Climate Change and the Water Cycle: Hydrological Impacts of Climate Change in the Continental United States

The climate system and the hydrologic cycle are strongly connected with each other. Understanding the interactions between these two systems is important, since variations in climate can trigger extensive changes in the hydrologic cycle, with significant impacts on agriculture, ecosystems, and society. Observations over the continental United States in recent decades show numerous changes in hydrologically significant climatic variables. This includes decreases in cloud cover and wind speed, increases in air temperature, and seasonal shifts in precipitation rate and rain/snow fraction. In this book, a comprehensive research has been carried out to assess the impacts of these variations in climate on the regional water cycle, along with in-depth discussions. Contents are organized in proper sequence, concomitant with exquisite maps and figures. On the whole, the book is a practical reading material for public, academic researchers and policy makers.