Impacts of 1.5 and 2.0 °C Warming on Pan‐Arctic River Discharge Into the Hudson Bay Complex Through 2070

MacDonald, Matthew K.; Stadnyk, Tricia A.; Déry, Stephen J.; Braun, Marco; Gustafsson, David; Isberg, Kristina; Arheimer, Berit

doi:10.1029/2018gl079147

Cited by 32 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Since the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21), which was held in Paris in December 2015, a significant body of research has attempted to quantify climate change impacts in the context of 1.5 and 2.0°C of global warming above PI levels. While the outputs of climate models are intensively analysed to understand the impacts of different levels of warming specified by certain thresholds of global average temperature, only a handful of studies have focused on the analysis of runoff and streamflow derived from hydrological models under 1.5 and 2.0°C target warming conditions (e.g., MacDonald et al ., for pan‐Arctic rivers; Paltan et al ., for global large basins). The findings obtained from these studies would not be applicable to the Korean river basin.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intensified hydroclimatic regime in Korean basins under 1.5 and 2°C global warming

Kim

Bae

2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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This study assesses the potential changes in regional hydroclimates over South Korea in response to 1.5 and 2.0°C of global warming above preindustrial levels based on multimodel ensemble projections forced by a representative concentration pathway (RCP4.5) scenario. The meteorological inputs, which are derived from five global climate models after removing systematic bias using quantile mapping, are fed into a distributed hydrological model, the variable infiltration capacity model, to estimate the hydrologic responses to different levels of greenhouse gas concentrations in future periods. The changes in seasonal mean precipitation differ between monsoon and intermonsoon seasons. An increase in summer precipitation and a decrease in winter precipitation commonly occur under 1.5 and 2.0°C of global warming, resulting in intensified precipitation seasonality. However, changes in spring and fall precipitation show opposite change signals or relatively little robustness (as measured by model agreement) in response to different degrees of warming. Spatial and seasonal changes in precipitation are directly transferred to runoff patterns, increasing the disparity between wet and dry seasons. Global warming also leads to changes in the distributions of daily precipitation and streamflow, and the projected changes systematically involve an increase in high‐intensity precipitation and a decrease in relatively low‐intensity precipitation. This behaviour tends to be amplified under 2.0°C in comparison to 1.5°C of global warming, with potential implications for increased water stress under a much warmer climate. More importantly, under 2.0°C of global warming, the magnitude of extremes such as the annual maximum day flow in Korean basins is likely to be enhanced. This study demonstrates that changes in precipitation characteristics can explicitly modulate runoff and subsequently streamflow patterns, suggesting positive benefits of half a degree less warming in terms of the frequency and intensity of extreme streamflow.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intensified hydroclimatic regime in Korean basins under 1.5 and 2°C global warming

Kim

Bae

2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…This also suggests that global and regional climate model projections of the potential future state and fate of the Hudson Bay system require consideration of anthropogenic activities such as the regulation and diversion of flows, reservoir filling, and water ageing when looking at seasonal patterns and interannual variability (e.g., Vörösmarty & Sahagian, ). To that end, a suite of simulations using the Arctic‐HYPE hydrological model (Andersson, Pechlivanidis, Gustafsson, Donnelly, & Arheimer, ; MacDonald et al, ) driven by historical and projected climatic conditions is being undertaken by the authors to disentangle the effects of flow regulation and climate change on the contemporary and potential future freshwater budget of the Hudson Bay complex.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flow alteration impacts on Hudson Bay river discharge

Déry

Stadnyk

MacDonald

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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This study explores flow regulation controls on daily river discharge variations and trends into Hudson Bay from four highly regulated and 17 moderately regulated/ unregulated systems over 1960-2016. These 21 rivers contribute~70% of the total annual riverine freshwater export to Hudson Bay, with highly regulated and moderately regulated/unregulated rivers accounting for 47% and 53% of the discharge, respectively. Daily observed streamflow data from the Water Survey of Canada, Manitoba Hydro, Ontario Power Generation, and Hydro-Québec are used. Decadal hydrographs of the mean and coefficient of variation of daily river discharge are developed to assess the changing hydrological regimes in both systems. Decadal spectral analyses reveal the dominant controls on daily river discharge input to Hudson Bay from the regulated and unregulated systems. Apart from expected peaks in spectral power on annual timescales arising from the nival regimes in both systems, a strong secondary peak emerges at weekly timescales from flow regulation due to hydropower production. Hydrographs that consider the day of the week reveal distinct weekly cycles in regulated rivers with~10% declines in daily river discharge during weekends and statutory holidays relative to weekday averages, demonstrating the importance of regulation on the timing of freshwater into Hudson Bay.

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“…In addition, a priori parameters (Table A1 in the Appendix) were set for glaciers and soils without calibration, taken from previous applications (e.g. Donnelly et al, 2016;MacDonald et al, 2018). The bare deserts soil was manually calibrated only using four stations in the Sahara.…”

Section: Stepwise Parameter Estimationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global catchment modelling using World-Wide HYPE (WWH), open data, and stepwise parameter estimation

Arheimer

Pimentel

Isberg

et al. 2020

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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103

133

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Abstract. Recent advancements in catchment hydrology (such as understanding catchment similarity, accessing new data sources, and refining methods for parameter constraints) make it possible to apply catchment models for ungauged basins over large domains. Here we present a cutting-edge case study applying catchment-modelling techniques with evaluation against river flow at the global scale for the first time. The modelling procedure was challenging but doable, and even the first model version showed better performance than traditional gridded global models of river flow. We used the open-source code of the HYPE model and applied it for >130 000 catchments (with an average resolution of 1000 km2), delineated to cover the Earth's landmass (except Antarctica). The catchments were characterized using 20 open databases on physiographical variables, to account for spatial and temporal variability of the global freshwater resources, based on exchange with the atmosphere (e.g. precipitation and evapotranspiration) and related budgets in all compartments of the land (e.g. soil, rivers, lakes, glaciers, and floodplains), including water stocks, residence times, and the pathways between various compartments. Global parameter values were estimated using a stepwise approach for groups of parameters regulating specific processes and catchment characteristics in representative gauged catchments. Daily and monthly time series (>10 years) from 5338 gauges of river flow across the globe were used for model evaluation (half for calibration and half for independent validation), resulting in a median monthly KGE of 0.4. However, the World-Wide HYPE (WWH) model shows large variation in model performance, both between geographical domains and between various flow signatures. The model performs best (KGE >0.6) in the eastern USA, Europe, South-East Asia, and Japan, as well as in parts of Russia, Canada, and South America. The model shows overall good potential to capture flow signatures of monthly high flows, spatial variability of high flows, duration of low flows, and constancy of daily flow. Nevertheless, there remains large potential for model improvements, and we suggest both redoing the parameter estimation and reconsidering parts of the model structure for the next WWH version. This first model version clearly indicates challenges in large-scale modelling, usefulness of open data, and current gaps in process understanding. However, we also found that catchment modelling techniques can contribute to advance global hydrological predictions. Setting up a global catchment model has to be a long-term commitment as it demands many iterations; this paper shows a first version, which will be subjected to continuous model refinements in the future. WWH is currently shared with regional/local modellers to appreciate local knowledge.

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Impacts of 1.5 and 2.0 °C Warming on Pan‐Arctic River Discharge Into the Hudson Bay Complex Through 2070

Cited by 32 publications

References 60 publications

Intensified hydroclimatic regime in Korean basins under 1.5 and 2°C global warming

Intensified hydroclimatic regime in Korean basins under 1.5 and 2°C global warming

Flow alteration impacts on Hudson Bay river discharge

Global catchment modelling using World-Wide HYPE (WWH), open data, and stepwise parameter estimation

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