Scientists at NSIDC: Andrew Slater

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Research Scientist II

PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2003

Specialties [top]

Land-surface and hydrologic modeling of snow, frozen ground, permafrost; hydrologic forecasting and data assimilation of snow

Recent Highlights and Upcoming Expeditions [top]

June 2009: Slater participated in the SnowNet Project in northern Alaska, sampling snow depth and water content to help improve models of climate change in the Arctic.
October 2007: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was named to receive the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, along with former Vice President Al Gore. Slater contributed to the most recent IPCC report, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, serving as co-author for Chapter 8, "Climate models and their evaluation."
February 2007: Slater contributed to the IPCC report, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.
Winter 2006 and Spring 2007: As part of the NOAA Hydrometeorological Testbed field program, Slater investigated snow distribution in the American River Basin, California. Slater also investigated snow-vegetation interactions in various Colorado locations, particularly for the NASA CLPX sites.
December 2005: Investigated potential near-surface permafrost thaw in the 21st century under a range of CO2 emissions scenarios. Future changes in near-surface permafrost have large implications for Arctic hydrology, ecology and trace-gas (e.g. CO2, CH4) emissions. There was world-wide media interest in this study. This research was conducted in collaboration with David Lawrence (NCAR).
Collaborated with Martyn Clark (NIWA, New Zealand) to develop methods for generating probabilistic quantitative precipitation estimates in complex terrain. This allowed us to explicitly account for model input uncertainty and aids hydrologic forecasting, particularly in the U.S. West.
Incorporated an Ensemble Kalman Filter data assimilation into the NWS SNOW-17 model and assimilated snow measurements for purposes of aiding hydrologic forecasting. Assimilation allows for better estimates of model initial conditions, which in snow dominated regions accounts for a very large portion of forecast skill. This research was conducted in collaboration with Martyn Clark (NIWA, New Zealand).
Assessed the abilities of land surface models to simulate Pan-Arctic hydrology. Freshwater runoff into the Arctic Ocean has important climate implications and has been increasing in recent years. For both retrospective and future estimates of Pan-Arctic hydrology budgets, models provide one of the best avenues of investigation. Collaborators included Mark Serreze (NSIDC), and Ted Bohn and Dennis Lettenmeier (University of Washington).

Current Research [top]

Quantifying uncertainty in hydrologic modeling systems
Developing data assimilation methods for hydrologic forecasting
Improving representation of permafrost processes in climate model
Assessing water and energy budgets of the Arctic

Current Projects [top]

Collaborative Research: A Heat Budget Analysis of the Arctic Climate System

Collaborative Research: A Land Surface Model Hind-cast of the Terrestrial Arctic Drainage System

Improving Operational Streamflow Forecasting in the Upper Colorado River Basin

Pan-Arctic Land Surface Modeling

Activities [top]

Contributing Author for IPCC Working Group 1 regarding snow modeling

Member of the Science Steering Committee for HEPEX (Hydrologic Ensemble Prediction Experiment)

Member, American Geophysical Union

Peer reviewer for Journal of Climate, Journal of Hydrometeorology, Journal of Geophysical Research, International Journal of Climatology, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Geophysical Research Letters, Advances in Water Resources, Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan, and Global and Planetary Change.

Peer reviewer for NSF, NASA, and NERC (UK) proposals

Publications [top]

2009

Schaefer, K., T. Zhang, A. G. Slater, L. Lu, A. Etringer, and I. Baker. 2009. Improving simulated soil temperatures and soil freeze/thaw at high-latitude regions in the Simple Biosphere/Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach model. Journal of Geophysical Research 114, F02021, doi:10.1029/2008JF001125.

2008

Clark M. P., A. G. Slater, D. E. Rupp, R. A. Woods, J. A. Vrugt, H. V. Gupta, T. Wagener, and L. E. Hay. 2008. Framework for understanding structural errors (FUSE): A modular framework to diagnose differences between hydrological models. Water Resources Research 44, W00B02, doi:10.1029/2007WR006735.

Clark M. P., D. E. Rupp, R. A. Woods, X. Zheng, R. P. Ibbitt, A. G. Slater, J. Schmidt, and M. Uddstrom. 2008. Hydrological data assimilation with the ensemble Kalman filter: Use of streamflow observations to update states in a distributed hydrologic model. Advances in Water Resources 31(10): 1309-1324, doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2008.06.005.

Lawrence, D. M., and A. G. Slater. 2008. Incorporating organic soil into a global climate model. Climate Dynamics 30(2-3): 145-160, doi:10.1007/s00382-007-0278-1.

Lawrence, D. M., A. G. Slater, V. E. Romanovsky, and D. J. Nicolsky. 2008. Sensitivity of a model projection of near-surface permafrost degradation to soil column depth and representation of soil organic matter. Journal of Geophysical Research 113, F02011, doi:10.1029/2007JF000883.

Lawrence D. M., A. G. Slater, R. A. Tomas, M. M. Holland, and C. Deser. 2008. Accelerated Arctic land warming and permafrost degradation during rapid sea ice loss. Geophysical Research Letters 35, L11506, doi:10.1029/2008GL033985.

Serreze, M. C., A. P. Barrett, and A. G. Slater. 2008. Chapter 13: Variability and change in the atmospheric branch of the Arctic hydrologic cycle. In Arctic-subarctic ocean fluxes, eds. R. R. Dickson, J. Meincke, and P. Rhines. New York: Springer.

2007

Lawrence, D. M., and A. G. Slater. 2007. Incorporating organic soil into a global climate model. Climate Dynamics 30(2-3): 145-160, doi:10.1007/s00382-007-0278-1.

Serreze, M. C., A. P. Barrett, and A. G. Slater. 2007. Chapter 13, Variability and change in the atmospheric branch of the Arctic hydrological cycle. In Arctic-subarctic Ocean Fluxes: Defining the Role of the Northern Seas in Climate, eds. R. R. Dickson, J. Meincke, and P. Rhines. The Netherlands: Springer.

Serreze, M. C., A. P. Barrett, A. G. Slater, M. Steele, J. Zhang, and K. E. Trenberth. 2007. The large-scale energy budget of the Arctic. Journal of Geophysical Research 112, D11122, doi:10.1029/2006JD008230.

Slater, A. G. (contributing author), et al. 2007. Chapter 8, Climate models and their evaluation. In Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds. S. Solomon et al., 589-662. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Slater, A. G., T. J. Bohn, J. L. McCreight, M. C. Serreze, and D. P. Lettenmeier. 2007. A multimodel simulation of pan-Arctic hydrology. Journal of Geophysical Research 112, G04S45, doi:10.1029/2006JG000303.

2006

Clark M. P., and A. G. Slater. 2006. Probabilistic quantitative precipitation estimation in complex terrain. Journal of Hydrometeorology 7(1): 3-22.

Clark, M. P., A. G. Slater, A. P. Barrett, L. E. Hay, G. J. McCabe, B. Rajagopalan, and G. H. Leavesley. 2006. Assimilation of snow covered area information into hydrologic and land-surface models. Advances in Water Resources 29(8): 1209-1221, doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2005.10.001.

Lawrence, D. M., and A. G. Slater. 2006. Reply to comment by C. R. Burn and F. E. Nelson on "A projection of near-surface permafrost degradation during the 21st century." Geophysical Research Letters 33(21), L21504, doi:10.1029/2006GL027955.

Serreze, M., A. P. Barrett, A. G. Slater, R. A. Woodgate, K. Aagaard, R. B. Lammers, M. Steele, R. Moritz, M. Meredith, and C. M. Lee. 2006. The large-scale freshwater cycle of the Arctic. Journal of Geophysical Research 111, C11010, doi:10.1029/2005JC003424.

Slater, A. G., and M. P. Clark. 2006. Snow Data assimilation via an ensemble Kalman filter. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 7(3): 478-493.

2005

Lawrence D. M., and A. G. Slater. 2005. A projection of severe near-surface permafrost degradation during the 21st century. Geophysical Research Letters 32, doi:10.1029/2005GL025080.

2003

Luo L. F., A. Robock, K. Y. Vinnikov, C. A. Schlosser, A. G. Slater, et al. 2003. Effects of frozen soil on soil temperature, spring infiltration, and runoff: Results from the PILPS 2(d) experiment at Valdai, Russia. Journal of Hydrometeorology 4(2): 334-351.

2001

Beringer , J., F. S. Chapin III , I. McHugh , N. J. Tapper , A. H. Lynch , M. C. Serreze, and A. G. Slater. 2001. Impact of Arctic treeline on synoptic climate. Geophysical Research Letters 28(22): 4247-4250.

Lynch, A. H., A. G. Slater, and M. Serreze. 2001. The Alaskan Arctic frontal zone: Forcing by orography, coastal contrast and the boreal forest. Journal of Climate 14(23): 4351-4362.

Slater, A. G., C. A. Schlosser, C. E. Desborough , et al. 2001. The representation of snow in land-surface schemes; Results from PILPS 2(d). Journal of Hydrometeorology 2(1): 7-25.

2000

Schlosser C. A., A. G. Slater, A. Robock, et al. 2000. Standalone simulations of a boreal hydrology with land-surface schemes used in atmospheric models: PILPS Phase 2(d). Monthly Weather Review 128(2): 301-321.

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