Joshua Tree National Park's Weather Stations: Tracking Climate Change Across Three Deserts

The Eagle Mountain East (left), West Entrance (middle) and Lost Horse Valley (right) stations, in the Sonoran Desert, transition zone and Mojave Desert. NPS photos.

A shared study of a changing desert

Joshua Tree National Park works with outside scientists to learn how climate change is affecting its plants and animals. The Joshua Tree Climate Change Response Program brings together researchers from the UC Riverside Center for Conservation Biology, the California Desert Interagency Fire Program, the USGS Western Ecological Research Center, the Mojave Desert Native Plant Program, the Joshua Tree Genome Project, the park and others. The partnership has already produced several scientific papers on climate change's effects on the park's natural resources.

The program pairs weather monitoring with a long-term ecological study of plants and animals in the park and nearby conservation lands.

Ten stations, three ecoregions

In 2014, 10 HOBO™ data-logging weather stations went up across the park, placed so that each of its three ecoregions is well represented. They supply the climate data for the program's 27 permanent biological monitoring sites.

What they record, and how they are kept running

Every 15 minutes, each station records temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, and soil moisture at three depths — 10, 20 and 30 cm.

The stations run on their own, but their data must be downloaded at least every 1.3 years. Staff visit them twice a year to check the equipment and keep data loss to a minimum. For their first three years each station had its own maintenance and download schedule; in July 2017, data were gathered from all of them and a common schedule began.

Where the HOBO stations and the park's other automated air and weather stations sit. NPS graphic by Stacy Manson.

What the data are for

The main aim of long-term weather and soil-moisture monitoring is to learn how climate change is affecting the park's natural resources — above all its namesake, the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia). A second aim is to work with the park's interpretation staff and Office of Communications to help the public understand those effects.

The changes are already visible: plant and animal species are declining, the fire regime is shifting, and extreme heat is putting visitors at risk. Studying them takes collaboration among scientists and a commitment to monitoring over the long term. The goal of managing for climate change is to follow the trends and plan protection for the resources at risk that can still be saved — such as places where Joshua trees may hold on, known as refugia.

More: the park's page on climate change at Joshua Tree.

Sources

Based on "Weather Monitoring and Climate Change Research," Joshua Tree National Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.