Decadal Climate Information Needs of Stakeholders for Decision Support in Water and Agriculture Production Sectors: A Case Study in the Missouri River Basin

Abstract

Many decadal climate prediction efforts have been initiated under phase 5 of the World Climate Research Programme Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. There is considerable ongoing discussion about model deficiencies, initialization techniques, and data requirements, but not much attention is being given to decadal climate information (DCI) needs of stakeholders for decision support. Here, the authors report the results of exploratory activities undertaken to assess DCI needs in water resources and agriculture sectors, using the Missouri River basin as a case study. This assessment was achieved through discussions with 120 stakeholders.Stakeholders' awareness of decadal dry and wet spells and their societal impacts in the basin are described, and stakeholders' DCI needs and potential barriers to their use of DCI are enumerated. The authors find that impacts, including economic impacts, of decadal climate variability (DCV) on water and agricultural production in the basin are distinctly identifiable and characterizable. Stakeholders have clear notions about their needs for DCI and have offered specific suggestions as to how these might be met. However, while stakeholders are eager to have climate information, including decadal climate outlooks (DCOs), there are many barriers to the use of such information. The first and foremost barrier is that the credibility of DCOs is yet to be established. Second, the nature of institutional rules and regulations, laws, and legal precedents that pose obstacles to the use of DCOs must be better understood and means to modify these, where possible, must be sought. For the benefit of climate scientists, these and other stakeholder needs are also articulated in this paper.

The Pacific quasi‐decadal oscillation (QDO): An important precursor toward anticipating major flood events in the Missouri River Basin?

“…The SST warming in the western North Pacific is also visible. However, a broad region of positive SST anomalies, not depicted in Figure b, appears in the eastern Pacific slightly to the south of the equator; this reflects the existing, yet weak, connection of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) with the MRB [ Mehta et al ., ]. Mo [] has found that the eastern Pacific (EP)‐type ENSO events induce a broader circulation anomalies over the U.S. than those produced by the CP‐type ENSO, and this expands the precipitation anomalies further north into the MRB.…”

“…There is a greater need today for decadal predictions of hydrometeorology in the MRB [ Mehta et al ., ]. The fact that the MRB precipitation anomalies trail behind the warm/cool extremes of the Pacific QDO for a few years, as is identified in this study, means that such a circumstance has potential for prediction of the regional wet/dry cycles.…”

“…In the MRB, the interannual variability of ENSO explains less than 20% of the precipitation variation while the decadal-scale variability explains over 40% [Lins and Slack, 1999;Cayan et al, 1998]. The quasi-decadal wet/ dry spells in the MRB have long been observed [Cleaveland and Duvick, 1992;Gray et al, 2004;McCabe et al, 2004;Massei et al, 2011] and are likewise in the forefront of stakeholders in the industrial and agricultural sectors tasked with the provision of energy and water [Mehta et al, 2012]. When abnormal volumes of precipitation persist for longer than usual periods, such as the few years leading up to the 2011 flood, marked increases in water storage and/or flood events of severe magnitude become highly probable.…”

Annual baseflow variations as influenced by climate variability and agricultural land use change in the Missouri River Basin

“…Like other parts of the world, the MORB region is experiencing risks of climate change and impacts of land use change (Mehta et al, 2013(Mehta et al, , 2016Xu et al, 2013a;Norton et al, 2014), that affect its hydrological processes. For example, statistical significant trends in annual streamflow, likely due to the influence of climate and land use, were reported for 101 out of 227 streamflow gauges in the MORB between 1960 and 2011 (Norton et al, 2014).…”

Simulations of three natural decadal climate variability phenomena in CMIP5 experiments with the UKMO HadCM3, GFDL-CM2.1, NCAR-CCSM4, and MIROC5 global earth system models

“…If skillful decadal climate predictions can be made with these models, they can greatly benefit planning in many societal sectors, such as agriculture, reservoir operations, municipal water supply and drainage systems, hydro-electricity generation, thermal and nuclear power plant operations, water-borne transportation, fisheries and wildlife habitat maintenance, forest fires, river-and reservoir-based recreation industry, and state and national government decisions [see, for example, Meehl et al (2009), Mehta et al (2013a), Mehta (2017)]. In addition to the importance of DCV prediction for societal impacts prediction and planning, skillful predictions are also important for understanding and attributing observed past, current, and future climate to natural DCV or anthropogenic climate change.…”