USGS Contributions to the Climate Change Science Program

USGS and collaborating scientists are seeking to understand how climate and land use have influenced surficial geologic processes that modify landscapes and ecosystems. Combined with monitoring of current conditions, such understanding is then used to model the landscape's response to future changes in climate and land use over time-scales of seasons, years, and decades. The information and interpretations can be used by federal, state, and local agencies, as well as by Native American governments, for land-use planning, management of resources, and remediation of human-health hazards. Project scientists work with other geologists, biologists, hydrologists, geographers, cartographers, educators, and archeologists to address questions about:

1. The interaction of physical and biologic processes critical for ecosystem functions.
2. The role of eolian dust for soil fertility, invasion of exotic species, hydrology, and surface stability in deserts.
3. The causes and timing of changes in alluvial environments (rivers, streams, hillslopes), such as flooding, the cutting and filling of arroyos, and sediment discharge.
4. The interrelations among climate, vegetation, and eolian (wind-related) processes.
5. Landscape stability of the Navajo and Hopi Nations in relation to climatic variability as well as historic and pre-historic land use; here, we also assess causes of high levels of arsenic and uranium in groundwater and springs, and we help develop a culturally-based K-12 earth-science curriculum.
6. The soil-ecologic habitats of the fungal spore pathogen that causes Valley Fever through airborne transmission; potential hazards to human health related to land use, climate, and dust generation.
7. How future climatic variations will affect the Southwestern land surface (in terms of flooding, landslides, erosion, sand-dune activity, dust-storm frequency).
8. How prehistoric cultures adjusted to past climatic changes and environments.

Automated Remote Digital Imaging System (ARDIS) is a means of automatically acquiring color digital images of dust storms. The images are used to determine the directions from which dust particles become airborne, the intensity and duration of the dust event, and the meterological conditions at the time, in conjunction with nearby CLIM-MET stations. The system is placed on top of a mountain to provide views of dust events from 9-20 km away.

CLIM-MET stations are meterological/geological stations that are designed to function in remote areas for long periods of time without human intervention. These stations monitor weather variables including temperature, wind, and precipitation; site variables including soil moisture and temperature, and eolian particle movement; and collect samples of dust for mineralogical and geochemical analyses. Data are automatically recorded at regular intervals.