Invasionsoft: a web-enabled tool for invasive species colonization predictions

Predicting and averting the spread of invasive species is a core focus of resource managers in all ecosystems. Patterns of invasion are difficult to forecast, compounded by a lack of user-friendly species distribution model (SDM) tools to help managers focus control efforts. This paper presents a web-based cellular automata hybrid modeling tool developed to study the invasion pattern of lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles) in the western Atlantic and is a natural extension our previous lionfish study. Our goal is to make publically available this hybrid SDM tool and demonstrate both a test case (P. volitans/miles) and a use case (Caulerpa taxifolia). The software derived from the model, titled Invasionsoft, is unique in its ability to examine multiple default or user-defined parameters, their relation to invasion patterns, and is presented in a rich web browser-based GUI with integrated results viewer. The beta version is not species-specific and includes a default parameter set that is tailored to the marine habitat. Invasionsoft is provided as copyright protected freeware at http://www.invasionsoft.com.

1988 summer drought over the Great Plains: some causes and predictions

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): The 1988 summer drought over much of the United States is described in terms of hemispheric mid-tropospheric flow patterns, temperature and precipitation anomalies, and sea surface temperature patterns. This drought was similar to earlier Great Plains droughts, although spatially more extensive than most. Three attempts to predict this drought from antecedent spring were moderately successful, though no one anticipated its severity and extent. ... A modified barotropic model iterating from a mean summer estimate of seasonal forcing from the May mid-tropospheric height pattern was reasonably successful in forecasting the drought. Sea surface temperature indications show that cold water (La Niña) along the equator subsequent to the 1987 El Niño, while contributory, cannot be considered a principal cause of the drought, since earlier cold water episodes did not produce drought, and other drought episodes occurred in the absence of cold equatorial waters.

Comparison of model predictions and speed trial results for a group of 32' wooden trawlers

Speed trial results of six 32' wooden stern, trawlers built to the same design are analyzed to determine the EHP ship Froude number curves in each case and are compared with the model test results of the same design and for the corresponding, displacement, conditions.