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The Foothills Climate Array

Explore the mesoscale processes dominating southwestern Alberta's climate through the Foothills Climate Array (FCA), aiming to enhance climate downscaling, boundary-layer process parameterizations, and climate change impact assessments using advanced meteorological instrumentation and models near Kananaskis Country.

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The Foothills Climate Array

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  1. The Foothills Climate Array Manda Adams Shawn Marshall Shannon Fargey

  2. Motivation for FCA • The local climate of southwestern Alberta is dominated by mesoscale processes • The primary objective of the FCA is to characterize the spatial-temporal patterns of meteorological variability and to develop physically-based models of the controls of topography and surface environment on surface weather patterns. • Insights from the FCA will be used to develop improved climate downscaling strategies, climate change impact assessments, and boundary-layer process parameterizations in regional climate models

  3. Foothills Climate Array

  4. Cross-section of study area

  5. Instrumentation

  6. Station Elevations

  7. Instrumentation FCA station HOBO tipping bucket rain gauge Veriteq temperature-humidity datalogger

  8. 0.85 moose

  9. Mountain Stations Farm Stations 2.0m 1.5m 2.5m 2.0m

  10. Data Quality – some issues . . . attack of the horse death by avalanche serious clog by birds taken out by cows

  11. Automatic Weather Stations • 5 full met stations • Incoming radiation • Pressure • Wind Speed and Direction • Sonic Snow Depth Elbow AWS – Near Elbow Falls (Kananaskis Country) Simpson AWS – West of Cochrane

  12. A Tale of 2 Sites • Site 530 • Elevation 1164m • Latitude: 50.9098 • Longitude: -114.315 • Site 538 • Elevation 946m • Latitude: 50.9359 • Longitude: -113.703 • Distance Between: 42km

  13. Temperature

  14. Relative Humidity

  15. Rain Events

  16. Rain Events

  17. Convective Events 2005

  18. Examples of the variability in Convective Rain Events

  19. Relating Surface Variables

  20. Contributions to UNSTABLE • Prairie stations: change sampling strategy • Require: 1 grad student • Operational Running of UW-NMS and/or WRF in support of IOPs • Require: programmer or grad student

  21. UW-NMS

  22. SPC

  23. Science Questions well suited for the FCA • Under what conditions do t-storms generated in the central Alberta Foothills intensify and move southeast over the Calgary area? • Can the influence of mesoscale circulations and boundaries be seen in the severe weather climatology of the region?

  24. Questions? Contact Information: Manda Adams manda.adams@ucalgary.ca • Funding provided by: • Canadian Foundation for Innovation • Alberta Science and Research and Investments Project

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