Title: Understanding Global Water Cycle Dynamics

Team: Prof. Paul R. Houser/Scientist (phouser@igmu.edu)CREW Director and GMU Professor

Ms. Deborah R. Belvedere/Notes (debbie@iges.org)Assistant Director, Center for Research on Environment and Water (CREW)

Ms. Xia Feng/Tool Specialist (xfeng@gmu.edu)Graduate Research Assistant, George Mason University

Dr. Ronald Houser/Evaluation Specialist (ron.houser@nwea.org)Northwest Evaluation Association, Director, Advanced Research and Development Group

Dr. Carla McAuliffe/Curriculum Developer (Carla_McAuliffe@terc.edu)Senior Curriculum Developer, Researcher, & Evaluator, TERC

Dr. William A. Prothero/Education (prothero@geol.ucsb.edu)University of California, Santa Barbara (Emeritus)

Education/Science Question: Is the Water Cycle Changing?•Gain a deeper understanding of the hydrologic cycle•Use water balance/conservation concepts to understand data

Precipitation – Evaporation – Runoff = Storage Change•Practice hypothesis-driven scientific method•Investigating causal impacts on water cycle change

Volcanoes, El Nino, Climate Change, teleconnection patterns•Use observational data to understand models (advanced)

Vision:1) Brief introduction to water cycle and balance concepts2) Description of data & tools (GrADS, Reanalysis-2, and GPCP)3) 3-Tier data exploration tutorial

•web-Based “canned” plots•web-based GrADS GUI•command-line local GrADS tools

4) Advanced questions and additional studies5) Evaluation

•Is the exercise being used by teachers, and are there ways to improve it?•Did the student learn anything (short unit test)?•Provide learning feedback to teachers & students?

Outline:•Hypothesis generation & testing•Water balance trend tutorial•Analysis of global trend attribution•Investigation of local trends•Hypothesis of future water cycle changes

Annual Water Balance Means and Anomalies

Annual time and space water balance analysis

Annual time and space water balance analysis

Local/Regional Water Balance Analysis