Norman Miller

University of California, Berkeley, Geography, Faculty Member

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Norm Miller is an Adjunct Geography Professor and Staff Scientist at the UC Sierra Nevada Research Institute. He is focused on understanding hydroclimate processes and related impacts based on modeling and analysis of regional climate and hydrology and their impacts on water supply and demand, water quality, agriculture, and impacts to other sectors of society. This includes, coupled atmosphere- land surface-groundwater modeling from the site scale to continental scale; climate variability and change analyses; water and energy resources impacts, scaling theory; nonlinear coupling, feedbacks and sensitivities with climate systems; and high performance computing.

The Berkeley Hydroclimate Group investigates past, present, and future climate on regional and sub-regional spatial scales and at temporal resolutions representative of weather and climate. Our research includes conceptual models, numerical code development and evaluation, statistical analyses of historical and projected global and regional climate, numerical weather and streamflow ensemble prediction, seasonal forecasts, and scaling theories. We use remote-sensed observations, reanalysis data, and IPCC AOGCM projections as input forcing to our limited area models and statistical downscaling schemes to understand climate and impacts at site-to-regional scales.

http://geography.berkeley.edu/people/person_detail.php?person=416

Publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Norman_Miller3

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Climate, Extreme Heat and Energy Demand in California

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 2008

ABSTRACT Over the twenty-first century, the frequency of extreme-heat events for major cities in ... more ABSTRACT Over the twenty-first century, the frequency of extreme-heat events for major cities in heavily air conditioned California is projected to increase rapidly. Extreme heat is defined here as the temperature threshold for the 90th-percentile excedence probability (T90) of the local warmest summer days under the current climate. Climate projections from three atmosphere-ocean general circulation models, with a range of low to midhigh temperature sensitivity forced by the Special Report on Emission Scenarios higher, middle, and lower emission scenarios, indicate that these increases in temperature extremes and variance are projected to exceed the rate of increase in mean temperature. Overall, projected increases in extreme heat under the higher A1fi emission scenario by 2070-99 tend to be 20%-30% higher than those projected under the lower B1 emission scenario. Increases range from approximately 2 times the present-day number of days for inland California cities (e.g., Sacramento and Fresno), up to 4 times for previously temperate coastal cities (e.g., Los Angeles and San Diego), implying that present-day &quot;heat wave&quot; conditions may dominate summer months--and patterns of electricity demand--in the future. When the projected extreme heat and observed relationships between high temperature and electricity demand for California are mapped onto current availability, maintaining technology and population constant for demand-side calculations, a potential for electricity deficits as high as 17% during T90 peak electricity demand periods is found. Similar increases in extreme-heat days are likely for other southwestern U.S. urban locations, as well as for large cities in developing nations with rapidly increasing electricity demands. In light of the electricity response to recent extreme-heat events, such as the July 2006 heat waves in California, Missouri, and New York, these results suggest that future increases in peak electricity demand will challenge current transmission and supply methods as well as future planned supply capacities when population and income growth are taken into account.

Relationship between atmospheric circulation and snowpack in the western USA

Hydrological Processes, 2006

Snow anomalies in the western USA have a significant impact on water availability, and hence have... more Snow anomalies in the western USA have a significant impact on water availability, and hence have been widely investigated by many researchers. This study focuses on how anomalous atmospheric circulation affects snowpack accumulation in the western USA. Our results indicate that the mid-latitude atmospheric circulation anomalies induced by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) tend to drive winter precipitation shifts, leading

Analysis of the Sensitivity of Sea Surface Temperature Boundary Conditions on Sierra Nevada Snowpack Using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model

AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts, May 1, 2008

Calibration and Validation of WRF 3.0-CLM3.5 in Snowpack Simulations

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2009

The Community Land Model version 3.5 (CLM3.5) developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Re... more The Community Land Model version 3.5 (CLM3.5) developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was coupled into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model version 3.0. The performance of WRF3.0-CLM3.5 in simulating snowpack was extensively evaluated with in-situ observations from a mountainous site called Col de Porte, located in northern Alps region of France, and the Columbia River Basin, located in the northwestern United States. CLM3.5 was configured with a five-layer snow scheme, and includes snow compaction and liquid water transfer processes, and a sophisticated snow albedo scheme. WRF3.0-CLM3.5 was forced with the National Center for Atmospheric Research/National Centers for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis data to simulate for the 1988-1989 snow season for the Col de Porte site and the 2001-2002 season for the Columbia River Basin, with 60km-20km two-way nested domains. The initial simulations show that WRF3.0-CLM3.5 significantly improves snow simulations when compared to those produced with the WRF3.0 coupled to the Noah land surface scheme at the both study sites. However, WRF3.0-CLM3.5 still tends to underestimate the observed snowpack. Calibration with the observed data from the Col de Porte site indicates that the snow water content bias mainly results from stronger, high elevation incoming solar radiation. An adjustment for the radiation scheme in WRF3.0 was made to reduce the incoming radiation to better fit with the observations. This adjustment improves snow simulations at both Col de Porte site and the Columbia River Basin. Additional offline snow simulations with CLM3.5 driven with observed forcing data were performed at the Col de Porte site. These offline simulations are compared to the results produced with the coupled WRF3.0-CLM3.5. Through this comparison, snow-atmosphere interactions are quantitatively indentified. The improved snow simulations in WRF3.0-CLM3.5 will benefit regional hydro-climate research and forecasts.

An Analysis of Snow Processes Within a Regional Climate Model

AGUFM, Dec 1, 2003

Analysis of the Impact of Snow on Daily Weather Variability in Mountainous Regions Using MM5

Journal of Hydrometeorology, Apr 1, 2007

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