Trevor McKellar

Postdoctoral Research Scholar

tmckella@email.arizona.edu

I work on incorporating soil moisture modeling to improve drought monitoring techniques across the southwestern United States. Many drought monitoring techniques ignore the impacts of soil on drought, which is a crucial component of overall ecosystem health. By identifying how soil impacts drought propagation, local rangeland managers and government officials can make better decisions about how to manage Arizona's grasslands.

Publications

McKellar, T. T., & Crimmins, M. A.. (2025). Seasonal precipitation variability controls shallow soil water drought events across the southwestern United States. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2025.110403

McKellar, T. T., Crimmins, M. A., Schaap, M. G., & Rasmussen, C. (2023). Defining the Multiscalar Index Timescale—Soil Water Depth Continuum for the Southwestern United States. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 128(23). https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JD039348

McKellar, T. T. (2022). Drought Monitoring in the Southwestern U.S.: Analysis of Seasonal Precipitation, Multiscalar Indices, and Soil Water. Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Science, University of Arizona.

McKellar, T. T. (2017). Evaluating How Representative Simple Multiscalar Drought Indices are of Modeled Soil Moisture Across the Desert Southwest United States: Vol. MS.

Projects

Name	Project type	Project Dates
Custom Climate Reports for Natural Resource Management	Research	2023
Evaluating Existing and Developing New Drought Indices Using Modeled Soil Moisture Time Series	Research	2017
Planning for Drought in the Warming and Drying Southwest: Drought Indicators to Support Tribal Decision Making in the Four Corners	Climate Services	2013 - 2017