A multi‐scale hydroclimatic analysis of runoff generation in the Athabasca River, western Canada

Peters, Daniel L.; Atkinson, David E.; Monk, Wendy; Tenenbaum, David E.; Baird, Donald J.

doi:10.1002/hyp.9699

Cited by 46 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 58 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This includes a 37.9 % decline in streamflow for the main stem Athabasca River below McMurray (location of the furthest downstream hydrometric gauge on the river with publicly accessible hydrometric data), with substantially lesser reductions in other neighbouring rivers draining into the lake. These findings are consistent with those of other recent studies that have investigated Athabasca River streamflow trends (e.g., Schindler and Donahue, 2006;Peters et al, 2013;Bawden et al, 2014;Rood et al, 2015). Thus, our finding of a general decline Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.…”

Section: Past Streamflow Input To Lake Athabascasupporting

confidence: 93%

Reply to D. L. Peters' Comment on "Streamflow input to Lake Athabasca, Canada" by Rasouli et al. (2013)

Rasouli

Hernández-Henríquez

Déry

2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. This paper provides a reply to a comment from Peters (2014) on our recent effort focused on evaluating changes in streamflow input to Lake Athabasca, Canada. Lake Athabasca experienced a 21.2 % decline in streamflow input between 1960 and 2010 that has led to a marked decline in its water levels in recent decades. A reassessment of trends in naturalized Lake Athabasca water levels shows insignificant changes from our previous findings reported in Rasouli et al. (2013), and hence our previous conclusions remain unchanged. The reply closes with recommendations for future research to minimize uncertainties in historical assessments of trends in Lake Athabasca water levels and to better project its future water levels driven by climate change and anthropogenic activities in the Athabasca Lake basin.

show abstract

Section: Past Streamflow Input To Lake Athabascasupporting

confidence: 93%

Reply to D. L. Peters' Comment on "Streamflow input to Lake Athabasca, Canada" by Rasouli et al. (2013)

Rasouli

Hernández-Henríquez

Déry

2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…S4). The GLS trend analysis of instrumental data confirms that the PDO and the PNA, with their similar low-frequency components (28), have a significant impact on historical ARB flows (8). In the 900-y proxy flow record, the MCA spectrum contains the modes of variability typical of the PDO and the associated North Pacific Index.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…4) emphasize the intraannual variability and express concern about water withdrawals in the low-flow winter season. Less attention has been given to flow variability at interannual to decadal scales associated with climate oscillations such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Pacific North American mode (PNA), which are known to have significant impacts on runoff from the Rocky Mountains, including in the ARB (6)(7)(8)(9), and the potential consequences of a long period of predominantly low flow. We investigate the response of ARB flows to the low-frequency components of the PDO and PNA.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term reliability of the Athabasca River (Alberta, Canada) as the water source for oil sands mining

Sauchyn

St‐Jacques

Luckman

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Exploitation of the Alberta oil sands, the world's third-largest crude oil reserve, requires fresh water from the Athabasca River, an allocation of 4.4% of the mean annual flow. This allocation takes into account seasonal fluctuations but not long-term climatic variability and change. This paper examines the decadal-scale variability in river discharge in the Athabasca River Basin (ARB) with (i) a generalized least-squares (GLS) regression analysis of the trend and variability in gauged flow and (ii) a 900-y tree-ring reconstruction of the water-year flow of the Athabasca River at Athabasca, Alberta. The GLS analysis removes confounding transient trends related to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Pacific North American mode (PNA). It shows long-term declining flows throughout the ARB. The tree-ring record reveals a larger range of flows and severity of hydrologic deficits than those captured by the instrumental records that are the basis for surface water allocation. It includes periods of sustained low flow of multiple decades in duration, suggesting the influence of the PDO and PNA teleconnections. These results together demonstrate that low-frequency variability must be considered in ARB water allocation, which has not been the case. We show that the current and projected surface water allocations from the Athabasca River for the exploitation of the Alberta oil sands are based on an untenable assumption of the representativeness of the short instrumental record.paleohydrology | statistical hydrology | oil sands | Alberta | climate variability

show abstract

“…Major river systems such as the Mackenzie and Nelson (which includes the Saskatchewan River system) have shown no detectable long-term trends at their mouths over this time (Woo and Thorne, 2003;Déry and Wood, 2005;McClelland et al, 2006;Déry et al, 2011), while statistically significant declines in annual flow have been observed for some smaller systems within these, such as the Athabasca River and its tributaries, and other rivers draining from the eastern slopes of the southern Rocky Mountains (Burn et al, 2004b;Rood et al, 2005;St. Jacques et al, 2010;Peters et al, 2013). Seasonally, a consistent pattern of increasing flow in the winter has been reported -especially for the Mackenzie River and many of its northern tributaries -with significant trends in the annual minimum discharge and lower flow percentiles (Burn et al, 2004b;Rood et al, 2008;St.…”

Section: Changes In River Dischargementioning

confidence: 83%

Recent climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological changes over the interior of western Canada: a review and synthesis

DeBeer

Wheater

Carey

et al. 2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. It is well established that the Earth's climate system has warmed significantly over the past several decades, and in association there have been widespread changes in various other Earth system components. This has been especially prevalent in the cold regions of the northern midto high latitudes. Examples of these changes can be found within the western and northern interior of Canada, a region that exemplifies the scientific and societal issues faced in many other similar parts of the world, and where impacts have global-scale consequences. This region has been the geographic focus of a large amount of previous research on changing climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological regimes in recent decades, while current initiatives such as the Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN) introduced in this review seek to further develop the understanding and diagnosis of this change and hence improve the capacity to predict future change. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the observed changes in various Earth system components and a concise and up-to-date regional picture of some of the temporal trends over the interior of western Canada since the mid-or late 20th century. The focus is on air temperature, precipitation, seasonal snow cover, mountain glaciers, permafrost, freshwater ice cover, and river discharge. Important long-term observational networks and data sets are described, and qualitative linkages among the changing components are highlighted. Increases in air temperature are the most notable changes within the domain, rising on average 2 • C throughout the western interior since 1950. This increase in air temperature is associated with hydrologically important changes to precipitation regimes and unambiguous declines in snow cover depth, persistence, and spatial extent. Consequences of warming air temperatures have caused mountain glaciers to recede at all latitudes, permafrost to thaw at its southern limit, and active layers over permafrost to thicken. Despite these changes, integrated effects on stream flow are complex and often offsetting. Following a review of the current literature, we provide insight from a network of northern research catchments and other sites detailing how climate change confounds hydrological responses at smaller scales, and we recommend several priority research areas that will be a focus of continued work in CCRN. Given the complex interactions and process responses to climate change, it is argued that further conceptual understanding and quantitative diagnosis of the mechanisms of change over a range of scales is required before projections of future change can be made with confidence.

show abstract

A multi‐scale hydroclimatic analysis of runoff generation in the Athabasca River, western Canada

Cited by 46 publications

References 58 publications

Reply to D. L. Peters' Comment on "Streamflow input to Lake Athabasca, Canada" by Rasouli et al. (2013)

Reply to D. L. Peters' Comment on "Streamflow input to Lake Athabasca, Canada" by Rasouli et al. (2013)

Long-term reliability of the Athabasca River (Alberta, Canada) as the water source for oil sands mining

Recent climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological changes over the interior of western Canada: a review and synthesis

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

A multi‐scale hydroclimatic analysis of runoff generation in the Athabasca River, western Canada

Cited by 46 publications

References 58 publications

Reply to D. L. Peters' Comment on &quot;Streamflow input to Lake Athabasca, Canada&quot; by Rasouli et al. (2013)

Reply to D. L. Peters' Comment on &quot;Streamflow input to Lake Athabasca, Canada&quot; by Rasouli et al. (2013)

Long-term reliability of the Athabasca River (Alberta, Canada) as the water source for oil sands mining

Recent climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological changes over the interior of western Canada: a review and synthesis

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Reply to D. L. Peters' Comment on "Streamflow input to Lake Athabasca, Canada" by Rasouli et al. (2013)

Reply to D. L. Peters' Comment on "Streamflow input to Lake Athabasca, Canada" by Rasouli et al. (2013)