ABSTRACT
The North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME) was designed and implemented to advance predictions of warm season precipitation across North America. In order to achieve its aim, NAME researchers have studied a broad selection physical and ecological processes thought to influence the warm season regional circulation, land-atmosphere coupling and precipitation formation processes. Following early diagnostic and modeling work, an internationally-coordinated field program was executed during the summer of 2004 with the purpose of providing critical dyamical, thermodynamical, oceanographic and terrestrial hydrologic data from the core region of the North American Monsoon in western Mexico and the southwestern U.S. Much has already been learned from the analysis of data collected during 2004 including the atmospheric circulation structure over and surrounding the Gulf of California, the evolution of the thermal state of the Gulf of California waters, the diurnal cycle of precipitation and its relationship to regional physiography, and the influence of atmospheric transients in modulating regional moisture fluxes and precipitation episodes. The principal challenges that lie ahead include relating the regional scale processes occurring within the core region of the monsoon to larger continental and global climate forcing mechanisms controlling seasonal anomalies in warm season precipitation and using this improved understanding to advance predictions of warm season precipitation. A third, though no less important, challenge is to translate improvements in understanding and prediction capabilities into improved forecasts of key hydrologic variables such as streamflow and evapotranspiration.

This talk will present an overview of the NAME research effort, providing a summary of activities completed to date as well as those still ongoing. Several new datasets produced during the NAME field campaign will be presented as will results from the second NAME Model Assessment Project (NAMAP-II). The talk will emphasize recent research relating precipitation-streamflow-evaporation processes in the core monsoon region. In particular, the regional scale transition between the cool dominated regime of the Rocky Mountains and the warm season dominated regime of the Sierra Madre Occidental will be explored from a hydrological perspective. Throughout the talk the unifying aim of improving predictions of warm season precipitation and its hydrological impacts will be stressed.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
After completing his dissertation work at the University of Arizona’s Department of Hydrology and Water Resource, Dave Gochis took an appointment within the Research Applications Laboratory at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) in Boulder, Colorado. His primary research interests include hydrometeorology, rainfall-runoff modeling, flash-flood prediction, land-atmosphere coupling, regional climate modeling and a regular dose of field work. Since 2002 he has collaboratively operated a rain gauge network in the Sierra Madre Occidental of western Mexico in support of the NAME research program. He currently serves as chair of the NAME Science Working Group.