Katherine K. Hirschboeck

Associate Professor of Climatology, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research

Joint Appointments in: Geography & Regional Development, Atmospheric Sciences, Hydrology & Water Resources, and Arid Lands Resources Science

Chair, Global Change Graduate Interdisciplinary Program (Phd. Minor)

Ph.D. 1985 Geosciences University of Arizona
M.S. 1975, Geography, University of Wisconsin Ð Madison
B.S. 1973, Geography, University of Wisconsin Ð Madison

Phone: (520) 621-6466
FAX: (520) 621-8229
E-mail: katie@ltrr.arizona.edu

Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
105 W. Stadium
Tucson, AZ 85721-0058
USA

Katie's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research Home Page

Research

My research address climatology, hydroclimatology, and the climatology of extreme events Ð especially the analysis of flood-producing atmospheric processes, tree-growth responses to anomalous atmospheric circulation patterns, and regional climatic responses to the global effects of explosive volcanism.

My flood-climate research focuses on flood hydroclimatology, the analysis of observed floods and paleofloods in the context of their history of variation over time and the meteorological processes and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns that produce them. Research questions include:

• How can an understanding of the atmospheric and hydrologic mechanisms that produce floods in the observed and paleo-records be used to assess the nonstationarity of flood time series and the reliability of flood estimates?
• How are anomalous atmospheric circulation patterns and persistence linked to clustering of major flood events in time and space?
• Can knowledge of circulation patterns and hydrologic processes examined over climatological time scales improve meteorological flood forecasting?

My tree-ring related research involves synoptic dendroclimatology, a subfield of dendrochronology which uses dated tree rings to analyze present and past climate from the viewpoint of the climates' constituent weather events and how these events are related to atmospheric circulation at all scales. Research questions include:

• What role does large-scale atmospheric circulation and its attendant weather events play in local and regional tree-growth responses as revealed in tree-ring records?
• How can a mechanistic link between circulation and tree rings be used to improve our understanding of past hydrologic & climatic variability for application to water management and supply issues?

Project Involvement

• The Current Drought in Context: A Tree-Ring Based Evaluation of Water Supply Variability for the Salt-Verde River Basin
• A Tree-Ring Based Hydroclimatic Assessment of Synchronous Extreme Streamflow Episodes in the Upper Colorado and Salt-Verde River Basins
• A New Frost-Ring Initiative: Understanding the Mechanistic Basis for the Santorini Connection
• The Global Paleoflood Databank
• River Flooding and Global Climatic Change: A Multi-Sensor Approach
• Synoptic Dendroclimatology in Western United States