columbia basin climate

Pink bands show the range of nine or ten HD climate change scenarios for B1 and A1B emissions scenarios for three future time periods. In other words, although at these sites the model results do not match the observations in the absolute sense (large bias), the relative changes follow the observed variations quite well (high R 2). Les rsultats de ltude montrent de profonds changements dans l'accumulation de neige au printemps et des dplacements radicaux de neige ou pluie et neige mles vers principalement pluie dans presque tout le domaine. Fig. It reaches a thickness estimated at 16,000 feet in places. Why is a 1C increase such a big deal? Because of space limitations, we will not be able to cover these alternative modelling efforts in this paper. Building the Columbia Basin-Boundary Region's Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change. The scope of work for the project called for hydrologic modellers at CIG to produce the following results: A suite of up-to-date hydrologic projections for the entire CRB (including portions of the basin in Canada) based on the CMIP3/AR4 (Meehl et al., Citation2007) GCM projections. To explore how much the model simulations might be improved by additional fine-scale calibration, we also recalibrated three additional smaller sites within the Pend Oreille River basin. By late 21st century, annual precipitation increases by 5% (8%), with an 8% (14%) winter increase and a 4% (10%) summer decrease, but because . 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). Current weather in Queens Cup Basin and forecast for today, tomorrow, and next 14 days Fig. Right panel: Historical estimates of summer AET (upper right) compared with percentage changes for the same CD scenarios. Detailed information about the study can be found under Documentation, while model results can be found under Data. Although a number of pilot climate change studies have been carried out in the CRB in collaboration with various water management agencies in the past (e.g., NWPCC, Citation2005), the RMJOC study was something of a landmark in that it was the first time that the BPA, USBR, and USACE used climate change information in coordinated interagency planning exercises in the CRB. 9. Fig. Typical month of historical flooding events is shown by the colour of the dots in the scatter plot (legend inset in the upper right corner), by permission of I. Tohver, A.F. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph. These basins experience dramatic losses of snowpack and substantial changes in seasonal flow timing (Fig. 7). Key products from the study include detailed summary data for about 300 river sites in the PNW and monthly GIS products for 21 hydrologic variables over the entire study domain. Elsner MM, et al. Inset numbers at the upper left in the future projections are the percentage changes in 1 April SWE averaged over each grid cell in the entire domain. The results were only slightly better than those achieved in the large-scale calibration. Many river locations that were submitted for consideration were at gauging locations supported by the USGS and ECAN, or at locations associated with important water resources monitoring needs (e.g., checkpoints for flood control, water supply, or environmental flows) or infrastructure (e.g., dams and diversion points). The Columbia River basin will see an increase in flooding over the next 50 years as a result of climate change, new modeling from Oregon State University indicates. The objective function for the optimization process in this case was: where Q is the monthly streamflow; NSE(Q) is the NSE (monthly flow), which varies between [inf, 1] and typically between [0,1]; NSE(log(Q+1)) is the NSE (monthly flow), which varies between [inf, 1] (this metric places less emphasis on high flow errors in calculating NSE); Vol_Err(Q) is the annual volume error (in 1000 acre feet); R 2(Q)=R 2 (squared correlation coefficient between simulated and observed Q), which varies between [0,1]; Peak_Diff(Q) is the mean hydrograph peak differencethe absolute value varies for different sites; RMSE(Q) is the root mean square error, whose absolute value varies for different sites; and NumSC(Q) is the number of sign changes in the errors (this metric penalizes simulations with too much month-to-month variability in comparison with observations). 2013. Small black dots indicate streamflow sites where naturalized flows were not available. The largest increases in flooding are in mixed-rain-and-snow basins whose current mid-winter temperatures are within a few degrees of freezing. The city's average temperature is 57 F (14 C). The PET is shown to increase dramatically over most of the domain (primarily because of warming in the scenarios), whereas AET shows widespread declines east of the Cascade Range. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. We should note that glaciers and deep groundwater (e.g., contributions to streamflow from large confined aquifers) are not simulated by the VIC model, and impacts in areas profoundly influenced by these hydrologic features may not be well characterized in the simulations (Wenger et al., Citation2010). In relatively wet and cool areas along the coast and at high elevation in the northern parts of the basin, summer AET is energy limited; therefore, rising temperatures result in increases in AET. 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. Preparing for climatic change: The water, salmon, and forests of the Pacific Northwest. Sunday Night: Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of rain. Originating in British Columbia, it flows 1,214 miles to the Pacific Ocean near Astoria, Oregon. Snowmelt-dominant basins in the United States, which are somewhat warmer and do not experience as much precipitation change in the scenarios, show increases in winter flow, earlier and reduced peak flow in spring, followed by an earlier streamflow recession and lower flows in late summer (e.g., Columbia River at The Dalles in Fig. A flight of geese circle over Moses Lake Saturday morning. These spatial variations in the change in AET are broadly reflective of the dominant drivers of AET in each case. 5; Yakima River at Parker in Fig. 8). Dark red lines show the average of the climate change ensemble. 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. The sweeping statements in the 2007 IPCC AR4 (Solomon et al., Citation2007) regarding the scientific consensus on observed warming (unequivocal) and the direct human role in the alteration of the climate system (90% confidence) made it clear to many management professionals that the waiting game for climate change planning was nearing an end. The study employs a state-of-the-art, end-to-end data processing sequence that moves from raw GCM output to a set of final hydrological products that can be accessed by the user community from a web-accessible database. Weather for Monday, Feb. 27. Oregon Water Resources Department. Changes in PET (PET3, see Table 2) and AET (see Table 2) are shown in Fig. Even with substantial cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, scientists expect our climate to continue changing over the coming decades. Changes in snowpack are a key driver of hydrologic impacts in the PNW (Elsner et al., Citation2010; Hamlet & Lettenmaier, Citation1999b). Simulated widespread increases in soil moisture recharge in fall and winter in areas with significant snow accumulation in winter (for the current climate) support hypotheses of increased landslide risk and sediment transport in winter in the future. Tonight Mostly cloudy. Daily and monthly streamflow for each streamflow site are provided in two formats: a) raw VIC simulations, and b) bias-adjusted simulations. 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. Following the WACCIA in 2009, the WA Legislature, via the Act relating to State Agency Climate Leadership (2009), charged WDOE and other state agencies with preparing a first climate change adaptation plan for WA. Source: Bonneville Power Administration. 2013a. These products are available for all 77 climate scenarios listed in Table 1, as well as for the historical simulation. 1990 level modified streamflow 19281989. The site at Corra Linn Dam on the Kootenay River is representative of changing hydrographs in many locations in the northern tip of the CRB in British Columbia. 120 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<6FB239FABFBE0241AD2ED78CAB939AAB><0AF5FFF7A9777A438917926E6F546C9A>]/Index[95 41]/Info 94 0 R/Length 116/Prev 312890/Root 96 0 R/Size 136/Type/XRef/W[1 3 1]>>stream Fig. (2000). Subsetted from the, Averaged periodic drought condition ranking by basin for 2015-2020 from the, Mapped extent of wildfires from 1950-2020 from, Air quality monitoring stations within the study area. The bias-corrected monthly values are then used to rescale the simulated daily flow sequences produced by the hydrologic model to produce bias-corrected daily streamflows. 8) and warmer and drier summers (which increase PET) (Fig. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? Figure 1. Sites without modified or natural flow estimates are shown in yellow. (Citation2010). The PRISM data for Canada were interpolated to 30 arc-second resolution data from a 2.5 arc-minute (approximately 4km) product and were statistically adjusted to remove the bias associated with the different time period (19611990 means for the 4km product). In addition to creating these datasets, the RMJOC agencies worked together to adopt a set of methods for incorporating these data into those longer-term planning activities. By that same year, a large number of natural resources management agencies in the US federal system (e.g., the USFS, USNPS, USBR, USFWS, FERC, FEMA, NMFS) were actively engaged in educating and training their upper-level leadership and staff about climate change and were attempting to acquire appropriate data and information to support long-term planning and develop long-term climate change adaptation strategies.