect their homes. The authors sound an urgent call for wise management to preserve 04 Activeable water resources for the use of future generations. The importance of water to politics in the West is likely to grow as management of dwindling supplies fails to meet demands. How will water policy be made? Will water continue to flow uphill toward money or will public interest drive water allocation and use? --Joan M. Blauwkamp, Chapter 10

Dendroclimatology
Dendroclimatology

Author: Malcolm K. Hughes

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-10-28

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1402057253

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A top priority in climate research is obtaining broad-extent and long-term data to support analyses of historical patterns and trends, and for model development and evaluation. Along with directly measured climate data from the present and recent past, it is important to obtain estimates of long past climate variations spanning multiple centuries and millennia. These longer time perspectives are needed for assessing the unusualness of recent climate changes, as well as for providing insight on the range, variation and overall dynamics of the climate system over time spans exceeding available records from instruments, such as rain gauges and thermometers. Tree rings have become increasingly valuable in providing this long-term information because extensive data networks have been developed in temperate and boreal zones of the Earth, and quantitative methods for analyzing these data have advanced. Tree rings are among the most useful paleoclimate information sources available because they provide a high degree of chronological accuracy, high replication, and extensive spatial coverage spanning recent centuries. With the expansion and extension of tree-ring data and analytical capacity new climatic insights from tree rings are being used in a variety of applications, including for interpretation of past changes in ecosystems and human societies. This volume presents an overview of the current state of dendroclimatology, its contributions over the last 30 years, and its future potential. The material included is useful not only to those who generate tree-ring records of past climate-dendroclimatologists, but also to users of their results-climatologists, hydrologists, ecologists and archeologists. ‘With the pressing climatic questions of the 21st century demanding a deeper understanding of the climate system and our impact upon it, this thoughtful volume comes at critical moment. It will be of fundamental importance in not only guiding researchers, but in educating scientists and the interested lay person on the both incredible power and potential pitfalls of reconstructing climate using tree-ring analysis.’, Glen M. MacDonald, UCLA Institute of the Environment, CA, USA ‘This is an up-to-date treatment of all branches of tree-ring science, by the world’s experts in the field, reminding us that tree rings are the most important source of proxy data on climate change. Should be read by all budding dendrochronology scientists.’, Alan Robock, Rutgers University, NJ, USA

Drought
Drought

Author: Justin Sheffield

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-11-12

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1136540407

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Drought is one of the likely consequences of climate change in many regions of the world. Together with an increased demand for water resources to supply the world's growing population, it represents a potentially disastrous threat to water supplies, agriculture and food production, leading to famine and environmental degradation. Yet predicting drought is fraught with difficulty. The aim of this book is to provide a review of the historical occurrence of global drought, particularly during the 20th century and assess the likely potential changes over the 21st century under climate change. This includes documentation of the occurrence and impacts of major 20th century drought events and analysis of the contributing climatic and environmental factors that act to force, prolong and dissipate drought. Contemporary drought is placed in the context of climate variability since the last ice age, including the many severe and lengthy drought events that contributed to the demise of great civilizations, the disappearance of lakes and rivers, and the conversion of forests to deserts. The authors discuss the developing field of drought monitoring and seasonal forecasting and describe how this is vital for identifying emerging droughts and for providing timely warning to help reduce the impacts. The book provides a broad overview of large scale drought, from historic events such as the US Dust Bowl and African Sahel, and places this in the context of climate variability and change. The work is soundly based on detailed research that has looked at drought occurrence over the 20th century, global drought monitoring, modelling and seasonal prediction, and future projections from climate models.

Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years
Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2007-01-05

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 0309102251

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In response to a request from Congress, Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years assesses the state of scientific efforts to reconstruct surface temperature records for Earth during approximately the last 2,000 years and the implications of these efforts for our understanding of global climate change. Because widespread, reliable temperature records are available only for the last 150 years, scientists estimate temperatures in the more distant past by analyzing "proxy evidence," which includes tree rings, corals, ocean and lake sediments, cave deposits, ice cores, boreholes, and glaciers. Starting in the late 1990s, scientists began using sophisticated methods to combine proxy evidence from many different locations in an effort to estimate surface temperature changes during the last few hundred to few thousand years. This book is an important resource in helping to understand the intricacies of global climate change.

North American Droughts
North American Droughts

Author: Norman J. Rosenberg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-08

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 0429727372

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Recognizing drought as a characteristic feature of the North American climate, the contributors to this volume seek to organize available evidence of both prehistoric and modern drought events and to provide information on the severity of droughts, especially those which have occurred since weather records have been kept. The impacts of modern-era droughts on production and the potential impact of future droughts on the productivity of North American agriculture are examined. The authors explore the effeats of past droughts on the social, cultural, and political life of the population; the possible effects of drought on today's energy- and techno logy-intensive society; and the ramifications of drought for the national economy. The social and political strategies that local, state, and federal governments may use to meliorate the effects of drought are also considered, as are some possible technological defenses against drought—weather modification, expanded irrigation, new techniques of water harvesting and storage, and new agronomic adaptations. Finally, the critical question of whether future droughts can be forecast is examined.

The Way to the West
The Way to the West

Author: Elliott West

Publisher: UNM Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780826316530

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Elegantly assembles the environmental, social, cultural, political, and economic history of the Great Plains in the 19th century.