River networks dampen long‐term hydrological signals of climate change

Chezik, Kyle A.; Anderson, Sean C.; Moore, Jonathan W.

doi:10.1002/2017gl074376

Cited by 30 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…The model overestimated the tendencies for Q3 ( Figure 7); however, it could capture the general behavior of the changes. When we separated the results by latitude, the Q3 behaved similarly from south to north; however, when we compared by area, we could see that we had a result similar to Chezik et al [16] since larger surfaces can buffer or reduce the effects of climate variability and do not show extreme changes (on average) compared to small catchments. The Q3 flows increased more during the late summer and early autumn for basins with areas lower than 250 km 2 .…”

Section: Three-day Peak Flow (Q3)supporting

confidence: 54%

“…For the routing using the RAPID model, we included in the calibration the K and X parameters. To reduce the influence of false and unusually extreme values, we smoothed the streamflow using a 5-day rolling average [16,36,37]. In the calibration process, we compared the streamflow results simultaneously at 191 USGS stream Gages II reference locations, minimizing the square distance sum between the Kling-Gupta efficiency (KGE) (Equation 1) [38] and the perfect value of 1.…”

Section: Streamflow Data Calibration and Spin-upmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Use of WRF-Hydro over the Northeast of the US to Estimate Water Budget Tendencies in Small Watersheds

Somos‐Valenzuela

Palmer

2018

Water

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In the Northeast of the US, climate change will bring a series of impacts on the terrestrial hydrology. Observations indicate that temperature has steadily increased during the last century, including changes in precipitation. This study implements the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)-Hydro framework with the Noah-Multiparameterization (Noah-MP) model that is currently used in the National Water Model to estimate the tendencies of the different variables that compounded the water budget in the Northeast of the US from 1980 to 2016. We use North American Land Data Assimilation System-2 (NLDAS-2) climate data as forcing, and we calibrated the model using 192 US Geological Survey (USGS) Geospatial Attributes of Gages for Evaluating Streamflow II (Gages II) reference stations. We study the tendencies determining the Kendall-Theil slope of streamflow using the maximum three-day average, seven-day minimum flow, and the monotonic five-day mean times series. For the water budget, we determine the Kendall-Theil slope for changes in monthly values of precipitation, surface and subsurface runoff, evapotranspiration, transpiration, soil moisture, and snow accumulation. The results indicate that the changes in precipitation are not being distributed evenly in the components of the water budget. Precipitation is decreasing during winter and increasing during the summer, with the direct impacts being a decrease in snow accumulation and an increase in evapotranspiration. The soil tends to be drier, which does not translate to a rise in infiltration since the surface runoff aggregated tendencies are positive, and the underground runoff aggregated tendencies are negative. The effects of climate change on streamflows are buffered by larger areas, indicating that more attention needs to be given to small catchments to adapt to climate change.

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Section: Three-day Peak Flow (Q3)supporting

confidence: 54%

Section: Streamflow Data Calibration and Spin-upmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of WRF-Hydro over the Northeast of the US to Estimate Water Budget Tendencies in Small Watersheds

Somos‐Valenzuela

Palmer

2018

Water

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“…In general, hydroclimate signals observed in streamflow amid localized, headwater basins tend to dampen when examining points downstream, where larger drainage areas reduce the influence of localized signals observed among specific headwater basins (e.g., Chezik et al, 2017). Given that both patterns feature strongly positive standardized IVT anomalies covering much of the UCRB, the correlations suggest that IVT anomalies may be connected to streamflow and that streamflow responses mirror the stratification of the synoptic classification.…”

Section: Moisture Transport Regimes and Lpesmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Patterns 7 and 8, in particular, show relatively strong and significant correlations throughout the UCRB, from the local and regional gages and at Lake Powell. In general, hydroclimate signals observed in streamflow amid localized, headwater basins tend to dampen when examining points downstream, where larger drainage areas reduce the influence of localized signals observed among specific headwater basins (e.g., Chezik et al, 2017). This tendency was also noted by , who found that the strongest correlations generally occurred at the local gages, as opposed to the regional gages or at Lake Powell, when examining total annual streamflow and various LPE metrics, such as the annual count and average precipitation yield (magnitude) of LPEs.…”

Section: Moisture Transport Regimes and Lpesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moisture transport associated with large precipitation events in the Upper Colorado River Basin

Kirk

Schmidlin

2018

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Interannual streamflow variability poses numerous water supply forecasting and management challenges for mountain snowpack‐sourced basins across the western United States. Previous studies have shown that substantial proportions of annual precipitation occur during relatively few large precipitation events (LPEs) and consequently, such events tend to be significant predictors of streamflow for many basins, including the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB). While some primary pathways of atmospheric moisture transport, particularly atmospheric rivers, have been linked with extreme precipitation events across the western United States, this study seeks to expand on this knowledge by quantifying the relationships between moisture transport regimes, LPEs, and streamflow observed in the UCRB. A climatological analysis of integrated vapour transport, via a self‐organizing maps synoptic classification procedure, is used to identify geographic regimes of moisture transport that lead to LPEs, as observed at snow telemetry sites across the UCRB headwaters. Trajectory analyses are also calculated to further characterize LPE‐inducing atmospheric river pathways by subbasin in the UCRB. Results indicate that LPEs throughout the basin most commonly coincide with amplified trough patterns, which advect Pacific moisture into the UCRB from the southwest, through Southern California and the Four Corners region; patterns that are positively correlated to streamflow. LPEs occurring in northern portions of the UCRB exhibit a secondary corridor, featuring west to east‐oriented moisture transport, in association with zonal to meridional flow regimes. Highly amplified ridges over the region rarely lead to LPEs, as such patterns deflect or suppress moisture from the UCRB. These results suggest that climate projections of future enhanced meridional flow aloft will lead to continued streamflow variability in the UCRB.

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“…In contrast, the future scenarios include a large variety of contrasting land 568 use changes which may partially counteract each other when aggregated to the watershed scale. The 569 stronger land use signal in the PBS relative to the YW implies that, just as the impacts of climate change 570 on streamflow are attenuated in larger river networks (Chezik et al, 2017) …”

Section: Synthesis and Management Implications 547mentioning

confidence: 99%

Continuous separation of land use and climate effects on the past and future water balance

Zipper¹,

Motew²,

Booth³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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19Understanding the combined and separate effects of climate and land use change on the water cycle is 20 necessary to mitigate negative impacts. However, existing methodologies typically divide data into 21 discrete (before and after) periods, implicitly representing climate and land use as step changes when in 22 reality these changes are often gradual. Here, we introduce a new regression-based methodological 23 framework designed to separate climate and land use effects on any hydrological flux of interest 24 continuously through time, and estimate uncertainty in the contribution of these two drivers. We present 25 two applications in the Yahara River watershed (Wisconsin, USA) demonstrating how our approach can 26 be used to understand synergistic or antagonistic relationships between land use and climate in either the 27 past or the future: (1) historical streamflow, baseflow, and quickflow in an urbanizing subwatershed; and 28(2) simulated future evapotranspiration, drainage, and direct runoff from a suite of contrasting climate and 29 land use scenarios for the entire watershed. In the historical analysis, we show that ~60% of recent 30 streamflow changes can be attributed to climate, with approximately equal contributions from quickflow 31 and baseflow. However, our continuous method reveals that baseflow is significantly increasing through 32 time, primarily due to land use change and potentially influenced by long-term increases in groundwater 33 storage. In the simulation of future changes, we show that all components of the future water balance will 34 respond more strongly to changes in climate than land use, with the largest potential land use effects on 35 drainage. These results indicate that diverse land use change trajectories may counteract each other while 36 the effects of climate are more homogeneous at watershed scales. Therefore, management opportunities to 37 counteract climate change effects will likely be more effective at smaller spatial scales, where land use 38 trajectories are unidirectional. 39

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River networks dampen long‐term hydrological signals of climate change

Cited by 30 publications

References 36 publications

Use of WRF-Hydro over the Northeast of the US to Estimate Water Budget Tendencies in Small Watersheds

Use of WRF-Hydro over the Northeast of the US to Estimate Water Budget Tendencies in Small Watersheds

Moisture transport associated with large precipitation events in the Upper Colorado River Basin

Continuous separation of land use and climate effects on the past and future water balance

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