CALIFORNIA APPLICATIONS PROGRAM (CAP)

United States

Sponsors: UCSD/SIO/NOAA/JIMA
StartDate: 12/1998
PI/Co-PIs: Dr. Georgakakos
Collaborators: Georgia Tech, Georgia Water Resources Institute (Professor Aris Georgakakos)

This is a research program that focuses on innovative and effective uses of climate and hydrologic information for water resources planning and management. The research work is conducted in collaboration with the Georgia Water Resources Institute of Georgia Tech and with operational and forecast agencies of California. The HRC CAP effort for regional water resources planning is being undertaken to provide the theoretical and application basis for developing and testing regional approaches to water resources planning under the Northern California climatic and water use conditions. Specific applications to planning of Northern California reservoir release policy and to planning for enhanced Southern California urban water demand are researched. Issues pertaining to dry season coastal surface wind and its large-scale forcing are also being studied. The large-scale atmospheric circulation, geometry and topography of the coast, thermal land heating, and relatively cold upwelled coastal ocean water, are all part of a coupled ocean-atmosphere system that includes relatively persistent and moderate equator-ward surface wind. The coupled systems and attendant winds are responsible for the cool, mild, and dry summers of coastal California.

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