Abstract
The True Prairie (TP) is a large area in the central U.S. which was a tall grass prairie for thousands of years prior to its conversion to crop land. An analysis of climatically controlling factors indicated that the tall grass prairie is favored by the ratio of warm season precipitation to potential evapotranspiration exceeding 0.75 (west boundary), cold season precipitation less than 38 cm (south boundary), high cold-season frequency of thunderstorms (north boundary), and high drought frequencies (entire region). A `climate-year' approach was used to assess the temporal and spatial variability of these conditions during the 20thcentury. This analysis did not reveal any long-term trends in most climate-year types, although there were significant decadal-scale fluctuations, most notably a high frequency of drought-type years in the 1930s and 1950s. However, the well-documented upward trend in precipitation is manifested in an increasing frequency of one climate-year type characterized by above normal cold season precipitation in the southern border area of the TP.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Albertson, F. and Weaver, J. E.: 1944, 'Nature and Degree of Recovery of Grassland from the Great Drought of 1933–1940', Ecol. Monogr. 14, 393–479.
Akinremi, O. O. and McGinn, S. M.: 1996, 'Evaluation of the Palmer Drought Index on the Canadian Prairie', J. Climate 9, 897–905.
Alley, W. M.: 1984, 'The Palmer Drought Severity Index: Limitations and Assumptions', J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol. 23, 1100–1109.
Baker, R. G.: 2000, 'Holocene Environments Reconstructed from Plant Macrofossils in Stream Deposits from Southeastern Nebraska, U.S.A.', The Holocene 10, 357–365.
Baker, R. G., Maher, L. J., Chumbley, C. A., and Van Zant, K. L.: 1992, 'Patterns of Holocene Environmental Change in the Midwestern United States', Quatern. Res. 37, 379–389.
Barry, R. G.: 1983, 'Late-Pleistocene Climatology', in Porter, S. G. (ed.), Late-Quaternary Environment of the United States, Vol. 1, The Late Pleistocene, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 390–407.
Bartlein, P. J., Webb, T., III, and Fleri, E.: 1984, 'Holocene Climatic Change in the NorthernMidwest: Pollen-Derived Estimates', Quatern. Res., 22361–22374.
Blasing, T. J. and Duvick, D. N.: 1984, 'Reconstruction of Precipitation History in North American Corn Belt Using Tree Rings', Nature 307, 143–145.
Borchert, J. R.: 1950, 'Climate of the Central North American Grasslands', Annals Amer. Assoc. Geog. 40, 1–39.
Bryson, R. A.: 1966, 'Air Masses, Streamlines, and the Boreal Forest', Geog. Bull. 8, 228–269.
Bryson, R. A., Baerris, D., and Wendland, W.: 1970, 'The Character of Late Glacial and Post Glacial Climatic Changes', in Pleistocene and Recent Environments of the Central Great Plains, University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS, pp. 54–74.
Changnon, S. A.: 2001, Development and Analysis of Databases for Assessing Long-term Fluctuations in Thunderstorms in the U.S., CRR-49, Changnon Climatologists, Mahomet, IL, 49 pp.
Changnon, S. A., Kunkel, K. E., and Winstanley, D.: 2002, 'The Climate Mystery of America's True Prairie', Phys. Geog., accepted.
Changnon, S. A. and Winstanley, D.: 2000, 'Temporal Changes in Corn-Weather Seasons in Illinois', Clim. Change 47, 353–372.
Cook, E. E., Meko, D. M., Stahle, D. W., and Cleaveland, M. K.: 1999, 'Drought Reconstructions for the Continental United States', J. Climate 12, 1145–1162.
Cook, E. R. and Cole, J.: 1991, 'On Predicting the Response of Forests in Eastern North America to Future Climate Change', Clim. Change 19, 271–282.
Cowles, H. C.: 1928, 'Persistence of Prairies', Ecology 9, 380–382.
Daubenmire, R. F.: 1968, 'The Ecology of Fire in Grasslands', Adv. Ecol. Res. 5, 209–266.
Daubenmire, R. F.: 1978, 'Plant Geography with Special Reference to North America, Academic Press, New York, 38 pp.
Davis, M. B.: 1991, 'Lags in Vegetation Response to Greenhouse Warming', Clim. Change 15, 75–82.
Denevan, W. M.: 1992, 'The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492', Annals Assoc. Amer. Geog. 82, 369–385.
Emanuel, W. R., Shugart, H., and Stevenson, M.: 1985, 'Climatic Change and the Broad-Scale Distribution of Terrestrial Ecosystem Complexes', Clim. Change 7, 29–45.
Forman, S. L., Oglesby, R., and Webb, R. S.: 2001, 'Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Holocene Dune Activity on the Great Plains of North America: Megadroughts and Climate Links', Global Plan. Change 29, 1–29.
Fritz, S. C., Ito, E., Yu, Z., Laird, K. R., and Engstrom, D. R.: 2000, 'Hydrologic Variation in the Northern Great Plains during the Last Two Millennia', Quatern. Res., 53, 175–184.
Guetter, P. J. and Kutzbach, J. E.: 1990, 'A Modified Koeppen Classification Applied to Model Simulations of Glacial and Interglacial Climates', Clim. Change 16, 193–215.
Holdridge, L. R.: 1964, Life Zone Ecology, Tropical Science Center, San Jose, Costa Rica, 68 pp.
Jackson, A. S.: 1965, 'Wildfires in the Great Plains Grasslands', Proc. 4th Annual Tall Timbers Fire Ecology. Conference, Tall Timbers Research Station, Tallahassee, FL, 4, pp. 241–259.
Karl, T. R.: 1986, 'The Sensitivity of the Palmer Drought Severity Index and Palmer's Z-Index to their Calibration Coefficients Including Potential Evapotranspiration', J. Clim. Appl. Meteorol. 25, 77–88.
Karl, T. R. and Knight, R. W.: 1998, 'Secular Trends of Precipitation Amount, Frequency, and Intensity in the U.S.', Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 79, 231–241.
King, J. E.: 1981, 'Late Quaternary Vegetational History of Illinois', Ecol. Monogr. 51, 43–62.
Komarek, E. V.: 1964, 'The Natural History of Lightning', Proc. 3rd Annual Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Conference, Tall Timbers Research Station, Tallahassee, FL, 3, pp. 139–148.
Kunkel, K. E.: 2001, 'Surface Energy Budget as Related to Fuel Moisture', in Johnson, E. A. (ed.), Forest Fire Ecology, Academic Press, pp 303–350.
Kunkel, K. E., Andsager, K., and Easterling, D. R.: 1999, 'Long-Term Trends in Heavy Precipitation Events over North America', J. Climate 12, 2513–2525.
Leith, H.: 1975, 'Modeling the Primary Productivity of the World', Primary Productivity of the Biosphere, Ecological Studies 14, 237–263.
Malin, J. C.: 1947, The Grassland of North America, University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS, 98 pp.
Mattice, W. A.: 1938, 'Precipitation in the Great Plains', Mon. Wea. Rev. 66, 117–126.
McKee, T. B., Doesken, N. J., and Kleist, J.: 1993, 'Drought Monitoring with Multiple Time Scales', Preprints, 9th Conference on Applied Climatology, American Meteorological Society, Boston MA, pp. 233–236.
Palmer, W. C.: 1965, 'Meteorological Drought', Research Paper No. 45, U.S. Weather Bureau, 58 pp.
Parton, W. J., Ojima, D., and Schimel, D.: 1994, 'Environmental Change in Grasslands: Assessment Using Models', Clim. Change 28, 111–141.
Risser, P. G., Birney, E., Blocker, H., May, S., Parton, W., and Wiens, J.: 1981, The True Prairie Ecosystem, Hutchinson Ross Publishing, Stroudsburg, PA, 484 pp.
Russell, R. J.: 1934, 'Climatic Years', Geog. Rev. 24, 92–103.
Sauer, C. O.: 1950, 'Grassland Climax, Fire, and Man', J. Range Management 3, 6–21.
Thornthwaite, C. W.: 1931, 'The Climates of North America According to a New Classification', Geog. Rev. 21, 633–655.
Thornthwaite, C. W.: 1933, 'The Climates of the Earth', Geog. Rev. 23, 433–440.
Thornthwaite, C. W.: 1948, 'An Approach towards a Rational Classification of Climate', Geog. Rev. 38, 55–94.
Transeau, E. N.: 1935, 'The Prairie Peninsula', Ecology 16, 423–437.
Weaver, J. E.: 1950, 'Stabilization of Midwestern Grassland', Ecol. Monogr. 20, 251–270.
Webb, T., III, Bartlein, P., Harrison, S. P., and Anderson, K. H.: 1993, 'Vegetation, Lake Levels, and Climate in Eastern North America for the Past 18000 Years', in Wright, H. E. Jr, Kutzbach, J. E., Webb, T., III, Ruddiman, W. F., Street-Perrott, F. A., and Bartlein, P. J. (eds.), Global Climates since the Last Glacial Maximum, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 415–467.
Webb, T., III and Bryson, R. A.: 1972, 'Late-and Postglacial Climatic Change in the Northern Midwest, U.S.A.: Quantitative Estimates Derived from Fossil Pollen Spectra by Multivariate Statistical Analysis', Quatern. Res. 2, 70–115.
Webb, T., III, Cushing, E. J., and Wright, H. E. Jr.: 1984, 'Holocene Changes in the Vegetation of the Midwest', in Wright, H. E. Jr. (ed.), Late-Quaternary Environments of the United States, Vol. 2: The Holocene, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 142–165.
Wendland, W. M.: 1978, 'Holocene Man in North America: The Ecological Setting and Climatic Background', Plains Anthropology 23038, 273–287.
Woodhouse, C. A. and Overpeck, J. T.: 1998, '2000 Years of Drought Variability in the Central United States', Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 70, 2693–2714.
Wright, H. E.: 1968, 'History of the Prairie Peninsula', in Bergstrom, R. (ed.), The Quaternary of Illinois, Special Publication 14, College of Agriculture, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, pp. 78–88.
Wright, H. E. Jr. and Watts, W. A., with contributions from Jelgersma, S., Waddington, J. C. B., Ogawa, J., and Winter, T. C.: 1969, Global and Vegetational History of Northeastern Minnesota, Minnesota Geological Survey, SP-11 Special Publication Series, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 59 pp.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kunkel, K.E., Changnon, S.A. Climate-Years in the True Prairie: Temporal Fluctuations of Ecologically Critical Climate Conditions. Climatic Change 61, 101–122 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026338617893
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026338617893