Changes in Spring Snowpack for Selected Basins in the United States for Different Climate-Change Scenarios

Mastin, Mark C.; Chase, Katherine J.; Dudley, Robert W.

doi:10.1175/2010ei368.1

Cited by 19 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…Vynee et al [65] predicted SWE to decrease more than 50% by the 2080s in the URB. A considerable change in basin area-weighted SWE has been observed to affect mid-elevation areas in the rain and snow transition zone [15]. In post-fire conditions, there is a substantial decrease in SWE in the 2080s for both land cover conditions, a decrease of greater than 90%.…”

Section: Snow Water Equivalent and Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Watershed Response to Climate Change and Fire-Burns in the Upper Umatilla River Basin, USA

Yazzie

Chang

2017

Climate

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This study analyzed watershed response to climate change and forest fire impacts in the upper Umatilla River Basin (URB), Oregon, using the precipitation runoff modeling system. Ten global climate models using Coupled Intercomparison Project Phase 5 experiments with Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 were used to simulate the effects of climate and fire-burns on runoff behavior throughout the 21st century. We observed the center timing (CT) of flow, seasonal flows, snow water equivalent (SWE) and basin recharge. In the upper URB, hydrologic regime shifts from a snow-rain-dominated to rain-dominated basin. Ensemble mean CT occurs 27 days earlier in RCP 4.5 and 33 days earlier in RCP 8.5, in comparison to historic conditions (1980s) by the end of the 21st century. After forest cover reduction in the 2080s, CT occurs 35 days earlier in RCP 4.5 and 29 days earlier in RCP 8.5. The difference in mean CT after fire-burns may be due to projected changes in the individual climate model. Winter flow is projected to decline after forest cover reduction in the 2080s by 85% and 72% in RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, in comparison to 98% change in ensemble mean winter flows in the 2080s before forest cover reduction. The ratio of ensemble mean snow water equivalent to precipitation substantially decreases by 81% and 91% in the 2050s and 2080s before forest cover reduction and a decrease of 90% in RCP 4.5 and 99% in RCP 8.5 in the 2080s after fire-burns. Mean basin recharge is 10% and 14% lower in the 2080s before fire-burns and after fire-burns, and it decreases by 13% in RCP 4.5 and decreases 22% in RCP 8.5 in the 2080s in comparison to historical conditions. Mixed results for recharge after forest cover reduction suggest that an increase may be due to the size of burned areas, decreased canopy interception and less evaporation occurring at the watershed surface, increasing the potential for infiltration. The effects of fire on the watershed system are strongly indicated by a significant increase in winter seasonal flows and a slight reduction in summer flows. Findings from this study may improve adaptive management of water resources, flood control and the effects of fire on a watershed system.

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Section: Snow Water Equivalent and Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the Pacific Northwest, climate change impacts include shifts in the magnitude and timing of runoff [8][9][10][11], reduced proportion of precipitation falling as snow in montane regions [12,13], decreases in snow water equivalent [14,15] and an increase in the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts [11,16,17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Watershed Response to Climate Change and Fire-Burns in the Upper Umatilla River Basin, USA

Yazzie

Chang

2017

Climate

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“…These basins are representative of the main hydroclimatic characteristics of other gauged, unregulated headwater basins throughout the upper Colorado River basin (not shown). Moreover, these catchments have been included in many past climate change studies (e.g., Wilby et al 1999;Sankarasubramanian and Vogel 2002;Mastin et al 2011;Milly and Dunne 2011) and, because of their relatively small size compared to the CRB, they offer a unique opportunity to perform extensive analysis involving thousands of model runs (e.g., sensitivity analysis and hydrologic model calibration), to evaluate different approaches in climate change impact assessment, and also to provide detailed understanding of physical processes in the headwaters of the CRB. Table 1 summarizes the main hydroclimatic characteristics of the three basins for which historical data are available, over an 8-yr period (from October 2000 to September 2008).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Hydrologic Model Choice and Calibration on the Portrayal of Climate Change Impacts

Mendoza

Clark

Mizukami

et al. 2015

Journal of Hydrometeorology

111

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The assessment of climate change impacts on water resources involves several methodological decisions, including choices of global climate models (GCMs), emission scenarios, downscaling techniques, and hydrologic modeling approaches. Among these, hydrologic model structure selection and parameter calibration are particularly relevant and usually have a strong subjective component. The goal of this research is to improve understanding of the role of these decisions on the assessment of the effects of climate change on hydrologic processes. The study is conducted in three basins located in the Colorado headwaters region, using four different hydrologic model structures [PRMS, VIC, Noah LSM, and Noah LSM with multiparameterization options (Noah-MP)]. To better understand the role of parameter estimation, model performance and projected hydrologic changes (i.e., changes in the hydrology obtained from hydrologic models due to climate change) are compared before and after calibration with the University of Arizona shuffled complex evolution (SCE-UA) algorithm. Hydrologic changes are examined via a climate change scenario where the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) change signal is used to perturb the boundary conditions of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model configured at 4-km resolution. Substantial intermodel differences (i.e., discrepancies between hydrologic models) in the portrayal of climate change impacts on water resources are demonstrated. Specifically, intermodel differences are larger than the mean signal from the CCSM-WRF climate scenario examined, even after the calibration process. Importantly, traditional single-objective calibration techniques aimed to reduce errors in runoff simulations do not necessarily improve intermodel agreement (i.e., same outputs from different hydrologic models) in projected changes of some hydrological processes such as evapotranspiration or snowpack.

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“…The future evolution of high flows in the three watersheds have been simulated using the Precipitation Runoff Modeling System (PRMS). PRMS is a semi distributed conceptual hydrological model widely used in snow dominated regions (Dressler et al, 2006;Liao and Zhuang, 2017;Mastin et al, 2011;Surfleet et al, 2012;Teng et al, 2017Teng et al, , 2018. PRMS computes the water flowing between hydrological reservoirs (plan canopy interception, snowpack, soil zone, subsurface) for each hydrological response unit (HRU).…”

Section: Hydrological Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Winter hydrometeorological extreme events modulated by large scale atmospheric circulation in southern Ontario

Champagne¹,

Leduc²,

Coulibaly³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. Extreme events are widely studied across the world because of their major implications for many aspects of society and especially floods. These events are generally studied in term of precipitation or temperature extreme indices that are often not adapted for regions affected by floods caused by snowmelt. Rain on Snow index has been widely used but it neglects rain only events which are expected to be more frequent in the future. In this study we identified a new winter compound index and assessed how large-scale atmospheric circulation controls the past and future evolution of these events in the Great Lakes region. The future evolution of this index was projected using temperature and precipitation from the Canadian Regional Climate Model Large Ensemble (CRCM5-LE). These climate data were used as input in PRMS hydrological model to simulate the future evolution of high flows in three watersheds in Southern Ontario. We also used five recurrent large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns in northeastern North America and identified how they control the past and future variability of the newly created index and high flows. The results show that daily precipitation higher than 10 mm and temperature higher than 5 °C were a necessary historical condition to produce high flows in these three watersheds. In the historical period, the occurrences of these heavy rain and warm events as well as high flows were associated to two main patterns characterized by high Z500 anomalies centred on eastern Great Lakes (HP) and the Atlantic Ocean (South). These hydrometeorological extreme events will be more frequent in the near future and will still be associated to the same atmospheric patterns. The future evolution of the index will be modulated by the internal variability of the climate system as higher Z500 in the east coast will amplify the increase in the number of events, especially the warm events. The relationship between the extreme weather index and high flows will be modified in the future as the snowpack reduces and rain becomes the main component of high flows generation. This study shows the values of CRCM5-LE dataset to simulate hydrometeorological extreme events in Eastern Canada and to better understand the uncertainties associated to internal variability of climate.

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Changes in Spring Snowpack for Selected Basins in the United States for Different Climate-Change Scenarios

Cited by 19 publications

References 25 publications

Watershed Response to Climate Change and Fire-Burns in the Upper Umatilla River Basin, USA

Watershed Response to Climate Change and Fire-Burns in the Upper Umatilla River Basin, USA

Effects of Hydrologic Model Choice and Calibration on the Portrayal of Climate Change Impacts

Winter hydrometeorological extreme events modulated by large scale atmospheric circulation in southern Ontario

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