SIAM - Animation of Water Temperature Along the Klamath River

John Bartholow
2150 Centre Avenue, Bldg C
Fort Collins, CO 80526

These animations were developed from a display now available in the Systems Impact Assessment Model (SIAM) for the Klamath River (Version 2.7).

The first "movie" (1992-1993.GIF) is a longitudinal portrayal of mean daily water temperature simulated from Upper Klamath Lake to the ocean for a portion of water years 1992 and 1993. The display is updated every week beginning 01/07/1992. The date is shown in the lower right corner of the map. The legend on the right shows water temperature by color range up to 22°C. The "scale" on the bottom shows the same information as the map, but simply in a one-dimensional representation with river miles (difficult to read in this animation) listed along the river.

The second animation (August 2001 Flash) has a daily time step covering the month of August, 2001. Running in a continuous loop, this animation is much the same as the first, but more clearly shows how the middle portions of the river (largely the impoundment-regulated sections and immediately downstream) appear to be buffered from especially high daily events.

Both animations illustrate large day-to-day or week-to-week water temperature variation, both at a watershed scale and a reach scale. The first "movie" was assembled with a version of SIAM that did not correct for longitudinal simulation error; the second does correct the simulation results.

In the actual SIAM model, one may zoom in to particular areas, step through time at whatever interval you wish (down to one day), and have additional control over the animation.

View Presentation

• 1992-1993 GIF (1.8 MB)
• Aug. 2001 FLASH (1.6 MB)

Also at FORT

• USGS Hydrologic Studies in the Upper Klamath Basin, Oregon