Dr. Steven M. Quiring

Research

Steven Quiring is a climatologist with research interests in hydroclimatology, climate change, drought monitoring and prediction, and hurricanes. Steven is currently working on developing tools that will help decision makers more effectively quantify the magnitude, spatial extent, and duration of severe hydroclimatic events (e.g., floods and droughts). He is interested in gaining a better understanding of the land-atmosphere interactions and drought and climate predictability. Steven is also actively pursuing research that examines climate variability and extremes, the impact of hurricane activity on infrastructure systems, the North American Monsoon, and evaluating the influence of global climate change on the hydrologic cycle.

Projects

I am currently involved in the following research projects (click here for more details):

• Land-atmosphere interactions and drought predicability
• Modeling power outage risk during hurricanes
• Soil moisture & crop yield modeling
• Influence of climate change on the hydrologic cycle

Awards

• Montague Scholar for the College of Geosciences, Center for Teaching Excellence, Texas A&M University 2009–2010
• Co-author (with Lei Meng) of the 2009 Climate Specialty Group “John Russell Mather” Paper of the Year
• Big 12 Faculty Fellowship, Texas A&M University, 2008

Selected Publications

• Han, S.R., Guikema, S. D., Quiring, S. M.. in press. Improving the predictive accuracy of hurricane power outage forecasts using Generalized Additive Models. Risk Analysis.
• Quiring, S. M. and D. B. Kluver. in press. Relationship between winter/spring snowfall and summer precipitation in the northern Great Plains of North America. Journal of Hydrometeorology.
• Meng, L. and S. M. Quiring. in press. Observational relationship of sea surface temperatures and precedent soil moisture with summer precipitation in the U.S. Great Plains. International Journal of Climatology.
• Cox, W. D., Meng, L., Khedun, C. P., Nordfelt, A., and S. M. Quiring. in press. Discharge variability for an artesian spring of the Edwards Aquifer: Comal Spring (1933–2007). International Journal of Climatology.
• Quiring, S. M.. 2009. Developing objective operational definitions for monitoring drought. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 48: 1217–1229.
• Quiring, S. M.. 2009. Monitoring drought: An evaluation of meteorological drought indices. Geography Compass, 3/1: 64–88, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00207.x
• Han, S.R., Guikema, S.D., Quiring, S.M., Lee, K.H., Rosowsky, D.V., and Davidson, R.A. (2009) Estimating the Spatial Distribution of Power Outages During Hurricanes in the Gulf Coast Region. Reliability Engineering & System Safety. 94: 199-210.
• Quiring, S. M. and G. B. Goodrich. 2008. Nature and causes of the 2002 to 2004 drought in the southwestern United States compared with the historic 1953 to 1957 drought. Climate Research, 36: 41-52.
• Quiring, S.M. and Legates, D.R.. 2008. Application of CERES-Maize for within-season prediction of rainfed corn yields in Delaware, USA. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 148: 964–975.
• Meng, L. and Quiring, S.M. 2008. A Comparison of Soil Moisture Models Using Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN) Observations. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 9: 641-659.
• Quiring, S.M. 2007. Trends in Publication Outlets of Geographer-Climatologists. The Professional Geographer, 59: 357-364.
• Levia, D.F. and Quiring, S.M. 2008. An Analytical Rubric for Assessment of Student Learning in a Hybrid PBL Capstone Seminar: A Template for Other Courses in Geography Curricula. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 32(2): 217-231.
• Quiring, S. M.. 2007. Science and Hollywood: A discussion of the scientific accuracy of An Inconvenient Truth. GeoJournal, 70: 1-3.
• Quiring, S.M. 2004. Growing-Season Moisture Variability in the Eastern USA During the Last 800 Years. Climate Research, 27: 9-17.
• Quiring, S.M. and Papakyriakou, T.N. 2003. An Evaluation of Agricultural Drought Indices for the Canadian Prairies. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 118: 49-62.