Because both these effects increase flood risk in the simulations, the effects are unusually large in these basins (Fig. By closing this message, you are consenting to our use of cookies. Naturalized or modified flow data were available at a number of locations in the PNW. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph. These emerging needs ultimately led to the CBCCSP, and similar efforts in BC led by PCIC (Werner, Schnorbus, Shrestha, & Eckstrand, Citation2013). 135 0 obj <>stream The regional report for the National Assessment was supported by two detailed water management studies focused on the CRB by Hamlet and Lettenmaier (Citation1999b) and Miles, Snover, Hamlet, Callahan and Fluharty (Citation2000). Note the relative insensitivity of SWE to warming in the coldest, and most heavily snowmelt-dominant, areas in the northern tip of the CRB in British Columbia in comparison with the rest of the domain. For the BCSD runs (for which the ability to capture key elements of the region's climate variability is arguably even more important to the outcomes) the projections based on the seven highest ranked GCMs (Table 1) were selected for each emissions scenario. The changes in the importance of snow in some areas of the United States are particularly striking. The CBCCSP was designed from the outset to support users with a very wide range of technical sophistication and capacity. This advance through the native forest has been driven, primarily, by cattle ranching. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. Each of these methods has its specific advantages and limitations (as discussed in detail in Hamlet et al., 2010a); however, the HD method combines several important strengths of the CD and BCSD methods and was developed specifically to support the prediction of daily hydrologic extremes (Hamlet et al., 2010a). Blue traces show monthly averages for historical conditions; the pink bands show the range of projected change associated with each scenario and future time period; the red lines show the average of the future ensemble. Hi/Low, RealFeel, precip, radar, & everything you need to be ready for the day, commute, and . John Day basin century climate change: +1.5 degF day temperature, +3.2 degF night temperature, -0.4 inch (2%) less precipitation. Similarly, three different downscaling approaches were used in the study, each with its own advantages and limitations in the context of different natural resources management applications (Hamlet et al., 2010a). Fine-scale calibration of the model to compensate for such errors, although technically feasible, is of questionable utility, because it essentially ensures that the model is getting something closer to the right answer for the wrong reasons, which in turn has the potential to distort the sensitivity of the model to changing future conditions (Bennett, Werner, & Schnorbus, Citation2012). For each streamflow location (and its associated contributing basin area), a set of identical products is available on the study web site (CIG, Citation2013b). Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. Implications of global climate change for snowmelt hydrology in the 21st century, Modeling snow accumulation and ablation processes in forested environments, Uncertainties in hydrologic and climate change impact analyses in headwater basins of British Columbia. In most basins with substantial snowpack, elevated soil moisture in winter accompanies warming in the simulations resulting from more infiltration from rain in the fall and winter months (Fig. Model calibration and validation used a split sample approach in which calibration was performed for each of the 11 primary watersheds over a 15-year period (typically water years 19751989) and model validation was performed over a separate 15-year period (typically water years 19601974). 10 Left panel: Changes in Q100 for 297 streamflow locations expressed as a ratio of Q100 for the future period to Q100 for the historical period based on the average of the nine or ten HD scenarios for the B1 and A1B emissions scenarios for three future time periods. Climate Change Challenge In The Columbia River Basin: Managing Water Blue lines show the average historical values (19162006) (repeated in each panel). The calibrated CBCCSP VIC model was modified by WSU by integrating it with a sophisticated crop model (CropSyst; Stckle, Donatelli, & Nelson, Citation2003) that, among other functions, estimates crop water demand. (Citation2010), but the essential idea behind the methods is that monthly gridded data are based only on serially complete and quality-controlled HCN and AHCCD stations (thus ensuring self-consistent long-term trends based on the same group of stations), but daily variations within the month come from re-gridded daily co-op station data, which add additional spatial detail on an event basis at daily time scales (Hamlet & Lettenmaier, Citation2005). Building the Columbia Basin-Boundary Region's Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change. Climate change impacts on water management and irrigated agriculture in the Yakima River basin, Washington, USA, Potential implications of PCM climate change scenarios for California hydrology and water resources, The role of climate forecasts in western U.S. power planning, Flow regime, temperature and biotic interactions determine winners and losers among trout species under climate change, Macroscale hydrologic modeling of ecologically relevant flow metrics, Projected changes in climate, snowpack, evapotranspiration and streamflow in the Canadian portion of the Columbia River basin, The distributed hydrology soil vegetation model, A distributed hydrology-vegetation model for complex terrain, Hydrologic implications of dynamical and statistical approaches to downscaling climate model outputs, Long range experimental hydrologic forecasting for the eastern U.S, Multi-objective global optimization for hydrological models. Detailed water balance summaries and streamflow data for up to 300 river locations to be specified by WDOE and other stakeholders in the region. Using the VIC model, Mote, Hamlet, Clark, and Lettenmaier (Citation2005), Mote, Hamlet, and Salath (Citation2008), for example, showed excellent reproduction of observed trends in 1 April SWE over both the PNW as a whole and over the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington. Thanks to Shrad Shukla, at the UW for 1/16 degree VIC model calibration over the Yakima basin. Highs in the lower 80s. Instead our primary goal was to encompass the approximate range of all available scenarios while reducing costs by downscaling projections from a subset of the larger group of 20 GCMs (Hamlet et al., 2010a). The state of Oregon, for example, is classified as about 75% mixed-rain-and-snow for the twentieth century climate. Economic value of long-lead streamflow forecasts for Columbia River hydropower, Effects of projected climate change on energy supply and demand in the Pacific Northwest and Washington State, Columbia River streamflow forecasting based on ENSO and PDO climate signals, Effects of climate change on hydrology and water resources in the Columbia River basin, Long-range climate forecasting and its use for water management in the Pacific Northwest Region of North America, Production of temporally consistent gridded precipitation and temperature fields for the continental U.S, Effects of 20th century warming and climate variability on flood risk in the western U.S, Effects of temperature and precipitation variability on snowpack trends in the western U.S, An improved method for estimating surface humidity from daily minimum temperature, Optimized flood control in the Columbia River basin for a global warming scenario, Methodology for developing flood rule curves conditioned on El Nio-Southern Oscillation classification, Daily time step refinement of optimized flood control rule curves for a global warming scenario, Improving water resources system performance through long-range climate forecasts: The Pacific Northwest experience (Chapter 7), Water resources implications of global warming, a U.S. regional perspective, Simulations of the ENSO hydroclimate signals in the Pacific Northwest Columbia River basin, A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models. Hamlet, and S.-Y. 8). National Weather Service Monthly hydrographs in different portions of the domain primarily reflect changes in snow accumulation and melt processes and seasonal changes in precipitation (generally wetter falls, winters, and springs and drier summers). The study is intended to support research, vulnerability assessment, long-term planning, and climate change adaptation by the natural resources management community at a range of spatial scales, by users with varying levels of technical expertise. Summary information and statistics: geographic location, basin area, calibration statistics (if available), links to the USGS or ECAN websites, and so forth. Rain dominant basins (DJF temperatures greater than 2C) show moderate increases in flood risk (primarily reflecting increasing storm intensity in the simulations), whereas snowmelt-dominant basins that currently flood in June show relatively little change in flood risk. 7 Left panel: Simulated historical 1 April snow water equivalent (SWE) (upper right) and percentage changes in 1 April SWE for two emissions scenarios and three future time periods extracted from the CD VIC scenarios. The CBCCSP was founded on the basis of regional partnerships to support a shared need for climate change scenarios and directly encompassed the transboundary nature of the CRB's management framework by including both US and Canadian interests in an integrated and comprehensive data resource. Columbia Basin Water Hub - Living Lakes Canada As a result the largest changes in snowpack are apparent in the simulations for relatively warm coastal mountain ranges, such as the Cascade Range, and at moderate elevation in the Rockies, where snowpack is most sensitive to changes in temperature of a few degrees Celsius. The methods are discussed in more detail in these references, but a brief description of the procedure is given here to help orient the reader. July temperatures hover in the 90s, with several afternoons during the summer pushing the thermometer reading as high as 100 to 105 degrees. Registered in England & Wales No. Based on these substantial differences in hydrologic impacts it is difficult to escape the conclusion that management of water resources in the Canadian portions of the basin will play a crucial role in the ability of US water managers to adapt to more substantial changes in streamflow timing and summer low flows in the United States. Primary support for the project was provided by WDOE, with additional major support provided by the BPA, NWPCC, BCME, OWRD, and CTED via the 2009 WACCIA (http://cses.washington.edu/cig/res/ia/waccia.shtml) (Miles et al., Citation2010). Temperature and precipitation vary greatly with elevation, but in the central basin January average daily temperatures are between about 25 and 30 F (4 and 1 C), and July averages are mostly between 70 and 75 F (21 and 24 C). Hydrology and water resources research at CIG was particularly focused on the use of experimental climate and hydrologic forecasts for the CRB (Hamlet & Lettenmaier, Citation1999a, Citation2000; Lettenmaier & Hamlet, Citation2003; Leung, Hamlet, Lettenmaier, & Kumar, Citation1999) in the context of decision support for various water management applications (Hamlet, Huppert, & Lettenmaier, Citation2002; Lee, Hamlet, Fitzgerald, & Burges, Citation2011; Voisin et al., Citation2006). Climate change effects on stream and river temperatures across the Northwest U.S. from 1980 - 2009 and implications for salmonid fishes. These lands are those without any sort of status that provides government protection, such as an indigenous territory, or that have not . Columbia River | Location, Length, History, & Facts | Britannica Monday: A chance of snow before 4 p.m., then a slight chance of rain and snow. What Does Climate Change Mean for Flooding in the Columbia River Basin The climate of the high mountain regionsthe pramos, ranging from about 10,000 to 15,000 feet (3,000 to 4,600 metres)is characterized by average temperatures below 50 F (10 C), fog, overcast skies, frequent winds, and light rain or drizzle. For climate change studies in the western United States where snow is an important element of the hydrologic cycle, the model's use of a sophisticated energy-balance snow model, which incorporates important effects on snow accumulation and melt associated with vegetation canopy (Andreadis, Storck, & Lettenmaier, Citation2009) has been a notable advantage. The interested reader is directed to the CBCCSP report (Hamlet, Carrasco, et al., Citation2010a, Chapter 6) for a detailed discussion of methods and results. The Assessment will result in a better understanding the potential impacts of climate change on the eight components identified in SECURE in the Columbia River Basin. The six panels display results from the combination of three time periods (rows) and two emissions scenarios (columns) used in the HD downscaling process. The macroscale hydrologic model used in the CBCCSP is the VIC model (Cherkauer & Lettenmaier, Citation2003; Liang, Lettenmaier, Wood, & Burges, Citation1994) implemented at 1/16 degree resolution. Bias-corrected streamflow values are useful in water planning studies, especially for providing inputs to reservoir operations models that are calibrated on a particular naturalized or modified flow dataset (e.g., Hamlet, Lee, et al., Citation2010b; NWPCC, Citation2005; Vano et al., Citation2010). Additional streamflow sites were routed from the primary VIC data, and water temperature simulations for a number of additional sites were based on temperature projections from the study.