Modeling the effect of glacier recession on streamflow response using a coupled glacio-hydrological model

Naz, Bibi S.; Frans, C. D.; Clarke, Garry K. C.; Burns, Patrick J.; Lettenmaier, Dennis P.

doi:10.5194/hess-18-787-2014

Cited by 95 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…For example, Naz et al (2014) found that for the Bow catchment in Canada, glaciermelt contribution to summer discharge is between 15 % in cold years and 47 % in warm and dry years. In the USA, Hall et al (2012) found a strong relationship between spring discharge and snow covered area in winter.…”

Section: Hypothesis 1: For Each Region the Occurrence And Severity Omentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrological drought types in cold climates: quantitative analysis of causing factors and qualitative survey of impacts

Loon

Ploum

Parajka

et al. 2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. For drought management and prediction, knowledge of causing factors and socio-economic impacts of hydrological droughts is crucial. Propagation of meteorological conditions in the hydrological cycle results in different hydrological drought types that require separate analysis. In addition to the existing hydrological drought typology, we here define two new drought types related to snow and ice. A snowmelt drought is a deficiency in the snowmelt discharge peak in spring in snow-influenced basins and a glaciermelt drought is a deficiency in the glaciermelt discharge peak in summer in glacierised basins. In 21 catchments in Austria and Norway we studied the meteorological conditions in the seasons preceding and at the time of snowmelt and glaciermelt drought events. Snowmelt droughts in Norway were mainly controlled by below-average winter precipitation, while in Austria both temperature and precipitation played a role. For glaciermelt droughts, the effect of below-average summer air temperature was dominant, both in Austria and Norway. Subsequently, we investigated the impacts of temperature-related drought types (i.e. snowmelt and glaciermelt drought, but also cold and warm snow season drought and rain-to-snow-season drought). In historical archives and drought databases for the US and Europe many impacts were found that can be attributed to these temperature-related hydrological drought types, mainly in the agriculture and electricity production (hydropower) sectors. However, drawing conclusions on the frequency of occurrence of different drought types from reported impacts is difficult, mainly because of reporting biases and the inevitably limited spatial and temporal scales of the information. Finally, this study shows that complete integration of quantitative analysis of causing factors and qualitative analysis of impacts of temperature-related droughts is not yet possible. Analysis of selected events, however, points out that it can be a promising research area if more data on drought impacts become available.

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Section: Hypothesis 1: For Each Region the Occurrence And Severity Omentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrological drought types in cold climates: quantitative analysis of causing factors and qualitative survey of impacts

Loon

Ploum

Parajka

et al. 2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…In western Canada, several recent studies have compared glacier losses with observed discharge and used various modelling approaches to estimate the proportional contribution by glaciers (Hopkinson and Young, 1998;Comeau et al, 2009;Marshall et al, 2011;Jost et al, 2012;Naz et al, 2014;Bash and Marshall, 2014). Glacier wastage, referring to ice loss as a result of any negative net mass balance, has been found to account on average for about 1-5 % of the annual discharge of the larger rivers exiting the eastern slopes of the Rockies and up to 10 % or slightly more of the summer (July-September) flow (Comeau et al, 2009;Marshall et al, 2011;Bash and Marshall, 2014).…”

Section: Contributions To River Dischargementioning

confidence: 99%

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

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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.

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“…An initialisation period of 300 years seemed to be sufficient to reach stability and is within the range of time length used in previous studies (Marshall et al, 2011;Naz et al, 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Some two-dimensional glacier models (without catchment hydrology) have been developed to simulate glacier mass balances and ice dynamics from the glacier to the regional scale (Vieli, 2015;Clarke et al, 2015;Rowan et al, 2015). Fully integrated glacio-hydrological catchment models, however, are rare with the pioneering exception by Naz et al (2014). They use the shallow ice approximation to evolve glacier 20 surfaces in response to a full energy balance mass balance model and a comprehensive hydrological model at a resolution of 300 m, albeit a catchment of only 422 km 2 in size.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For long-term assessments of large (partially) glacierised catchments and full mountain ranges, an efficient model is required that integrates a complete description of the catchment hydrology with glacier mass balance and ice dynamics modelling (Naz et al, 2014). This work's aim is to integrate glacier dynamics and mass balance processes into a general and process-based hydrological 15 model to aid long-term and integrated climate change impact assessments.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Bridging glacier and river catchment scales: an efficient representation of glacier dynamics in a hydrological model

Wortmann

Bolch

Krysanova

et al. 2016

Preprint

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Abstract. Glacierised river catchments have been shown to be highly sensitive to climate change, while large populations depend on the water resources originating from them. Hydrological models are used to aid water resource management, yet their treatment of glacier processes is either rudimentary in large applications or linked to fully distributed glacier models that prevent larger model domains. Also, data scarcity in mountainous catchments has hampered the implementation of physically based approaches over entire river catchments. A fully integrated glacier dynamics module was developed for the eco-hydrological 5 model SWIM (SWIM-G) that takes full account of the spatial heterogeneity of mountainous catchments but keeps in line with the semi-distributed disaggregation of the hydrological model. The glacierised part of the catchment is disaggregated into glaciological response units that are based on subbasin, elevation zone and aspect classes. They seamlessly integrate into the hydrological response units of the hydrological model SWIM. Robust and simple approaches to ice flow, avalanching, snow accumulation and metamorphism as well as glacier ablation under consideration of aspect, debris cover and sublimation 10 are implemented in the model, balancing process complexity and data availability. The fully integrated is also capable of simulating a range of other hydrological processes that are common for larger mountainous catchments such as reservoirs, irrigation agriculture and runoff from a diverse soil and vegetation cover. SWIM-G is initialised and calibrated to initial glacier hypsometry, glacier mass balance and river discharge. While the model is intended to be used in medium to large river basins with data-scarce and glacierised headwaters, it is here validated in the data-abundant catchment of the Upper Rhone River, 15Switzerland and the data-scarce catchment of the Upper Aksu River, Kyrgyzstan/NW China.

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Modeling the effect of glacier recession on streamflow response using a coupled glacio-hydrological model

Cited by 95 publications

References 55 publications

Hydrological drought types in cold climates: quantitative analysis of causing factors and qualitative survey of impacts

Hydrological drought types in cold climates: quantitative analysis of causing factors and qualitative survey of impacts

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

Bridging glacier and river catchment scales: an efficient representation of glacier dynamics in a hydrological model

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