Project ID: 2006DE76B

Title: The Effect of Proposed Climatic Warming on the Hydrological Cycle

Project Type: Research

Start Date: 06/01/2006

End Date: 02/28/2007

Congressional District: At large

Focus Categories: Climatological Processes, Hydrology

Keywords: floods, droughts, storms, global warming

Principal Investigator: Legates, David

Federal Funds: $1,750

Non-Federal Matching Funds: $3,500

Abstract: Climatic warming is widely assumed to lead to a more vigorous hydrological cycle and changes in the frequency and spatial distribution of severe droughts and/or floods. These changes in storm intensity and precipitation may also have the potential for devastating effects on human life. Further research is needed to examine the impact of spatial and temporal scales on storm intensity, changes in precipitation amount, and flood or drought magnitude. Also, the impact of human changes to the environment may often skew the results of precipitation studies, and thus further research must be done to fully understand the influence of urban heat islands, development of land/water ways, pollution, etc. on changes to the hydrologic cycle. The goal of this project is to further investigate the impact of human influences as well as climatic warming on changes observed in the hydrologic cycle, such as precipitation amount, droughts, floods, storm intensity, runoff, evaporation rates, and transpiration rates.

Progress/Completion Report, PDF