1200 years of Upper Missouri River streamflow reconstructed from tree rings

Martin, Jessica; Pederson, Gregory T.; Woodhouse, Connie A.; Cook, Edward R.; McCabe, Gregory J.; Wise, Erika K.; Erger, Patrick; Dolan, Larry; McGuire, M.; Gangopadhyay, Subhrendu; Chase, Katherine J.; Littell, Jeremy S.; Gray, Stephen T.; George, Scott St.; Friedman, Jonathan M.; Sauchyn, David J.; Jacques, Jannine St.; King, John C.

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.105971

Cited by 19 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 58 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Of these 28 predictors, 5 are located relatively distant (~670 km) to the watershed. We retained these 5 predictors as they contributed additional model skill, as is commonly found in tree-ring hydroclimate and streamflow reconstructions 31,[45][46][47][48][49][50] , consistent with spatial autocorrelation in climate fields [51][52][53] .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 86%

Seven centuries of reconstructed Brahmaputra River discharge demonstrate underestimated high discharge and flood hazard frequency

Rao

Cook

et al. 2020

Nat Commun

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The lower Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh and Northeast India often floods during the monsoon season, with catastrophic consequences for people throughout the region. While most climate models predict an intensified monsoon and increase in flood risk with warming, robust baseline estimates of natural climate variability in the basin are limited by the short observational record. Here we use a new seven-century (1309–2004 C.E) tree-ring reconstruction of monsoon season Brahmaputra discharge to demonstrate that the early instrumental period (1956–1986 C.E.) ranks amongst the driest of the past seven centuries (13th percentile). Further, flood hazard inferred from the recurrence frequency of high discharge years is severely underestimated by 24–38% in the instrumental record compared to previous centuries and climate model projections. A focus on only recent observations will therefore be insufficient to accurately characterise flood hazard risk in the region, both in the context of natural variability and climate change.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 86%

Seven centuries of reconstructed Brahmaputra River discharge demonstrate underestimated high discharge and flood hazard frequency

Rao

Cook

et al. 2020

Nat Commun

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The data at 319 of these sites were downloaded from the International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB; https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo-search/?dataTypeId=18, January 2017), whereas the data of an additional 630 sites were directly contributed by the tree‐ring community and co‐authors. Similar to the ITRDB, the sampling schemes underlying this second collection ranged from elevation gradient (Anderegg & HilleRisLambers, 2019; Case & Peterson, 2005; Guiterman, 2016; Littell, Peterson, & Tjoelker, 2008; Restaino, Peterson, & Littell, 2016) and gridded designs (O'Connor, Falk, Lynch, & Swetnam, 2014) to targeted sampling for dendroclimatological or ‐entomological reconstructions (e.g., Allen et al., 2013; Martin et al., 2019; Razavi, Elshorbagy, Wheater, & Sauchyn, 2015; Ryerson, Swetnam, & Lynch, 2003; Swetnam & Lynch, 1989). We also included 2,617 tree‐ring time series from 1,750 permanent forest inventory plots of the U.S. Forest Service Interior West‐Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, which is presently the most extensive systematically sampled tree‐ring collection in the region (DeRose, Shaw, & Long, 2017).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Continental‐scale tree‐ring‐based projection of Douglas‐fir growth: Testing the limits of space‐for‐time substitution

Klesse

DeRose

Babst

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A central challenge in global change research is the projection of the future behavior of a system based upon past observations. Tree-ring data have been used increasingly over the last decade to project tree growth and forest ecosystem vulnerability under future climate conditions. But how can the response of tree growth to past climate variation predict the future, when the future does not look like the past? Space-for-time substitution (SFTS) is one way to overcome the problem of extrapolation: the response at a given location in a warmer future is assumed to follow the response at a warmer location today. Here we evaluated an SFTS approach to projecting future growth of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), a species that occupies an exceptionally large environmental | 5147 KLESSE Et aL.

show abstract

“…In order to evaluate the relationships between winter and spring precipitation and water year streamflow in a long‐term context, a set of tree‐ring‐based reconstructions was employed. Reconstructions exist for water year streamflow at Toston (Martin et al, 2019), 1 April SWE (Pederson, Gray, Woodhouse, et al, 2011), and warm season (June–August) temperature for the Missouri River Headwaters (Kipfmueller, 2008), but no reconstruction exists for spring precipitation. To assess the contribution of spring precipitation to runoff, a reconstruction of spring precipitation for the Missouri River Headwaters subbasin was developed.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The existing reconstructions of streamflow and 1 April SWE were used with the spring precipitation reconstruction developed for this study to evaluate long‐term hydroclimatic relationships in the Missouri River Headwaters. The reconstruction of estimated natural streamflow of the Missouri River at Toston from Martin et al (2019) spans 679–2008 CE. The years 1376–1998 were used for this study, and over this period, the reconstruction explains approximately 70% of the variance in the gauge record.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multicentury Perspective on the Relative Influence of Seasonal Precipitation on Streamflow in the Missouri River Headwaters

Frederick

Woodhouse

2020

Water Resources Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The impacts of warming temperatures and declining snowpack on seasonal water yields in the Missouri River Headwaters are not well understood, revealing a gap in our understanding of regional hydroclimate and drivers of streamflow within the Upper Missouri River basin. This study presents the first annually resolved tree-ring reconstruction of spring precipitation for the Missouri River Headwaters. This reconstruction along with existing tree-ring reconstructions of 1 April snow water equivalence (SWE) and water year streamflow are used to detect variable influences of winter and spring precipitation on streamflow over past centuries, and relative to the modern period. The results suggest that spring precipitation has been a more consistent influence on water year streamflow in the Missouri River Headwaters over past centuries than winter snowpack. The strong relationship between 1 April SWE values and water year streamflow in the Missouri River Headwaters observed over much of the 20th century is not found to be a consistent feature of these multicentury paleorecords. Instead, the climatic influences on streamflow within the Missouri River Headwaters are likely more variable than 20th-century instrumental records indicate. Key Points:• Skillful reconstructions of precipitation, streamflow, and snowpack can be generated and used to examine hydroclimatic relationships over past centuries • The influence of snowpack and spring precipitation on water year streamflow has varied over past centuries • Missouri River Headwaters streamflow appears to have been more consistently influenced by spring rainfall over past centuries than by snowpack

show abstract

1200 years of Upper Missouri River streamflow reconstructed from tree rings

Cited by 19 publications

References 58 publications

Seven centuries of reconstructed Brahmaputra River discharge demonstrate underestimated high discharge and flood hazard frequency

Seven centuries of reconstructed Brahmaputra River discharge demonstrate underestimated high discharge and flood hazard frequency

Continental‐scale tree‐ring‐based projection of Douglas‐fir growth: Testing the limits of space‐for‐time substitution

A Multicentury Perspective on the Relative Influence of Seasonal Precipitation on Streamflow in the Missouri River Headwaters

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About