Projected cryospheric and hydrological impacts of  21st century climate change in the Ötztal Alps (Austria)  simulated using a physically based approach

Hanzer, Florian; Förster, Kristian; Nemec, Johanna; Strasser, Ulrich

doi:10.5194/hess-22-1593-2018

Cited by 68 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

100

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…While future changes in temperature and precipitation have been assessed using climate models, little has yet been done for snow with climate models, most likely because general circulation models (GCMs) have a too coarse resolution (>100 km) and regional climate models (RCMs) have only recently reached reasonable horizontal resolutions (10-50 km) to study changes in snow parameters. This provides an alternative to the traditional approach of using hydrological or dedicated snow models, which are forced by temperature and precipitation from climate models [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Snow in EURO-CORDEX Regional Climate Models with Observations for the European Alps: Biases and Their Relationship to Orography, Temperature, and Precipitation Mismatches

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate models are important tools to assess current and future climate. While they have been extensively used for studying temperature and precipitation, only recently regional climate models (RCMs) arrived at horizontal resolutions that allow studies of snow in complex mountain terrain. Here, we present an evaluation of the snow variables in the World Climate Research Program Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (EURO-CORDEX) RCMs with gridded observations of snow cover (from MODIS remote sensing) and temperature and precipitation (E-OBS), as well as with point (station) observations of snow depth and temperature for the European Alps. Large scale snow cover dynamics were reproduced well with some over-and under-estimations depending on month and RCM. The orography, temperature, and precipitation mismatches could on average explain 31% of the variability in snow cover bias across grid-cells, and even more than 50% in the winter period November-April. Biases in average monthly snow depth were remarkably low for reanalysis driven RCMs (

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Snow in EURO-CORDEX Regional Climate Models with Observations for the European Alps: Biases and Their Relationship to Orography, Temperature, and Precipitation Mismatches

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Precipitation increases are a particular concern for large hydrologic basins, insofar as their integrated effect could increase flood risk (Kundzewicz et al, 2007;Milly et al, 2002). In nival basins relatively isolated from maritime moisture sources, however, freshet flows simulated in hydrologic models driven by GCMs usually decrease in future (Hanzer et al, 2018). Under projected warming, the snow-to-rain ratio and spring snowpack dwindle (Krasting et al, 2013;Pierce & Cayan, 2013), shifting the freshet earlier and reducing its peak magnitude.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric Rivers Increase Future Flood Risk in Western Canada's Largest Pacific River

Curry

Islam

Zwiers

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Snow‐dominated watersheds are bellwethers of climate change. Hydroclimate projections in such basins often find reductions in annual peak runoff due to decreased snowpack under global warming. British Columbia's Fraser River Basin (FRB) is a large, nival basin with exposure to moisture‐laden atmospheric rivers originating in the Pacific Ocean. Landfalling atmospheric rivers over the region in winter are projected to increase in both strength and frequency in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 climate models. We investigate future changes in hydrology and annual peak daily streamflow in the FRB using a hydrologic model driven by a bias‐corrected Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 ensemble. Under Representative Concentration Pathway (8.5), the FRB evolves toward a nival‐pluvial regime featuring an increasing association of extreme rainfall with annual peak daily flow, a doubling in cold season peak discharge, and a decrease in the return period of the largest historical flow, from a 1‐in‐200‐year to 1‐in‐50‐year event by the late 21st century.

show abstract

“…Many climate impact studies for alpine/snow-dominated catchments agree that due to continued warming, a decrease in snow cover characteristics and timeshifted snowmelt contributions to streamflow are to be expected under climate change scenarios (e.g. Barnett et al, 2005;Farinotti et al, 2012;Köplin et al, 2014;Milano et al, 2015;Coppola et al, 2016;Jenicek et al, 2018;Hanzer et al, 2018). In fact, the shift and loss of the snowmelt peak is one of the most robust results of such studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Effects of univariate and multivariate bias correction on hydrological impact projections in alpine catchments

Meyer¹,

Kohn²,

Stahl³

et al. 2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Alpine catchments show a high sensitivity to climate variation as they include the elevation range of the snow line. Therefore, the correct representation of climate variables and their interdependence is crucial when describing or predicting hydrological processes. When using climate model simulations in hydrological impact studies, forcing 10 meteorological data are usually downscaled and bias corrected, most often by univariate approaches such as quantile mapping of individual variables. However, univariate correction neglects the relationships that exist between climate variables. In this study glacio-hydrological simulations were performed for two partly glacierized alpine catchments using a recently developed multivariate bias correction method to post-process EURO-CORDEX regional climate model outputs between 1976 and 2100. These simulations were compared to those obtained by using the common univariate quantile 15 mapping for bias correction. As both methods correct each climate variable's distribution in the same way, the marginal distributions of the individual variables show no differences. Yet, regarding the interdependence of precipitation and air temperature, clear differences are notable in the studied catchments. Simultaneous correction based on the multivariate approach lead to more precipitation below air temperatures of 0 °C and therefore more simulated snowfall than with the data of the univariate approach. This difference translated to considerable consequences for the hydrological responses of the 20 catchments. The multivariate bias correction forced simulations showed distinctly different results for projected snow cover characteristics, snowmelt-driven streamflow components, and expected glacier disappearance dates in the future. For the historical period the fraction of precipitation above and below 0 °C, the simulated snow water equivalents, glacier volumes, and the streamflow regime resulting from the multivariate-corrected data corresponded better with reference data than the results of univariate bias correction. Differences in simulated total streamflow due to the different bias correction approaches 25 may be considered negligible given the generally large spread of the projections, but systematic differences in the seasonally delayed streamflow components from snowmelt in particular will matter from a planning perspective. While this study does not allow concluding definitively that multivariate bias correction approaches are generally preferable, it clearly demonstrates that incorporating or ignoring inter-variable relationships between air temperature and precipitation data can impact the conclusions drawn in hydrological climate change impact studies. 30Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi

show abstract

Projected cryospheric and hydrological impacts of 21st century climate change in the Ötztal Alps (Austria) simulated using a physically based approach

Cited by 68 publications

References 67 publications

Evaluating Snow in EURO-CORDEX Regional Climate Models with Observations for the European Alps: Biases and Their Relationship to Orography, Temperature, and Precipitation Mismatches

Evaluating Snow in EURO-CORDEX Regional Climate Models with Observations for the European Alps: Biases and Their Relationship to Orography, Temperature, and Precipitation Mismatches

Atmospheric Rivers Increase Future Flood Risk in Western Canada's Largest Pacific River

Effects of univariate and multivariate bias correction on hydrological impact projections in alpine catchments

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About