Temporal variations of temperature in the Sacramento River

The temperature regime of the Sacramento River has been investigated. Changes brought about due to the combination of reservoir development, changing land-use patterns and drought may have contributed to a dramatic drop in the river's salmon population. The availability of relatively inexpensive, high accuracy, large memory temperature loggers has allowed the collection of long-term continuous data with which to better profile the dynamics of river temperature. Analysis of this data is presented relating to digital filtering of the temperature measurements and calculated longitudinal temperature gradients along an 85 mile stretch of the river.