A DECADE OBSERVING VERTICAL TEMPERATURE IN GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK USING AN EMBEDDED SENSOR NETWORK

Great Basin National Park (GBNP), located within the Snake Mountain Range in eastern Nevada, is home to rugged topography, several desert environments, and many local water resources. The park's radical verticality creates and sustains local microclimates and ecological environments in unusual ways. Desert scrubs rapidly give way to alpine forests in response to increasing elevation. The alpine environments of GBNP form biogeographical islands and serve as refugia to many endemic species. The park's unique hydrologic features, such as the remnants of Nevada's only mapped glacier, may also contain critical water resources that are not yet fully understood. This research explores the local microclimates of GBNP using a high-resolution Embedded Sensor Network (ESN). This network, put in place in 2006 by researchers from The Ohio State University, provides long-term, high-resolution weather data of GBNP. The ESN is comprised of Lascar weather sensors that take hourly recordings of temperature, dew point and relative humidity. In total, 29 sensors span multiple topographic and hydrological locations within the park. Sensors are located at elevations up to 4,000 meters, run along a ridgeline spanning a gradient of 2,000 meters, follow along two watersheds, and encompass numerous ecological environments. Using temperature data from 2007 to 2017, preliminary results reveal a summertime ground lapse rate of 7 °C per km in GBNP, a half-degree stronger than the commonly accepted alpine ground lapse rate of 6.5 °C per km. Results also indicate that summertime low temperatures have increased over the last 12 years. This study uses over a decade of in situ weather observations to explore the influences of local topography and hydrology on microclimates and to determine climate controls over complex terrain. Ultimately, the ESN should reveal effects of climate change in desert alpine environments.