COASTER Examples
(1) Midwestern Drought of the Late 1980's
The Midwestern drought of late 1980s was
characterized by both unusually low precipitation and high temperatures.
In this example we contrast the number of
extremely warm days (i.e., those greater than 37.7 degrees Celsius (~100
degrees Fahrenheit)) that occurred in during the peak of the drought (1988)
with counts from surrounding years.
(2) Hurricane Katrina
These products show the spatial and temporal
patterns in rainfall volumes associated with Hurricane Katrina.
Accumulated precipitation from the storm is
shown on the left and the date on which the hurricane passed overhead is shown
on the right.
(3) Drought Conditions in Western U.S.
Annual precipitation anomalies showing drought
conditions in the western United States (~1999 -2004) relative to wet
conditions before and after. The anomalies are calculated as the
percentage of normal precipitation, with yellow cells indicating normal
precipitation, brown values indicating below normal precipitation, and blue
conditions indicating above normal precipitation. All values were calculated
from the TOPS 8km dataset by summing all precipitation for each year and
dividing those values from normal annual values derived using 30 years worth of
climate data (1980-2009).
(4) Bark Beetle Outbreak
In the 2000s a bark beetle outbreak led to
mortality in trees, particularly lodgepole and whitebark pine, throughout the
Greater Yellowstone ecosystem and beyond.
One of the major checks on beetle populations is killing frosts that
occur in fall, as they kill beetle larva during a vulnerable phase in their life
cycle and subsequently reduce the number of adults available to infest trees the
following summer. This figure shows how
COASTER might be applied to analyses of bark beetle outbreaks by quantifying
the intensity and spatial pattern of minimum temperatures within the month (i.e.,
the lowest temperature occurring within October).
(5) Severe Frost of 1990 in Southern California
Severe frosts in late December, 1990 lead to
major crop losses in California. Output
from the COASTER tool reviles the spatial distribution and severity of cold
temperatures. The top map shows the
average minimum temperature (i.e., nighttime lows) for the period December 21st
to 23rd. The bottom map show
how unusual these cold temperatures were relative to the 30-year normal
values.
(6) Midwestern Floods of 1993
The Midwestern floods of 1993 resulted in
significant losses to crops and property in this important agricultural
region.These COASTER outputs show three
approaches for visualizing how unusual precipitation volumes were during this
year.The upper maps show the 30-year
precipitation amounts for the United States next to results for 1993. The lower maps show how different the 1993
precipitation total was relative to the 30-year average for each cell. The lower left map shows this information in
volume (i.e., millimeters of precipitation) while the lower right map show the
values as percentage of normal.
