RII Track-4: Next Generation Climate Modeling of Winter Climate in the United States

非技术描述在美国大部分毗邻的地区，冬季变暖的速度快于夏季，在季节性积雪覆盖的地区变暖更为明显。伴随着冬季变暖趋势的是积雪天数减少，雪水当量减少，冬季降水以雨而不是雪的形式下降的比例增加，以及更频繁的仲冬融化事件。据推测，冬季气候变化的快速速度将对生态系统的自然功能和相应的生态系统服务产生重大影响。拟议项目的愿景是直接满足高分辨率、全面的历史和未来气候模型模拟的需求，以调查美国各地更高和更低排放情景下的未来冬季气候。PI将与科罗拉多州博尔德市国家大气研究中心(NCAR)的科学家合作，NCAR是国际公认的首要气候建模中心。项目成果将提供高质量的基础性气候模型模拟，以促进对冬季气候对生态系统服务的影响的了解，吸引外部合作伙伴参与冬季旅游业，并支持新汉普郡大学的竞争性研究，包括在作物和水文建模领域。技术描述该项目的中心假设是，随着气候对温室气体浓度的增加做出反应，冬季气候的变化将对毗邻的美国的一系列生态系统服务产生深远影响。拟议中的项目将通过下一代气候建模工作直接解决这一假设，以调查美国各地一系列共同的社会经济路径下的未来冬季气候。使用可变分辨率社区地球系统模式(VR-CESM)的基础高分辨率数据集将以统一的高分辨率全球模拟的一小部分计算成本，为美国未来的冬季降雪条件预测增加价值。此外，它们还将允许在未来的项目中详细调查主要遥相关对未来复杂地形上的降雪预测的影响。拟议的工作将支持新汉普郡大学的竞争性研究，包括农业、水文和基础设施建模工作。结果将与三个主要受众分享：K-12教室、高等教育机构和冬季旅游行业的利益相关者。该项目通过社区与冬季运动社区和公民科学积雪测量网络的参与，补充了正在进行的外联工作。除了在学术研讨会和会议上的传统渠道外，这项工作还将通过公共和学校演示广泛传播。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Nontechnical DescriptionAcross most of the contiguous United States, winter is warming faster than summer, and the warming is more pronounced in seasonally snow-covered regions. Accompanying the winter warming trends are fewer days with snow cover, reductions in snow water equivalent, an increased proportion of winter precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, and more frequent mid-winter thaw events. The rapid pace of winter climate change is hypothesized to have large impacts on the natural functioning of ecosystems and corresponding ecosystem services. The vision of the proposed project is to directly address the need for high-resolution, comprehensive historical and future climate model simulations to investigate future winter climate under higher and lower emissions scenarios across the United States. The PI will collaborate with scientists at the National Center of Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, a premier, internationally recognized center for climate modeling. The project outcomes will provide high quality, foundational climate model simulations to advance understanding of winter climate impacts on ecosystem services, engage external partners in the winter tourism industry, and support competitive research at the University of New Hampshire, including in the areas of crop and hydrological modeling. Technical DescriptionThe central hypothesis of this project is that changes in winter climate will have profound impacts on a suite of ecosystem services across the contiguous United States as climate responds to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. The proposed project will directly address this hypothesis through a next-generation climate modeling effort to investigate future winter climate under a range of shared socioeconomic pathways across the United States. The foundational high-resolution dataset with the Variable Resolution Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) will add value to future projections of winter snow conditions in the United States at a fraction of computational cost of uniform high-resolution global simulations. In addition, they will permit detailed investigation of the influence of major teleconnections on future snow projections over complex topography in future projects. The proposed work will support competitive research at the University of New Hampshire, including agricultural, hydrological and infrastructure modeling efforts. Results will be shared with three key audiences: K-12 classrooms, institutes of higher education, and the stakeholders in the winter tourism industry. The project complements ongoing outreach efforts through community engagement with the winter sports community and a citizen science snow measurement network. The work will be broadly disseminated through public and school presentations, in addition to traditional channels at academic workshops and meetings.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.