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Insect outbreaks are major disturbances that affect a land area similar to that of forest fires across North America. The recent mountain pine bark beetle (D endroctonus ponderosae) outbreak and its associated blue stain fungi (Grosmannia clavigera) are impacting water partitioning processes of forests in the Rocky Mountain region as the spatially heterogeneous disturbance spreads across the landscape. Water cycling may dramatically change due to increasing spatial heterogeneity from uneven mortality. Water and energy storage within trees and soils may also decrease, due to hydraulic failure and mortality caused by blue stain fungi followed by shifts in the water budget. This forest disturbance was unique in comparison to fire or timber harvesting because water fluxes were altered before significant structural change occurred to the canopy. We investigated the impacts of bark beetles on lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) stand and ecosystem level hydrologic processes and the resulting vertical and horizontal spatial variability in energy storage. Bark beetle-impacted stands had on average 57 % higher soil moisture, 1.5 °C higher soil temperature, and 0.8 °C higher tree bole temperature over four growing seasons compared to unimpacted stands. Seasonal latent heat flux was highly correlated with soil moisture. Thus, high mortality levels led to an increase in ecosystem level Bowen ratio as sensible heat fluxes increased yearly and latent heat fluxes varied with soil moisture levels. Decline in canopy biomass (leaf, stem, and branch) was not seen, but ground-to-atmosphere longwave radiation flux increased, as the ground surface was a larger component of the longwave radiation. Variability in soil, latent, and sensible heat flux and radiation measurements increased during the disturbance. Accounting for stand level variability in water and energy fluxes will provide a method to quantify potential drivers of ecosystem processes and services as well as lead to greater confidence in measurements for all dynamic disturbances.

Stratospheric ozone reduction is occurring and will continue to increase in magnitude into the next century. Yet, the consequences for terrestrial ecosystems of the increased solar UV-B (280–320 nm) radiation resulting from total column ozone reduction are not understood. Based on studies of higher plant response to UV-B, several possible consequences for ecosystems include decreased primary production, altered plant species composition, and altered secondary chemistry with implications for herbivory, litter decomposition and biogeochemical cycles. However, like the assessment of increased atmospheric CO2, extrapolation from studies with isolated plants to ecosystem function is very tenuous at best. Very few UV-B studies have dealt with multispecies systems. Most of the UV-B research in the past two decades (since the first suggestions of ozone reduction) has been conducted as short-term experiments in growth chambers and greenhouses where the unnatural spectral balance of radiation can lead to unrealistic conclusions. Technical difficulties in suitable measurement and manipulation of UV-B radiation also complicate the conduct of reliable experiments. This essay surveys and categorizes some 300 papers from the past 20 years on this subject, draws general conclusions from the research and offers some recommendations with respect to ecosystem consequences.

Lidar observations of the mesospheric Na layer have revealed considerable diurnal variations, particularly on the bottom side of the layer, where more than an order-of-magnitude increase in Na density has been observed below 80 km after sunrise. In this paper, multi-year Na lidar observations are utilized over a full diurnal cycle at Utah State University (USU) (41.8∘ N, 111.8∘ W) and a global atmospheric model of Na with 0.5 km vertical resolution in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (WACCM-Na) to explore the dramatic changes of Na density on the bottom side of the layer. Photolysis of the principal reservoir NaHCO3 is shown to be primarily responsible for the increase in Na after sunrise, amplified by the increased rate of reaction of NaHCO3 with atomic H, which is mainly produced from the photolysis of H2O and the reaction of OH with O3. This finding is further supported by Na lidar observation at USU during the solar eclipse (>96 % totality) event on 21 August 2017, when a decrease and recovery of the Na density on the bottom side of the layer were observed. Lastly, the model simulation shows that the Fe density below around 80 km increases more strongly and earlier than observed Na changes during sunrise because of the considerably faster photolysis rate of its major reservoir of FeOH.

Historic Canadian elections in 2015, both federally and provincially, created an opportunity for action on climate policy. While climate scientists have developed high resolution data sets on the distribution of Canadian climate risks, we still lack comparable data on the local distribution of public climate change opinions. This paper provides the first effort to estimate local climate and energy opinion variability outside the United States. Using a multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) approach, we estimate opinion in federal electoral districts and provinces. We demonstrate that a majority of the Canadian public consistently believes that climate change is happening. Belief in climate change's causes varies geographically, with more attributing it to human activity in urban as opposed to rural areas. Most prominently, we find majority support for carbon cap and trade policy in every province and district. By contrast, support for carbon taxation is more heterogeneous. Compared to the distribution of US climate opinions, Canadians believe climate change is happening at higher levels. This new opinion data set will support climate policy analysis and climate policy decision making at national, provincial and local levels.

While the mesospheric temperature anomalies associated with Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (SSWs) have been observed extensively in the polar regions, observations of these anomalies at midlatitudes are much more sparse. The Rayleigh-scatter lidar system, which operated at the Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences on the campus of Utah State University (41.7°N, 111.8°W), collected a very dense set of observations, from 1993 to 2004, over a 45–90 km altitude range. This paper focuses on Rayleigh lidar temperatures derived during the six major SSW events that occurred during the 11 year period when the lidar was operating and aims to characterize the local response to these midlatitude SSW events. In order to determine the characteristics of these mesospheric temperature anomalies, comparisons were made between the temperatures from individual nights during a SSW event and a climatological temperature profile. An overall disturbance pattern was observed in the mesospheric temperatures associated with SSW events, including coolings in the upper mesosphere and warmings in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere, both comparable to those seen at polar latitudes.

Previous studies have indicated a widespread decline in snowpack over Utah accompanied by a decline in the snow–precipitation ratio while anecdotal evidence claims have been put forward that measured changes in Utah’s snowpack are spurious and do not reflect actual change. Using two distinct lines of investigation, this paper further analyzes the winter precipitation regime in the state of Utah. First, by means of observation-based, gridded daily temperature, precipitation, and remotely sensed data, as well as utilizing a climatological rain–snow threshold (RST) temperature method, the precipitation regime of Utah was scrutinized. Second, a comprehensive synoptic analysis was conducted as an alternate means that is independent from surface observations. It was found that the proportion of winter (January–March) precipitation falling as snow has decreased by 9% during the last half century, a combined result from a significant increase in rainfall and a minor decrease in snowfall. Meanwhile, observed snow depth across Utah has decreased and is accompanied by consistent decreases in snow cover and surface albedo. Weather systems with the potential to produce precipitation in Utah have decreased in number with those producing snowfall decreasing at a considerably greater rate. Further circulation analysis showed that an anomalous anticyclone has developed over western North America, which acts to reduce the frequency of cyclone waves impacting Utah. Combined with the increased precipitation, this feature suggests that the average precipitation per event has intensified with more of it falling as rain than as snow. Trends in the hydroclimate such as these have implications for present and future regional water policy in the state of Utah.

This paper describes total gaseous mercury (TGM) concentrations measured in Reno, Nevada from 2002 to 2005. The 3-year mean and median air Hg concentrations were 2.3 and 2.1 ng m −3 , respectively. Mercury concentrations exhibited seasonality, with the highest concentrations in winter, and the lowest in summer and fall. A well-defined diel pattern in TGM concentration was observed, with maximum daily concentrations observed in the morning and minimum in the afternoon. A gradual increase of TGM concentration was observed in the evening and over night. The early morning increase in TGM was likely due to activation of local surface emission sources by rising solar irradiance and air temperature. The subsequent decline and afternoon minimum in TGM were likely related to increased vertical mixing and the buildup of atmospheric oxidants during the day resulting in increased conversion to oxidized species that are quickly deposited, coupled with weakening of the surface emissions processes. The described diel pattern was seasonally modulated with the greatest amplitude in variation of TGM concentrations occurring in the summer. It is suggested based on the comparison of diel TGM pattern with other gaseous pollutants that natural source surface emissions are a dominant source of TGM in the study area.

[1] The Utah State University Gauss-Markov Kalman Filter (GMKF) was developed as part of the Global Assimilation of Ionospheric Measurements (GAIM) program. The GMKF uses a physics-based model of the ionosphere and a Gauss-Markov Kalman filter as a basis for assimilating a diverse set of real-time (or near real-time) observations. The physics-based model is the Ionospheric Forecast Model (IFM), which accounts for five ion species and covers the E region, F region, and the topside from 90 to 1400 km altitude. Within the GMKF, the IFM derived ionospheric densities constitute a background density field on which perturbations are superimposed based on the available data and their errors. In the current configuration, the GMKF assimilates slant total electron content (TEC) from a variable number of global positioning satellite (GPS) ground sites, bottomside electron density (Ne) profiles from a variable number of ionosondes, in situ Ne from four Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, and nighttime line-of-sight ultraviolet (UV) radiances measured by satellites. To test the GMKF for real-time operations and to validate its ionospheric density specifications, we have tested the model performance for a variety of geophysical conditions. During these model runs various combination of data types and data quantities were assimilated. To simulate real-time operations, the model ran continuously and automatically and produced three-dimensional global electron density distributions in 15 min increments. In this paper we will describe the Gauss-Markov Kalman filter model and present results of our validation study, with an emphasis on comparisons with independent observations.

We assumed that the ionospheric plasma at high latitudes has a tendency to corotate about the geographic pole and that magnetospheric convection is relative to the geomagnetic pole. With this assumption we calculated plasma drift patterns over the polar cap for a range of constant magnetospheric electric fields as well as for asymmetric electric fields with enhanced plasma flow on either the dawnside or the duskside of the polar cap. We calculated the drift patterns in both the geographic inertial and the geomagnetic inertial frame taking into account the displacement between the geographic and geomagnetic poles. We found that this displacement between the poles has an important effect on the plasma drift patterns. In particular, we found the following: (1) A time-independent magnetospheric electric field produces a flow pattern in the magnetic inertial frame that does not vary with universal time. (2) This flow pattern becomes UT dependent in the geographic inertial frame because of the motion of the geomagnetic pole about the geographic pole. (3) The UT variation of the plasma flow pattern in the geographic inertial frame occurs on a time scale that is comparable to satellite orbital periods and that is much less than typical plasma convection flow times over the polar cap. (4) In the geographic inertial frame the main region of very low speed flow is not centered at 1800 LT but moves from about 1300 to 2300 LT during the course of a day. (5) In the geographic inertial frame a throatlike feature appears at certain universal times owing to the relative motion of the geographic and geomagnetic poles. This feature is not seen in the geomagnetic inertial frame and is not connected with our model of the magnetospheric electric field. These results and others described in the paper have important implications for both the interpretation of satellite data related to high-latitude ionospheric dynamics and the formation of ionospheric troughs.

In the spring and fall of 1978 we made an extensive series of plasma line and correlative observations with the Chatanika incoherent scatter radar. To make these measurements, we greatly modified the radar receiving system. In addition to enlarging the plasma line filter bank the most significant change was the incorporation of a high-speed correlator provided by the French. This was the first use of a correlator in a monostatic radar to obtain the intensity spectra of naturally occurring plasma lines. In this paper we develop the signal-processing theory that we use to obtain the plasma line intensities from these measurements; we also show that these intensities compare well with those obtained from the filter bank. To show the richness of the phenomena and to explore the capabilities of the correlator, we examine a wide variety of spectra that have been enhanced by secondary electrons in the auroral E layer. From the other simultaneous measurements we are able to relate these spectra and their variations to the auroral situation. We also obtained the first measurements in the auroral region of photoelectron-excited plasma lines in the E and F layers. Perhaps most significant, in the plasma line spectra we detected a Doppler shift that we then used to determine the Birkeland current carried by ambient electrons. Although there is a large estimated uncertainty for this first determination, we obtained a downward Birkeland current of 10 μA/m² in the diffuse aurora in what is, most likely, the equatorward portion of the evening sector auroral oval.