Find research datasets worth reusing

opencc-by-4.0Aug 2020View details →

Data for manuscript "Suppression of CO2 outgassing by gas bubbles under a hurricane"

Matlab data files containing data used to plot figures in the manuscript "Suppression of CO2 outgassing by gas bubbles under a hurricane"

opencc-zeroAug 2020View details →

Demographic analysis for article Hurricane-induced demographic changes in a nonhuman primate population

Major disturbance events can have large impacts on the demography and dynamics of animal populations. Hurricanes are one example of an extreme climatic event, predicted to increase in intensity due to climate change, and thus expected to be a considerable threat to population viability. However, little is understood about the underlying demographic mechanisms shaping population response following these extreme disturbances. Here, we analyze 45 years of the most comprehensive free-ranging nonhuman primate demographic dataset to determine the effects of major hurricanes on the variability and maintenance of long-term population fitness. For this, we use individual-level data to build matrix population models and perform perturbation analyses. Despite reductions in population growth rate mediated through reduced fertility, our study reveals a demographic buffering during hurricane years. As long as survival does not decrease, our study shows that hurricanes do not result in detrimental effects at the population level, demonstrating the unbalanced contribution of survival and fertility to population fitness in long-lived animal populations.

opencc-zeroAug 2020View details →

Data from: Framework for quantifying population responses to disturbance reveals that coastal birds are highly resilient to hurricanes

Changes in the frequency and severity of extreme weather may introduce new threats to species that are already under stress from gradual habitat loss and climate change. We provide a probabilistic framework that quantifies potential threats by applying concepts from ecological resilience to single populations. Our approach uses computation to compare disturbance-impacted projections to a population's normal range of variation, quantifying the full range of potential impacts. We illustrate this framework with projection models for coastal birds, which are commonly depicted as vulnerable to disturbances, especially hurricanes and oil spills. We found that populations of coastal specialists are resilient to extreme disturbances, with high resistance to the effects of short-term reductions in vital rates and recovery within 20 years. Applying the general framework presented here across disturbance-prone species and ecosystems would improve understanding of population resilience and generate specific projections of resilience that are needed for effective conservation planning.

Data from: The impact of hurricanes Irma and Maria on the forest ecosystems of Saba and St. Eustatius, northern Caribbean

In September 2017, Irma became the first recorded category 5 hurricane to hit the Caribbean Windward Islands. The second category 5, Maria, followed two weeks later. In November 2017, we assessed the structural impact of this disturbance on highly valued Caribbean forest ecosystems. We recorded the status of 935 tree stems on Saba and St. Eustatius in stands at different elevations. Tree damage was substantial on both islands, with 93% of stems being defoliated, 84% having lost primary and/or secondary branches and 36% having structural stem damage. Average tree mortality was 18%, with mortality being nearly twice as high on St. Eustatius than on Saba. Surprisingly, we found that neither individual stem size nor community size distributions mediated the forests' response to the hurricanes. Our results show that these hurricanes comprised a density-independent disturbance, which may become more common as the frequency of strong hurricanes is projected to increase.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →

Data from: Quantifying human mobility perturbation and resilience in Hurricane Sandy

Human mobility is influenced by environmental change and natural disasters. Researchers have used trip distance distribution, radius of gyration of movements, and individuals' visited locations to understand and capture human mobility patterns and trajectories. However, our knowledge of human movements during natural disasters is limited owing to both a lack of empirical data and the low precision of available data. Here, we studied human mobility using high-resolution movement data from individuals in New York City during and for several days after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. We found the human movements followed truncated power-law distributions during and after Hurricane Sandy, although the β value was noticeably larger during the first 24 hours after the storm struck. Also, we examined two parameters: the center of mass and the radius of gyration of each individual's movements. We found that their values during perturbation states and steady states are highly correlated, suggesting human mobility data obtained in steady states can possibly predict the perturbation state. Our results demonstrate that human movement trajectories experienced significant perturbations during hurricanes, but also exhibited high resilience. We expect the study will stimulate future research on the perturbation and inherent resilience of human mobility under the influence of hurricanes. For example, mobility patterns in coastal urban areas could be examined as hurricanes approach, gain or dissipate in strength, and as the path of the storm changes. Understanding nuances of human mobility under the influence of such disasters will enable more effective evacuation, emergency response planning and development of strategies and policies to reduce fatality, injury, and economic loss.

Data from: Living shorelines enhanced the resilience of saltmarshes to Hurricane Matthew (2016)

Nature-based solutions, such as living shorelines, have the potential to restore critical ecosystems, enhance coastal sustainability, and increase resilience to natural disasters; however, their efficacy during storm events compared to traditional hardened shorelines is largely untested. This is a major impediment to their implementation and promotion to policy-makers and homeowners. To address this knowledge gap, we evaluated rock sill living shorelines as compared to natural marshes and hardened shorelines (i.e. bulkheads) in North Carolina, USA for changes in surface elevation, Spartina alterniflora stem density, and structural damage from 2015-2017, including before and after Hurricane Matthew (2016). Our results show that living shorelines exhibited better resistance to landward erosion during Hurricane Matthew than bulkheads and natural marshes. Additionally, living shorelines were more resilient than hardened shorelines, as they maintained landward elevation over the two-year study period without requiring any repair. Finally, rock sill living shorelines were able to enhance S. alterniflora stem densities over time when compared to natural marshes. Our results suggest that living shorelines have the potential to improve coastal resilience while supporting important coastal ecosystems.

Data from: Impact of a hurricane on the herpetofaunal assemblages of a successional chronosequence in a tropical dry forest

Land‐use change is the main cause of deforestation and degradation of tropical forest in Mexico. Frequently, these lands are abandoned leading to a mosaic of natural vegetation in secondary succession. Further degradation of the natural vegetation in these lands could be exacerbated by stochastic catastrophic events such as hurricanes. Information on the impact of human disturbance parallel to natural disturbance has not yet been evaluated for faunal assemblages in tropical dry forests. To evaluate the response of herpetofaunal assemblages to the interaction of human and natural disturbances, we used information of pre‐ and post‐hurricane herpetofaunal assemblages inhabiting different successional stages (pasture, early forest, young forest, intermediate forest, and old growth forest) of dry forest. Herpetofaunal assemblages were surveyed in all successional stages two years before and two years after the hurricane Jova that hit the Pacific Coast of Mexico on October 2011. We registered 4093 individuals of 61 species. Overall, there were only slight effects of successional stage, hurricane Jova or the interaction between them on abundance, observed species richness and diversity of the herpetofauna. However, we found marked changes in estimated richness and composition of frogs, lizards, and snakes among successional stages in response to hurricane Jova. Modifications in vegetation structure as result of hurricane pass promoted particular changes in each successional stage and taxonomic group (anurans, lizards, and snakes). Secondary forests at different stages of succession may attenuate the negative effects of an intense, short‐duration, and low‐frequency natural disturbance such as hurricane Jova on successional herpetofaunal trajectories and species turnover.

opencc-zeroDec 2019View details →

Deer movement and resource selection during Hurricane Irma: implications for extreme climatic events and wildlife

Extreme climatic events (ECEs) are increasing in frequency and intensity and this necessitates understanding their influence on organisms. Animal behavior may mitigate the effects of ECEs, but field studies are rare because ECEs are infrequent and unpredictable. Hurricane Irma made landfall in southwestern Florida where we were monitoring white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus seminolus) with GPS collars. We report on an opportunistic case study of behavioral responses exhibited by a large mammal during an ECE, mitigation strategies for reducing the severity of the ECE effects, and the demographic effect of the ECE based on known-fate of individual animals. Deer altered resource selection by selecting higher elevation pine and hardwood forests and avoiding marshes. Most deer left their home ranges during Hurricane Irma, and the probability of leaving was inversely related to home range area. Movement rates increased the day of the storm, and no mortality was attributed to Hurricane Irma. We suggest deer mobility and refuge habitat allowed deer to behaviorally mitigate the negative effects of the storm, and ultimately, aid in survival. Our work contributes to the small but growing body of literature linking behavioral responses exhibited during ECEs to survival, which cumulatively will provide insight for predictions of a species resilience to ECEs and improve our understanding of how behavioral traits offset the negative impacts of global climate change.

Data from: Immediate impact of a hurricane on the structure of a tropical butterfly community

More intense and frequent hurricanes may lead to long-lasting effects to tropical ecosystems. Here we describe the immediate impact on the butterfly community of a lowland forest in Belize, following Hurricane Earl. Species richness and abundance increased post-hurricane, likely driven by convergence of the organisation between the canopy and understory communities.

opencc-zeroDec 2012View details →

Data from: Hurricane-mediated defoliation of kelp beds and pulsed delivery of kelp detritus to offshore sedimentary habitats

Severe storm events are important agents of disturbance that can transport large quantities of algal detritus from highly productive kelp beds (or forests) in shallow water to deeper, more food-limited areas. We measured canopy cover in shallow kelp beds (5 to 15 m depth) and the cover of detrital kelp in sedimentary habitats directly offshore of these beds (20 to 45 m) before and after Hurricane Earl, which struck the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia in September 2010. The storm resulted in large losses of kelp canopy cover (from 71.0 to 38.7%, averaged across sites) and significantly increased the cover of detrital kelp deposits below the kelp beds (from 1.5 to 3.4%). Detrital deposits were more commonly found in a semi-protected bay than off an exposed headland and persisted in the bay for at least 6 wk. Sea urchins Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis were associated with detrital kelp deposits in offshore habitats. At sites with the greatest amount of detrital kelp, we estimated that sea urchins could consume this material within 2 mo, indicating that storm-generated detrital pulses may be an important form of trophic connectivity between adjacent ecosystems off this coast.

opencc-zeroDec 2019View details →

Maintaining historic disturbance regimes increases species' resilience to catastrophic hurricanes

As habitat loss and fragmentation, urbanization, and global climate change accelerate, conservation of rare ecosystems increasingly relies on human intervention. However, any conservation strategy is vulnerable to unpredictable, catastrophic events. Whether active management increases or decreases a system's resilience to these events remains unknown. Following Hurricane Irma's landfall in our habitat restoration study sites, we found that rare ecosystems with active, human-imposed management suffered less damage in a hurricane's path than unmanaged systems. At the center of Irma's landfall, we found Croton linearis' (a locally rare plant that is the sole host for two endangered butterfly species) survival and population growth rates in the year of the hurricane were higher in previously managed plots than in un-managed controls. In the periphery of Irma's circulation, the effect of prior management was stronger than that of the hurricane. Maintaining the historical disturbance regime thus increased the resilience of the population to major hurricane disturbance. As climate change increases the probability and intensity of severe hurricanes, human management of disturbance-adapted landscapes will become increasingly important for maintaining populations of threatened species in a storm's path. Doing nothing will accelerate extinction.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2020View details →

Data for MWR article "The consequences of surface-exchange coefficient uncertainty on an otherwise highly predictable major hurricane"

This repository contains the model code, initial and boundary conditions and the namelist settings needed to reproduce the results of "The consequences of surface-exchange coefficient uncertainty on an otherwise highly predictable major hurricane".

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2024View details →

Mean Sea Level Pressure - Hurricane Beryl Analysis with and without a cold pool scheme

This video compares the cold pool scheme, the control scheme, and ERA5 data. For more information, please contact the author.

opencc-by-4.0Feb 2022View details →

Tracks for "Attribution of 2020 hurricane season extreme rainfall to human-induced climate change"

TempestExtremes track files for CAM5 analysis presented in "Attribution of 2020 hurricane season extreme rainfall to human-induced climate change"

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2021View details →

Azimuthally averaged tangential wind and radial wind for Hurricane Patricia simulations and SAMURAI analysis at validation time

Azimuthally averaged tangential wind and radial wind for Hurricane Patricia simulations (the data format is .mat) and SAMURAI analysis at validation time (the data format is netcdf).

opencc-zeroMay 2022View details →

Hurricane disturbance accelerated the thermophilization of a Jamaican montane forest

Thermophilization – changes in community composition towards greater relative abundances of species associated with warmer environments – has been described for plants and animals in many locations around the world. Disturbances of various kinds have increased rates of thermophilization in temperate sites, and this has been proposed, but not demonstrated, for some tropical environments. In this study, we tested whether disturbance by a Category four hurricane in 1988 (Hurricane Gilbert) increased thermophilization in a Jamaican montane forest by using pre- and post-hurricane data collected over four decades (1974–2014). We analysed tree species composition in permanent plots at c. 1580 m elevation in Jamaica's Blue Mountains. There were 66 tree species with stem diameters ≥3 cm at breast height. We used published data on the altitudinal distribution of 62 species (94% of genetic individuals (genets)) to calculate the mean community altitude scores (MCAS) of the trees recorded in each census, as well as the MCAS of the survivors, recruits and dead trees after each decade. We found that thermophilization did occur (i.e., MCAS decreased significantly over time), and that this was due both to a decreasing MCAS of recruits through the four decades (significantly lower than expected in the last three decades) as well as a high MCAS of trees that died. Thermophilization was fastest in the post-hurricane decade, during which time there was marked and significant increase in the MCAS of dead trees; this change was above and beyond expectations of long-term successional dynamics. The rate of compositional change equates to an overall decrease in MCAS of 1.6 m yr-1 over the forty-year study period. We conclude that this Jamaican montane forest is undergoing thermophilization (likely due to rising temperature) and that the hurricane-caused disturbance accelerated thermophilization through differential mortality.

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

No evidence of predicted phenotypic changes after hurricane disturbance in a shade-specialist Caribbean anole

Extreme climatic events (ECE) such as hurricanes have been hypothesized to be a major driving force of natural selection. Recent studies argue that, following strong hurricane disturbance, Anolis lizards in the Caribbean undergo selection for traits such as longer forelimbs or smaller body sizes that improve their clinging ability to their substrates increasing their chances of surviving hurricane wind gusts. Some authors challenge the generalization of this hypothesis arguing that other mechanisms may explain these phenotypic changes or that they may not necessarily be generalizable due to system-specific idiosyncrasies. To address this issue, we compared body size and relative forelimb length of Anolis gundlachi, a trunk-ground anole living in closed canopy forests in Puerto Rico, before, four months after, and 15 months after Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. Overall, our results show no clear evidence of a temporal decrease in body size or increase forelimb length (relative to body size) challenging the generalizability of the clinging ability hypothesis. Understanding how animals adapt to ECE is an emerging field. Still, we are quickly learning that this process is complex and nuanced.

opencc-by-4.0Jul 2022View details →

E3SM simulations to assess the projected changes in tropical cyclone activity during active and inactive North Atlantic hurricane seasons

This dataset compiles the results of high resolutions E3SM experiments performed to assess the projected changes in the North Atlantic tropical cyclone activity in a warming climate. The results of these experiments are currently in revision under the title "Future Changes in Active and Inactive Atlantic Hurricane Seasons in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model"  The file tracks_teca.zip compiles the TC tracks detected in the experiments, using the Toolkit for Extreme Climate Analysis (TECA), available at https://teca.readthedocs.io/en/latest/applications.html#teca-tc-stats GPI_LaNinaAMMp.zip and GPI_ElNinoAMMn.zip includes the genesis potential index and its components for each of the experiments. For further information, please contact the author at anasena@iastate.edu Acknowledgements: This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.  E3SM simulations were performed using BER Earth System Modeling program’s Compy computing cluster located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. PNNL is operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830.  This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.  This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), Earth and Environmental Systems Modeling (EESM) Program, under Early Career Research Program Award Number DE‐SC0021109.

opencc-by-4.0Jul 2024View details →

WRF Model Output for a Simulation of Hurricane Laura (2020), 2.25km grid, 2020-08-26-00Z through 2020-08-26-10Z

This is WRF model output for a simulation of Hurricane Laura (2020). The tar file contains gzipped netcdf files each with 6 model outputs at 20 minute intervals.