Katherine Hegewisch


Department of Geography
University of Idaho
Moscow, ID 83844-3120

khegewisch@uidaho.edu

Climate Research
I am working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Applied Climate Sciences Lab with Dr. John Abatzoglou.
 
Statistical Downscaling
We are working on the statistical downscaling of global climate models (GCMs).

We utilize downscaling methods such as BCSD (Wood et al, 2002) and MACA ( Abatzoglou, Brown, 2011).

The MACA method includes epoch adjustment, bias correction (quantile matching with observations) and constructed analogs (pattern matching with observations).
 
GCM Analysis
We are analyzing future climate predictions from the rcp45,60,85 scenarios of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) in order to understand the impact of changing climate on:
  • water availability in the Great Basin watershed (a Southern Nevada Water Authority Project)
  • land use in wheat growing regions in the Pacific Northwest (a REACCH project)
  • snow packs in the Pacific Northwest (a USGS project)
  • mega-fires in the Western USA (a Forest Service project)