PROGRAM FOR THE
TWENTY-SEVENTH PACIFIC CLIMATE WORKSHOP
Asilomar State Conference Grounds,
Pacific Grove, California
March 8-11th 2015
PACLIM is a multidisciplinary workshop that broadly addresses the climatic phenomena occurring
in the eastern Pacific Ocean and western North America. The purpose of the workshop is to
understand climate effects in this region by bringing together specialists from diverse fields
including physical, social, and biological sciences. Time scales from weather to the Quaternary
are addressed in oral and poster presentations.
The theme of the 2015 PACLIM workshop addresses the issue of drought: How we develop long
term records of drought, how we monitor drought and how we predict drought. The remainder of
the meeting is devoted to a wide range of climate-related topics.
The atmosphere of the workshop is intentionally informal, and room and board are provided for
many of the participants. This year, the workshop was organized by faculty from Sonoma State
University, and the University of Nevada, Reno with support from representatives of the U.S.
Geological Survey. The funding and other sources of support come from several agencies:
The Desert Research Institute: Alan Gertler
The U.S. Geological Survey Climate and Land Use Change Research & Development
Program: Debra Willard
The University of Nevada, Reno: Frank Fanelli and Daniel Fergus, Teaching Learning
Technologies
SUNDAY NIGHT, March 8th
Moderator:
Michelle Goman
CURRENT EVENTS
4:30-5:30
SUNDAY AFTERNOON REGISTRATION
6:00-7:00
DINNER – Crocker Dining Hall
7:00-7:15
ORAL PRESENTATIONS - Fred Farr Room
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Scott Mensing (University of Nevada, Reno) and Michelle Goman
(Sonoma State University)
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7:15-7:45
The Weather and Climate of PACLIM Year 2014-2015
Kelly Redmond (Western Regional Climate Center)
7:45-8:15
The California Drought of 2012-20xx; How Is the 2015 Water Supply
Shaping Up?
Maury Roos (California Division of Water Resources)
8:15-8:30
Discussion on Paclim
Michelle Goman (Sonoma State University) and Scott Mensing
(University of Nevada, Reno): Support in organizing future meetings
8:30-10:00
POSTERS AND SOCIALIZING – Kiln Room
MONDAY MORNING, March 9th
Moderator:
Scott Mensing
SPECIAL SESSION: DROUGHTS: RECONSTRUCTING THE PAST, MONITORING
THE PRESENT, MODELING THE FUTURE
7:30-8:30
BREAKFAST - Crocker Dining Hall
ORAL PRESENTATIONS - Fred Farr Room
8:30-8:35
Introductory Remarks
8:35-9:00
California hydroclimate monitoring in the 21st Century
Michael L. Anderson (California Department of Water Resources)
9:00-9:25
The extraordinary California drought of 2012-2015: Historical
context and the role of climate change
Daniel L. Swain (Stanford University), Danielle Touma, Deepti Singh,
Michael Tsiang, Matz Haugen, Alison Charland, Bala Rajaratnam, Noah
S. Diffenbaugh
9:25-9:50
Unprecedented 21st-Century Drought Risk in the American
Southwest and Central Plains
Benjamin I Cook (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies), Toby R
Ault, Jason E Smerdon
9:50-10:15
Look to the past to understand future conifer responses in the Greater
Yellowstone Ecosystem
Cathy Whitlock (Montana State University), Virginia Iglesias, and Teresa
Krause
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10:15-10:30
BREAK
10:30-10:50
The role of anomalous ridging in U.S. West Coast-wide drought over
multiple centuries
Erika K. Wise (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
10:50-11:10
Fire and Ice - California drought and super cold East in a changing
Climate
Simon S.-Y. Wang (Utah State University), Larry Hipps, Robert Gillies,
J.-H. Yoon, and Boniface Fosu
11:10-11:30
The role of the PDO in western U.S. drought
Stephanie A. McAfee (University of Nevada, Reno)
11:30-11:50
California droughts associated with La Nina
John A. Dracup (University of California, Berkeley), Robert Willis
12:00-1:00
LUNCH - Crocker Dining Hall
MONDAY AFTERNOON, March 9th
Moderator:
J.J. Shinker
SPECIAL SESSION: MODELING AND RECONSTRUCTING DROUGHTS
ORAL PRESENTATIONS - Fred Farr Room
1:30-1:50
Search for uncertain relationships between North Pacific atmosphere
variability and western US streamflow drought
Steven B. Malevich (The University of Arizona) and Connie Woodhouse
1:50-2:10
Forecasting Meteorological Drought Over California Using the North
Pacific High January Anomaly and a Statistical/Dynamical Method
Mariza C. Costa Cabral (Northwest Hydraulic Consultants), John Rath,
Sujoy B. Roy, William B. Mills, and Cristina Milesi
2:10-2:30
Replicating weather station air temperature measurements and
monitoring snow cover across palaeorecord sites in complex terrain in
the Walker Basin, California-Nevada
Scotty Strachan (University of Nevada, Reno) Constance I. Millar
2:30-2:50
Urbanization as a likely driver of reduced summer fog and increased
drought in coastal southern California
A. Park Williams (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia
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University), Rachel E. Schwartz, Sam Iacobellis, Richard Seager,
Benjamin I. Cook, Christopher J. Still, Gregory Husak, and Joel
Michaelsen
2:50-3:10
BREAK
3:10-3:30
Water supply and landscape droughts: historical and projected
hydrology of the Great Basin.
Stuart B. Weiss (Creekside Center for Earth Observation), Alan.L. Flint,
and Lorrie.E. Flint
3:30-3:50
Investigating the Response of a Great Basin Terminal Lake to Abrupt
Climate Change
Benjamin J. Hatchett (University of Nevada, Reno) and Douglas P. Boyle
3:50-4:10
Causes and Implications of late Holocene Drought in the Cuenca
Oriental of Mexico
Tripti Bhattacharya (University of California, Berkeley), Roger Byrne,
Harald Bohnel, and Kurt Wogau
4:10-4:30
9,000 years of California weather in an ultra-high resolution scanning
XRF record from Santa Barbara Basin
Ingrid L. Hendy (University of Michigan) Tiffany J. Napier, Erik T.
Brown, Arndt Schimmelmann, Dorothy Pak and Linda Hinnov
4:30-4:50
Conference Group Photo
6:00-7:00
DINNER - Crocker Dining Hall
MONDAY EVENING, March 9th
Moderator:
Scott Mensing
7:15-8:15
8:15-10:00
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EVENING PRESENTATION- Fred Farr Room
Bird Returns: Demonstrating Dynamic Conservation
Sandi Matsumoto (The Nature Conservancy)
POSTERS AND SOCIALIZING – Kiln Room
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c
TUESDAY MORNING, March 10th
Moderator:
Mathew Kirby
SPECIAL SESSION: HYDROCLIMATE, VEGETATION AND FIRE DYNAMICS
7:30-8:30
BREAKFAST - Crocker Dining Hall
ORAL PRESENTATIONS - Fred Farr Room
8:45-9:05
Investigating the role of temperature in mediating relationships
between cool season precipitation and water year streamflow in the
Upper Colorado River basin
Connie A. Woodhouse (University of Arizona, Tucson) Gregory T.
Pederson, Kiyomi Morino, and Gregory McCabe
9:05-9:25
Using tree-ring isotopes to understand hydroclimate variability in the
Upper Colorado River Basin.
Adam Csank (Desert Research Institute) Connie Woodhouse, Greg
Pederson, John Danloe, and Steve Leavitt
9:25-9:45
Impacts of the PDO and ENSO on Canadian Western Interior Annual
and Peak Flows
Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques (Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative)
Sunil Gurrapu, David Sauchyn, Kyle Hodder and Yang Zhao
9:45-10:05
Climate change and drought in the Tahoe Basin at millennial to
annual time scales
Robert Coats (Univ. of California, Davis) Goloka Sahoo, Jack Lewis and
Geoffrey Schladow
10:05-10:25
BREAK
10:25-10:45
Drought and Fire in the Klamath Forests of northern
California
Christy E. Briles (University of Colorado Denver, Denver) Cathy
Whitlock, and Ali White
10:45-11:05
A Holocene Record of Vegetation, Fire and the Seasonality of
Precipitation for the Bonneville Basin, USA
Andrea Brunelle (University of Utah), William Eckerle, Mitch Power
11:05-11:20
Potential non-climate forest structure change in the southern Sierra
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Nevada range using paleoenvironmental and archaeological proxy
data
Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson (University of Nevada, Reno), Scott
Mensing, Linn Gassaway
11:25-11:45
Drought and climate variability influences on quaking aspen (Populus
tremuloides) in the Intermountain West
Vachel A. Carter (University of Utah), Andrea Brunelle, Tom A. Minckley
12:00-1:00
LUNCH - Crocker Dining Hall
TUESDAY AFTERNOON, March 10th
Moderator:
Andrea Brunelle
SPECIAL SESSION: CLIMATE AND FLORAL AND FAUNAL CHANGES
ORAL PRESENTATIONS - Fred Farr Room
1:30-1:50
Late Holocene (3.65 ka) multi-proxy shift in Fallen Leaf Lake, CA
marks the transition from a millennial-scale neopluvial interval to
increased aridity
Paula J. Noble (University of Nevada, Reno), Susan H. Zimmerman, G. Ian
Ball, Ken D. Adams, Jillian Maloney, and Shane B. Smith
1:50-2:10
3000 years of environmental change at Zaca Lake, California
Theodore Dingemans (University of Nevada, Reno), Scott A. Mensing,
Sarah J. Feakins, Matthew E. Kirby, Susan R. H. Zimmerman
2:10-2:30
The Role of Natural Climatic Trends and Local Depositional
Conditions on Peat Formation in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
Irina Delusina (University of California, Davis) and Kenneth L. Verosub
2:30-2:50
Reconstructing Holocene paleoproductivity along the northern
California continental shelf
Jason A. Addison (U.S. Geological Survey), John Barron, Bruce Finney,
John P. McGeehin, and Clark R. Alexander, Jr.
2:50-3:10
BREAK
3:10-3:30
Insight into Southern California paleohydrology since Marine Isotope
Stage 5c (c. 96 ka) from Baldwin Lake, San Bernardino Mountains
Katherine C. Glover (UCLA), Glen MacDonald, Edward Rhodes, Emily
Silveira, Matthew Kirby, Alexis Whitaker
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3:30-3:50
Climatic influences on seasonal precipitation from northern Baja
California, a ~44,000 yr palaeoenvironmental record
Vanessa Chavez (University of Utah) and Andrea Brunelle
3:50-4:10
The Snowmastodon Project: A view of the Last Interglacial Period
from the Colorado Rockies
Jeffrey S. Pigati (U.S. Geological Survey)
4:10-4:30
The Geochronologic and Paleontologic Framework of the Late
Pleistocene Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument
Kathleen Springer (San Bernardino County Museum, Redlands), Craig R.,
Manker, Eric Scott, Jeffrey S. Pigati, and Shannon Mahan
6:00-7:00
DINNER - Crocker Dining Hall
TUESDAY EVENING, March 10th
Moderator:
Michelle Goman
EVENING PRESENTATION - Fred Farr Room
7:15-8:15
Forgotten Landscapes of California: Using Historical Ecology and Art
to Reconstruct Pre-Contact Ecosystems
Laura Cunningham (Artist-Naturalist)
8:15-10:00
POSTERS AND SOCIALIZING – Kiln Room
WEDNESDAY MORNING, March 11th
Moderator:
Scott Starratt
POTPOURRI: NOVEL PROXIES CONSTRAINING CLIMATE, PRODUCTIVITY AND
ERUPTION TIMING
7:30-8:30
BREAKFAST - Crocker Dining Hall
ORAL PRESENTATIONS - Fred Farr Room
9:00-9:20
n-Alkanes as a Biomarker for Holocene Paleoclimate in the Tulare
Lake Catchment, California, USA
Jeremiah Reagan (California State University Bakersfield), Roy Lafever,
and Robert Negrini
9:20-9:40
Does climate need to vary before carbon and nitrogen ratios change in
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desert lakes? Examples from Big Soda and Pyramid Lakes.
Michael R. Rosen (US Geological Survey) and Liam Reidy
9:40-10:00
Influence of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and El Niño-Southern
Oscillation on lacustrine hydroecologic cycling in Alberta
R. Timothy Patterson (Carleton University), Lisa A. Neville, Paul
Gammon, Graeme T. Swindles, Andrew L.Macumber
10:00-10:20
Constraining the season of occurrence and impacts of the Mazama
Ash: evidence from a laminated marine sediment core from the NE
Pacific
Helen M. Roe (Queen’s University of Belfast) and Karen R. Logan
12:00-1:00
LUNCH - Crocker Dining Hall
POSTERS
Links between San Lazaro Basin carbonate productivity and Western North America
mega-droughts
Jose Abella-Gutiérrez (CICESE) and Juan Carlos Herguera
Do high-elevation lakes record variations in snowfall and atmospheric rivers in the Sierra
Nevada of California?
Jacob E. Ashford (University of California, Riverside), James O. Sickman, and Delores M.
Lucero
Surface water conditions in the Gulf of California during the Medieval Climate Anomaly
and Little Ice Age
John Barron (U.S. Geological Survey), Dave Bukry, Jason Addison
Simulated megadroughts over California and the global response of the isotopic
composition of precipitation
Nikolaus H. Buenning (University of Southern California) and Lowell D. Stott
A 50,000 Year Record of Wildfires in the North Coast Ranges: Microscopic Charcoal
Evidence from Clear Lake, California
Marie Champagne (UC Berkeley), Roger Byrne, David Wahl, and Cynthia Looy
Disappearance of coastal forests on Santa Cruz Island, California at the PleistoceneHolocene Boundary
Amanda N. Grant (Northern Arizona University)
A Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction to Assess Anthropogenic and Natural Disturbances
in Range Creek, Utah
Maria Groves (University of Utah)
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El Niño controls Holocene rabbit and hare populations in Baja California
Isaac A. Hart (University of Utah), Jack M. Broughton, Ruth Gruhn, Alan Bryan
Paleoenvironmental evolution of coastal Northern California - correlative evidence from
the Pacific Ocean and adjacent Coast Range for the past 16 ka
Linda E. Heusser (Lamont-Doherty), John A. Barron, Jason A. Addison
Spatial Correlation Analysis of ENSO with Southwestern North America Hydroclimate
Josh P. Heyer (University of Utah), Simon C. Brewer, and Andrea R. Brunelle
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exposure dating of Little Ice Age and Recess Peak moraines in the Sierra Nevada,
California
Alan J. Hidy (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Susan R.H. Zimmerman, Robert C.
Finkel, Jeorg M. Schaefer, and Douglas H. Clark
High-resolution vegetation and Fire History Reconstruction for the Bonneville Basin, Utah
during the last ~35,000 cal yr BP.
Kelsey A. Howard (University of Utah), Andrea R. Brunelle and Jennifer Degraffenried
Assessing Pinus longaeva treeline dynamics using historic aerial imagery
Mackenzie Kilpatrick (University of Nevada – Reno), and Franco Biondi
Evidence for abrupt changes in late-Glacial to Holocene hydroclimates in the Mojave
Desert, CA.
Matthew E. Kirby (California State University, Fullerton), Edward J. Knell, William T.
Anderson, Matthew S. Lachniet, Holly Eeg, Ricardo Lucero, Rosa Murrieta, Andrea Arevalo,
Emily Silveira, Christine Hiner, and Jennifer Palermo
Evaluating the Cause of Deglacial-Age Highstands in the Great Basin Using Clumped
Isotope Thermometry from Shell and Sedimentary Carbonates in Shoreline Deposits in the
Southeastern Basin and Range
Andrew L. Kowler (UCLA) and Aradhna Tripati
Environmental magnetism record from Clear Lake, California
Emily Levin (University of California at Davis), Roger Byrne, Cindy Looy, David Wahl, Anders
Noren, and Kenneth L. Verosub
Late-Holocene Changes in Climate Variability, Variance, and Periodicity in the US
Southwest, and Effects on Landscape Dynamics
Julie Loisel (UCLA) and Glen M. MacDonald
A Fire History of Upper Valley near Escalante, Utah
Kate Magargal (University of Utah)
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Geochronology and Lithostratigraphy of the Late Pleistocene Las Vegas Formation
Craig R. Manker (San Bernardino County Museum, Redlands), Kathleen Springer, Jeffrey S.
Pigati, Shannon Mahan
Arctic and Tropical Influence on Extreme Precipitation Events, Atmospheric Rivers, and
Associated Isotopic Values in the Western U.S.
Staryl E. McCabe-Glynn (University of California Irvine, Irvine), Kathleen R. Johnson, Yuhao
Zou, Jeffrey M. Welker, Courtenay Strong, Jonathan J. Rutz, Jin-Yi Yu, Kei Yoshimura, Scott L.
Sellars and Ashley E. Payne
What has driven the long-term drying of the Southwest: precipitation or evaporation? A
paleohydrologic study at multiple lake basins in California
John Mering (UCLA), Juan Lora, Aiden Jonsson, Victoria Petryshyn, John Wilson, Audrey
Brown, Lilian Chou, Angela Jayko, David Miller, Kate Maher, Daniel Ibarra, Robert Eagle,
Camille Risi, Andrew Kowler, Jonathan Mitchell, Aradhna Tripati
Recruitment patterns and growth of high-elevation pines in response to climatic variability
(1883-2013), western Great Basin, USA
Constance.I. Millar (USDA Forest Service), Robert.D. Westfall, Diane.L. Delany, Alan.L. Flint,
and Lorrie.E. Flint
Resilience of American Southwest Ecosystems to Prolonged Drought
Thomas A. Minckley (University of Wyoming)
Two shades of grey: Understanding temperature-streamflow relationships in the Colorado
River Basin through the lens of gridded climate data
Kiyomi Morino (The University of Arizona, Tucson) and Connie Woodhouse
Reconstructing Pleistocene precipitation events from Santa Barbara Basin sediment cores:
application of the detrital elemental proxy at annual resolution
Tiffany J. Napier (University of Michigan), Ingrid L. Hendy, Erik T. Brown, and Linda Hinnov
Latest Pleistocene through Holocene Lake Levels from Tulare Lake, CA: Testing results
using the Smear Slide Technique
Kelsey Padilla (California State University, Bakersfield), Lindsey Medina, Ashleigh Blunt, and
Rob Negrini
Foraminiferal proxies reflect changes in northeast Pacific ocean-atmospheric circulation
through the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age
Dorothy Pak (University of California at Santa Barbara), Ingrid Hendy, and Arndt
Schimmelmann
Influence of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and El Niño-Southern Oscillation on lacustrine
hydroecologic cycling in Alberta
R. Timothy Patterson (Carleton University), Lisa A. Neville, Paul Gammon, Graeme T.
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Swindles, Andrew L.Macumber
Impact of Increasing Temperature on Denver, CO Water Resources
Joseph E. Pearson (University of Wyoming), Jacqueline J. Shinker, Dannele E. Peck, and William
J. Gribb
Collaborative Research: Multi-century perspectives on current and future streamflow in
the Missouri River Basin
Gregory T. Pederson (U.S. Geological Survey), Jay Alder, Edward Cook, Naresh Devineni,
Jonathan Friedman, Steven Hostetler, Upmanu Lall, Caroline Leland, Justin Martin, Gregory
McCabe, Parker Norton, Scott St. George, Jeannine St. Jacques, Dave Sauchyn, John Stamm,
Erika Wise, Connie Woodhouse
Are Mid-winter Droughts in Northern California Increasing?
Maurice Roos (California Department of Water Resources
Paleomagnetic Secular and Environmental Magnetism Variation of Late Holocene-aged
Sediments of Tulare Lake, CA
Janine Roza (California State University, Bakersfield), Brandon Jackson, Eric Heaton, Rob
Negrini
Glaciogenic effects during MIS 2 on the lacustrine sediment flux of Tulare Lake.
Lilian Rubi (California State University Bakersfield), Matthew Van Grinsven, Robert Negrini,
and Magdalena Juarez
Fast and economical sampling and resin-embedding technique for small cores of
unconsolidated, fine-grained sediment
Arndt Schimmelmann (Indiana University), David J. Riese, and Juergen Schieber
Climatic controls of early snowmelt runoff and late-season drought in the upper South
Platte River basin and metropolitan Denver
Jacqueline J. Shinker (University of Wyoming) and Joseph E. Pearson
Sagebrush Fire History at Redfish Bog
Victoria M. Simmons (University of Utah), Andrea Brunelle, Isaac Hart
Diatom-inferred Holocene record of moisture variability in Lower Bear Lake, San
Bernardino Mountains, California, USA
Scott W. Starratt (US Geological Survey), and Matthew E. Kirby
Aridity, monsoon strength and the Little Ice Age: a 600-year record from northern
Vietnam
Lora R. Stevens (California State University, Long Beach), Tracey La Rocco, Mounga Nonu, AJ
White
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Adaptive water resource planning in the South Saskatchewan River Basin: use of scenarios
of hydroclimatic variability and extremes
Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques (University of Regina), David J. Sauchyn, Elaine Barrow, Michael W.
Nemeth, Ryan J. MacDonald, A. Michael S. Sheer, and Daniel P. Sheer
Proxy validation: comparisons of a tree-ring inferred climate reconstruction to Fort
Snelling early climate data and high-resolution pollen-inferred climate reconstructions
from varved Lake Mina, Minnesota, USA
Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques (University of Regina), David Sauchyn, Jessica Vanstone, James
Dickenson, Brian Cumming and John Smol
Reconstructing conditions for Fremont Zea mays horticulture
Marcus J. Thomson (UCLA) Glen M. MacDonald
Low cloud/fog-mediated summertime maximum temperature reductions in Central Coastal
California.
Alicia Torregrosa (USGS Western Geographic Science Center), Jeff Peters,
Lorraine Flint, Alan Flint, Cindy Combs
A multi-proxy record of paleoflood events imprinted on oxbow lake sedimentary sequences
of the Dak Bla River, Kontum, Vietnam
Trang T. Tran (Vietnam National University), Lora R. Stevens, Thich Vu, Rane Anderson
Changes in Holocene Climate, Fire and Vegetation from the Northeastern Great Basin: A
13,500 Year Sedimentary Record From Swan Lake, ID.
David Wahl (USGS), Lysanna Anderson, Jose Rosario, David M. Miller, and Liubov Presnetsova
An unparalleled, ultraresolution treering dataset for climate and snow reconstructions in
the American West
Simon S.-Y. Wang (Utah State University), Justin DeRose, Daniel Barandiaran, John Shaw
Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction Using Elemental Analysis
Danielle M. Ward (University of Utah)
Hint of an Expanded Summer Monsoon during the Mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum in
the Southern Owens Valley Region, California
Wallace B Woolfenden (USDA Forest Service (ret.)
Precise timing and duration of the late Holocene pluvial-arid sequence at Mono Lake, CA.
Susan R. H. Zimmerman (Lawrence Livermore National Lab), Sidney R. Hemming, and Scott
W. Starratt
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