Weather and Climate Inventory, National Park Service, National Capital Region Network

Davey CA, Redmond KT, Simeral DB. 2006. Weather and Climate Inventory, National Park Service, National Capital Region Network. Natural Resource Technical Report. NPS/NCRN/NRTR—2006/009. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado

Climate drives many of the environmental processes in the park units of the National Capital Region Inventory and Monitoring Network (NCRN). Climate variations are responsible for short and long-term changes in ecosystem fluxes of energy and matter and they have profound effects on underlying biogeochemical processes. Future changes in climate will, in turn, have tremendous impacts on these processes. Monitoring climate facilitates interpretation of other vital sign measurements. The responses of the NCRN landscape to these climate variations highlight the region’s sensitivity to possible future climate changes. Climate changes could also adversely affect the important cultural resources protected by NCRN park units. For these reasons, climate was identified as a high-priority vital sign for NCRN and climate is one of the 12 basic inventories to be completed for all Inventory and Monitoring Parks. Because of the importance of climate to almost every aspect of both ecology and park management, this project was initiated to inventory past and present climate monitoring efforts. The primary objective of climate and weather monitoring for the NCRN is to provide monthly and annual summaries of climate data, including precipitation and temperature, and determine long-term trends in seasonal and annual patterns of climate parameters and soil moisture.

Type
Published Report
Authors
Davey, C; Redmond, K; Simeral, D
Date of Issue
2006
Publisher
National Park Service
Units
ANTI , CATO , CHOH , CLI , GWMP , HAFE , MANA , MONO , NACE , NCRN , NRSS , PRWI , ROCR , WOTR
Keywords
Aesthetics, Climate, Climate change detection, Precipitation, Spatial variability, Temperature, Temporal variability, water inventory, Weather, WRCC-Report

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