Recent & Ongoing Research Projects

I am always involved in a variety of funded and unfunded research projects relating to climate and environmental topics. Many of these are carried out in collaboration with colleagues, and I must give credit to a truly wonderful group of students and postdocs with whom I continue to have the privilege of working. Below are brief summaries of ongoing or recently completed projects that have reached a stage where there is something to show on a web page. See my online bio/CV for a more standard list of research publications and abstracts.

Many of my research projects have some broader crosscutting themes in common, reflecting my roots as a geographer interested in geographic and applied aspects of atmospheric environmental issues.



Valley Fever (Coccidioidomycosis)
  • Caused by the soil-dwelling fungi Coccidioides spp.
  • Cocci is endemic to arid regions in the western hemisphere
  • Incidence is linked in part to seasonal precipitation and temperature cycles
  • Project description
  • With graduate students Korine Kolivras & James Tamerius, and postdoc Mary Glueck
  • Funded by NOAA/CLIMAS and by EPA/STAR
  • Figure: Valley Fever endemic region in North America (click to enlarge)



Mosquito Disease Vector Mapping
  • Modeling the ecological niche of West Nile virus vector mosquito habitat
  • Project description
  • With graduate student Chris Uejio
  • Funded by NOAA/CLIMAS and by NSF
  • Figure: Potential habitat of Culex quinquefasciatus (click to enlarge)



Dynamic Mosquito Simulation Model (DyMSiM)
  • Dynamic simulation modeling of mosquito populations driven by climate data
  • Enables estimation of mosquito populations for locations with daily temperature and precipitation
  • Developed to overcome inherent limitations of statistical models
  • With graduate student Cory Morin
  • Funded by NOAA/CLIMAS 
  • Figure: Critical timing of precipitation in combination with temperature for Tucson mosquitoes (click to enlarge)



Drought in the Southwest
  • Analysis and explanation of drought patterns over time and space aimed at decision-makers
  • Project description
  • With graduate student Jenna McPhee Meyers
  • Funded by NOAA/CLIMAS and ABOR/TRIF/WSP
  • Figure: Water-year precipitation for Arizona climate divisions (click for interactive map)



Downscaling Seasonal Climate Predictions
  • Extends NWS/CPC downscaling methods for large-scale probabilistic climate forecasts of temperature and precipitation to the local station level 
  • In collaboration with NOAA Climate Services Division and NWS Western Region Headquarters
  • Jenna McPhee Meyers, graduate student
  • Funded in part by NOAA/CLIMAS 
  • Figure: Example of long-lead seasonal temperature forecast downscaled to Tucson (click to enlarge)



Trends in Southwest Urban Air Quality
  • What are the underlying trends in air quality with climate variability removed?
  • Project description
  • Erika Wise, graduate student
  • Funded by NOAA/CLIMAS
  • Figure: Four examples of long-term ozone trends




System for Management, Observation and GIS Modeling of Air Pollution (SMOGMAP)
  • Development of an extensive geo-referenced emissions inventory for the Tucson region (anthropogenic VOCs, NOx, biogenic emissions, etc.)
  • Statistical/empirical spatial modeling of ozone and other pollutants
  • Created as a planning tool for assessment/evaluation of air pollution emissions and air quality mapping
  • With graduate student Jeremy Diem
  • Funded by PAG 
  • Figures: 1995-97 Ozone "design" values; Annual NOx emissions (click to enlarge)


Western Climate Mapping Initiative (WestMap)
  • Fine-scale climate data and user analysis tools, with educational resources
  • Project website
  • With postdoc Mary Glueck and collaborators at WRCC
  • Funded by NOAA/TRACS 
  • Figure: Screenshot of WestMap interactive mapping tool



Fine-Scale Climate Mapping
  • Figure: Example showing modeled data, regular interpolation, and anomalies from average precipitation for 1975 (click to enlarge)



Sub-Regional Winter Precipitation Anomalies
  • Why do certain small areas of the Southwest sometimes experience winter precipitation patterns opposite to their neighbors?
  • Development of a regionalization and climate diagnostics for key sub-regions
  • With graduate student James Tamerius
  • Funded by NOAA/CLIMAS
  • Figure: The least-correlated adjacent precipitation sub-regions in the Southwest US (click to enlarge)




Reconstructing Past Southwest Climate
  • Assess the utility of linear regression and neural networks for developing climate reconstructions
  • Summarize past drought with respect to conditions during the 20th century, and downscale paleoclimate information
  • Project description
  • Online interactive tool
  • With postdoc Teresa Cavazos and LTRR colleagues
  • Funded by NOAA/CLIMAS
  • Figure: Linear regression vs. neural network reconstructions



Climate of the Southwest
  • A "Southwest Climate 101" overview and review for a wide range of users
  • Online Slideshow
  • With graduate students Greg Packin & Kurt Angersbach, and LTRR colleagues
  • Funded by NOAA/CLIMAS
  • Figure: First slide (click for slideshow)



Precipitation Variability in Cabeza Prieta NWR and SW Arizona
  • Analyze the nature and causes of seasonal precipitation variability in this remote part of the Southwest, where there are almost no routine climate records
  • Used data from a network of storage gauges (low-tech precip gauges that need only be checked infrequently)
  • Figure: Example of modeled winter precipitation anomalies (click to enlarge)



Real-Time Air Quality Maps
  • Develop algorithms suitable for real-time mapping of ozone with only 5-10 sampling sites across the domain
  • Models had to work with minimal inputs, but still had to produce realistic ozone maps
  • Part of a bigger project for public, educational and health outreach in collaboration with Pima DEQ, PAG and UA health colleagues
  • With graduate student Joe Abraham
  • See the Tucson realtime data and maps at www.airinfonow.org
  • Funded by the EPA EMPACT program
  • Figure: Example of the ozone maps (Click to animate)



Variability of the North American Monsoon
  • Questions about the monsoon are tantalizing and endless...
    • How does it work?
    • What are the causes of monsoon variability?
    • Are there seasonal predictors of the monsoon?
    • What determines spatial precipitation variability?
  • Monsoon projects have included a major review, a regionalization and variability study, and collaboration on moisture sources identified via isotopes (with LTRR colleagues)
  • A further project examined SST-related controls using neural network techniques
  • With graduate student Erik Glenn and postdoc Teresa Cavazos
  • Funded by NOAA/CLIMAS
  • Figures: Monsoon region based on precipitation variability; correlations between winter SST and AZ monsoon precipitation (click to enlarge)



Tucson Heat Island
  • Quantify urban warming in Tucson
  • Map examples of temperature patterns over the city and examine related aspects of the local scale atmospheric circulation
  • Integrate research into an introductory undergraduate climatology class via active learning
  •  
  • Figures: Newspaper graphic on the heat island project; Trends in annual minimum temperature for Tucson versus surrounding rural sites (click to enlarge)



Human Environment Research Observatory (HERO)
  • Established of the Southwest and Mexico Border Region HERO (SOMBRHERO) site, to evaluate how  changing land useand climate variation/change affect the vulnerabilities of people and places
  • Develop protocols for long-term monitoring of human-environment relationships in MA, PA, KS and AZ/Mexico
  • The HERO consortium webpage
  • With postdoc Cindy Sorrensen
  • Funded by NSF GRS

  • Figure: SOMBRHERO study area, with focus on Ambos Nogales & surrounding region (click to enlarge)



Climatological Return Periods for Dust Events in Arizona
  • Climatological analysis of wind and precipitation conditions associated with exceedances of EPA standards for particulate matter <10 microns (PM10 )
  • Flags PM10 exceedances caused by exceptional natural conditions, such as high winds and drought
  • Identified natural exceptional events (defined as a recurrence interval of 1 in 1000 days, or the 99.9th percentile of observations), either for wind conditions alone, or for winds >= 97th percentile of observations occurring jointly with short-or-long-term precipitation conditions <= 4th percentile of observations
  • With postdoc Gregg Garfin
  • Funded by ADEQ Air Quality Division

  • Figure: Example of 4th percentile return period for 60-day precip totals across Arizona (click to enlarge)



Wildfire and Climate
  • Understanding links between climate variability and wildfire
  • Collaboration with the WALTER Wildfire Alternatives project
  • Interactive online climate-wildfire tool
  • With graduate student Mike Crimmins
  • Figure: Example of model results for area burned by wildfire (click to enlarge)