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. 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). What Matters Most: Are Future Stream Temperatures More Sensitive to Changing Air Temperatures, Discharge, or Riparian Vegetation? How essential is hydrologic model calibration to seasonal streamflow forecasting? Gridded databases providing full GIS coverage of important hydrometeorological variables in support of a wide range of research applications, including ecosystem research. In particular, it is clear that Canada will have not only about 50% of the reservoir storage in the CRB (Hamlet, Citation2003) but also an increasingly dominant portion of the natural water storage as snowpack in the future. (Citation2010) over the entire PNW (Tohver et al. The first nine months of the dataset were used for hydrologic model spin-up, resulting in 91 water years (OctoberSeptember) of usable historical data from the hydrologic model simulations. The Columbia Basin Climate Change Scenarios Project (CBCCSP) was conceived as a comprehensive hydrologic database to support climate change planning, impacts assessment, and adaptation in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) by a diverse user community with varying technical capacity over a wide range of spatial scales. This diagnosis is confirmed by the R 2 values for the same sites, which are generally higher and more consistent with neighbouring values over the entire domain. 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. In this section we provide an overview of the methods associated with the primary elements of the CBCCSP. 3. Associated shifts in streamflow timing from spring and summer to winter are also evident in basins that currently have significant snow accumulation in winter, whereas rain-dominant basins show minimal shifts in streamflow timing. Fig. For example, researchers who wish to run their own hydrologic models can do so by downloading the statistically downscaled meteorological forcings from the study. To minimize this data processing artifact, boundaries between months were smoothed while keeping the sum of daily streamflows equal to the original monthly values in the final product. %PDF-1.6 % Climate change scenarios for water planning studies, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, CropSyst, a cropping systems simulation model, Deep groundwater mediates streamflow response to climate warming in the Oregon Cascades, An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design, An improved algorithm for estimating incident daily solar radiation from measurements of temperature, humidity, and precipitation. The Hot and the Cold of It Summer comes on strong. The USFS and USFWS studies have supported a number of high-visibility ecosystem studies, including assessment of the impacts of changing snowpack on wolverine populations (McKelvey et al., Citation2011) and subsequent proposed ESA listing of wolverine populations, and comprehensive assessment of climate change impacts to trout species over the west (Wenger et al., Citation2011). Naturalized and modified streamflow data were used to produce bias-corrected streamflow realizations (see below). Starting from these parameter sets, an additional large-scale calibration was performed during the CBCCSP to improve model performance in reproducing historical streamflow. 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). Both floods (Q100) and extreme 7-day low flows (7Q10) increase in intensity for most of the river sites simulated. In addition, some observed streamflow data are suitable for use as natural data if the effects of storage and diversions are relatively small (e.g., for the USGS Hydro-Climatic Data Network streamflow sites). Fig. Although this project consists of an abbreviated set of scenarios and products using three scenarios (high, medium, and low impact) for one downscaling method, the CBCCSP played an important role in providing an established set of methods for developing historical driving datasets and implementing and running the hydrologic models. Les principaux produits de ltude comprennent des donnes sommaires pour environ 300 sites fluviaux dans la rgion pacifique nordouest et des produits mensuels de Systme d'information gographique pour 21 variables hydrologiques couvrant tout le domaine ltude. Lows in the upper 30s to lower 40s. A remote sensing approach, The NorWeST Summer Stream Temperature Model and Scenarios for the Western U.S.: A Crowd-Sourced Database and New Geospatial Tools Foster a User Community and Predict Broad Climate Warming of Rivers and Streams, The coastal streamflow flux in the Regional Arctic System Model, Tidal-Fluvial and Estuarine Processes in the Lower Columbia River: II. Intermediate products are available as well, which can be used by people with GIS capabilities, but with little or no knowledge of climate projections and hydrologic modelling. As mentioned above, 20062007 was something of a turning point for regional stakeholders considering future actions to prepare for climate change. Climate Adaptation. Three base flow parameters (Ds max, Ds, Ws) associated with the non-linear baseflow curve from the third soil layer (Liang et al., Citation1994) were used to calibrate the model. Lvapotranspiration potentielle augmente dans la majeure partie de la rgion du Pacifique et du NordOuest en t cause des tempratures plus leves; cependant, lvaporation relle est rduite dans presque tous les secteurs du domaine parce que lvapotranspiration est principalement limite par l'eau en t et les prcipitations estivales diminuent dans les simulations. 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. Source: It reaches a thickness estimated at 16,000 feet in places. Although these ongoing research and outreach efforts had already laid an extensive foundation in support of pilot climate services in the PNW, starting in 20062007 it was realized that a much more comprehensive and focused effort to provide hydrologic climate change scenarios was needed if stakeholders and water professionals in the region were to take the next steps in preparing for climate change. #! O Thursday Sunny. Elsner et al. The HD method was also selected as the basis for the main summary products derived for each river location (see description below), primarily because it was capable of providing good performance over the complete range of products produced by the CBCCSP (Hamlet et al., 2010a). During initial model development steps, Elsner et al. Les simulations dcoulements de crue et dtiage augmentent en intensit pour la plupart des sites fluviaux compris dans cette tude. Site specific data [Data]. The Columbia Basin Climate Change Scenarios Project (CBCCSP) was conceived as a comprehensive hydrologic database to support climate change planning, impacts assessment, and adaptation in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) by a diverse user community with varying technical capacity over a wide range of spatial scales. 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). A number of regional partners provided recommendations for streamflow locations and other in-kind support including Jesse Abner (MDNR), Steve Running (University of Montana), Hal Anderson (IDWR) Levi Brekke, Pat McGrane and John Roache (USBR), Carolyn Fitzgerald (Seattle District USACE), Seshu Vaddey and Randy Wortman (Portland District USACE). Reductions in spring snowpack and summer streamflow, for example, are relatively modest in the Canadian portions of the basin because of cold winter temperatures that delay warming-related impacts to seasonal snowpack (Elsner et al., Citation2010). A family of greenhouse gas emissions scenarios used in the IPCC effort (Nakienovi et al. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. Right panel: Same data shown as a scatter plot of the average ratio of Q100 for the 2040s A1B scenarios to Q100 for the historical period versus historical basin-average mid-winter (DJF) temperature in each case. The Assessment was initiated in June 2013 and is expected to completed in December 2015. (*Modified flows are essentially naturalized flows with a consistent level of consumptive demand for water supply subtracted for the entire time series.). 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). Explore the basics of climate sciencearrow_forward, Explore detailed climate projectionsarrow_forward, Learn more about the impacts of climate changearrow_forward, Learn how the climate is changing in your areaarrow_forward, Learn how our region is responding, and how you can be part of the solutionarrow_forward, The extent of glaciers in 1984, 2000, and 2021. Report of A.G. Crook Company to Bonneville Power Administration, Portland, OR. Multi-Objective Complex Evolution Procedure, developed at the University of Arizona (Yapo et al., A water resources simulation model developed by Labadie (, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium, University of Victoria. About 50 of the 80 sites evaluated show monthly NSE scores greater than or equal to approximately 0.7 (good to excellent fit). 1555. These extended meteorological data have proved particularly useful in supporting ecological studies (e.g., Littell et al., Citation2010). The largest changes in flood risk are simulated in mixed-rain-and-snow basins. IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (Nakienovi et al. These techniques remove systematic biases in the simulations of routed streamflow to produce products that closely match the long-term statistics of a natural or modified flow dataset for a particular site. Hamlet, and S.-Y. Other impacts, such as changes in soil moisture dynamics are also apparent in the simulations. 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. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? But as researchers continue to fine tune climate models, shifting demand for water now must be accounted for, say Washington State University scientists. Columbia River Basin Basin Overview . (Citation2010). Tonight Mostly cloudy. The CBCCSP database has been a valuable resource which has dramatically reduced the cost of a number of high-visibility planning studies in the PNW, including the RMJOC water resources planning studies conducted by the BPA, USBR, and USACE, WSU integrated crop modelling and irrigation water demand studies under HB2860, the WA Integrated Climate Change Response Strategy, and west-wide extensions of the CBCCSP supported by the USFS and USFWS. These products are available for all 77 climate scenarios listed in Table 1, as well as for the historical simulation. Casola, J. H., Kay, J. E., Snover, A. K., Norheim, R. A., Binder, L. C. W., & the Climate Impacts Group. Impacts of Near-Term Climate Change on Irrigation Demands and Crop Yields in the Columbia River Basin, Impacts of climate change on the state of Indiana: ensemble future projections based on statistical downscaling. Text files (six per figure) providing all the ensemble data used to construct each panel in the figure are also provided on the CBCCSP website. The largest reductions in low flows occur west of the Cascade Range in the simulations. The Columbia River is the fourth largest river in North America. Note that unlike the raw VIC flux files discussed above (Table 2), imperial units are used for these products on the study website (cubic feet per second, inches, degrees Fahrenheit). Source: Bonneville Power Administration. Climate change effects on stream and river temperatures across the Northwest U.S. from 1980 - 2009 and implications for salmonid fishes. Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below: If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. (2011). Building the Columbia Basin-Boundary Region's Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph. The largest increases in flooding are in mixed-rain-and-snow basins whose current mid-winter temperatures are within a few degrees of freezing. Observations around the world demonstrate that the global atmosphere has been warming rapidly since the 1970s, with temperatures up an average of 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit in that time and expected to increase between 1 and 4 degrees by the 2030s, Pytlak said. This extreme scenario, however, was only run by a few GCMs, which ultimately limits the ability to show consistent ranges of outcomes for each emissions scenario. The CBCCSP database has been a valuable public resource that has dramatically reduced costs in a number of high-visibility studies in the PNW and western United States focused on technical coordination and planning. 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. Three VIC model calibration parameters described above were varied in the optimization process, and six error metrics were used to define the objective function: squared correlation coefficient (R 2), NSE, the NSE of log-transformed data, annual volume error, mean hydrograph peak difference, RMSE, and number of sign changes in the simulated streamflow errors. Nakienovi, N., Alcamo, J., Davis, G., De Vries, B., Fenhann, J., Gaffin, S.,Dadi, Z. Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page A flight of geese circle over Moses Lake Saturday morning. Mitigating the effects of climate change on the water resources of the Columbia River basin, Downscaling simulations of future global climate with application to hydrologic modeling, Review of scenario selection and downscaling methods for the assessment of climate change impacts on hydrology in the United States Pacific Northwest. These extensive and ongoing research activities have also been materially supported by the long-term outreach and education programs of CIG, which have, from the outset, fully recognized the transboundary nature of the CRB (Hamlet, Citation2003; Miles et al., Citation2000) and responded by promoting sustained, long-term interaction with CRB researchers and stakeholders in the United States and Canada (Hamlet, Citation2011). 1 Map of the selected streamflow locations supported by the CBCCSP. Les plus fortes augmentations dans les crues sont dans les bassins de pluie et neige mles dont les tempratures actuelles au milieu de l'hiver sont quelques degrs du point de conglation. The magnitude of hydrologic extremes such as Q100 and 7Q10 are expected to shift markedly in some basins in response to cool season warming, increasing cool season precipitation, and warmer, drier summers. Get the forecast for today, tonight & tomorrow's weather for Guarant do Norte, Mato Grosso, Brazil. In this case only modified flows (2000-level modified flows obtained from the BPA (Crook, Citation1993)) were used to train the bias-correction procedure, even if naturalized flows were also available. The CBCCSP also included fine-scale hydrologic modelling using DHSVM (Wigmosta et al., Citation1994, Citation2002) in four pilot watersheds in the PNW. Calibration of the VIC model was carried out using an automated calibration tool called MOCOM-UA developed by the Land Surface Hydrology group at the UW, following the approach described by Yapo, Gupta, and Sorooshian (Citation1998). A calibrated 1/16 degree latitude-longitude resolution implementation of the VIC hydrologic model over the Columbia River basin was used to produce historical simulations and 77 future hydrologic projections associated with three different statistical downscaling methods and three future time periods (2020s, 2040s, and 2080s). 3099067 The VIC model (version 4.0.7) was implemented at 1/16 degree resolution, with three active soil layers and up to five elevation bands with an approximate spacing of 500m. The model was run in water balance mode with a snow model time step of 1h and a water balance time step of 24h. The model was coupled to a simple daily-time-step routing model (Lohmann, Raschke, Nijssen, & Lettenmaier, Citation1998), which was used to produce daily flow estimates at each of the approximately 300 streamflow locations included in the study. 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. Forest ecosystems, disturbance, and climatic change in Washington State, USA, Regional scale hydrology: I. Formulation of the VIC-2L model coupled to a routing model, A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on salmon production, Climate change impacts on streamflow extremes and summertime stream temperature and their possible consequences for freshwater salmon habitat in Washington State, Uncertainty in hydrologic impacts of climate change in the Sierra Nevada, California under two emissions scenarios, Uncertainty in projections of streamflow changes due to climate change in California, Climate change predicted to shift wolverine distributions, connectivity, and dispersal corridors, The WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset: A new era in climate change research, Assessing regional impacts and adaptation strategies for climate change: The Washington Climate Change Impacts Assessment as a case study, Pacific Northwest regional assessment: The impacts of climate variability and climate change on the water resources of the Columbia River basin, Climate-driven variability and trends in mountain snowpack in western North America, Declining mountain snowpack in western North America. hb```"V* aB@{= ,!It#GjWeyP1% These parameters were chosen because they strongly affect the timing and volume of runoff production in the model simulations and are, in general, not available from observed data. (, Washington State Department of Community Trade and Economic Development, Distributed Hydrology Soil Vegetation Model, A Monte Carlo hydropower and water resources simulation model developed by the NWPCC, Hybrid Delta statistical downscaling method, HYDropower SIMulation, a hydropower and water resources simulation model used by the BPA in the CRB, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 6). 9 Left panel: Historical estimates of summer (JJA) potential evapotranspiration (PET) (based on PET3, see Table 2) (upper right) compared with percentage changes in PET for two emissions scenarios and three future time periods from the CD scenarios. Fig. The same procedure is followed for estimating extreme low flows, except the lowest 7-day flow is extracted for each water year, and 7Q10 (the extreme 7-day low flow with a return interval of 10 years) is estimated. As an integrated priority, the Trust has integrated climate resilience into its strategic priorities by supporting: wildfire risk reduction and job creation through the Columbia Basin Wildfire Resiliency Initiative energy retrofits, repairs and alternative energy generation at community-purpose buildings through the Non-profit Sustainability - Building Support Grants It was also well understood by practitioners at CIG that aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem researchers, managers, and stakeholders needed a similar, but more comprehensive, data resource to support long-term planning and the development of climate change adaptation strategies at the landscape scale. The multi-model ensemble 30-year mean annual temperature increases by 2.8 C (5.0 C) by late 21st century under RCP4.5 (RCP8.5) over the 1979-1990 baseline, with 18% (24%) more warming in summer. Size, however, is only one aspect of what makes the river particularly unique. (2010). Elsner MM, et al. However, our goal in this case was not to reduce the range of uncertainty by selecting a smaller group of GCMs. Either naturalized or modified flows (Crook, Citation1993) are used for bias correction of data provided in the site-specific products discussed below, with naturalized data taking precedence if available. For information on past projects, see our Projects Archive. Thus, stakeholders can select different products, using different downscaling approaches that are appropriate to their needs. 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. This web site provides streamflow information for the Columbia River and coastal drainages in Washington and Oregon State for the 21st century based on a large number of climate scenarios and model experiments. For the future scenarios, the range of the projections (pink shading) is plotted. Even with substantial cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, scientists expect our climate to continue changing over the coming decades. The summary figures for water balance variables at each site have the same format, two examples of which are shown in Fig. Pink bands show the range of nine or ten HD climate change scenarios for B1 and A1B emissions scenarios for three future time periods. A 20 percent chance of rain in the afternoon. The CBCCSP provided climate change projections of meteorological drivers and a calibrated VIC implementation in support of the study. 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. 'High Uncertainty' is indicated when Mahalanobis Distance is >1. Also, at about this time, successful lawsuits challenging NEPA studies because they had not addressed climate change effects began to appear (Hamlet, Citation2011). The smallest of these sub-basins is about 500km2 (approximately fifteen 1/16 degree VIC cells), and the largest encompasses most of the CRB (approximately 620,000km2 or about 18,800 VIC cells). Wind speed data are based on interpolated NCEP reanalysis data (Kalnay et al., Citation1996) using methods described by Elsner et al. Daily and monthly streamflow for each streamflow site are provided in two formats: a) raw VIC simulations, and b) bias-adjusted simulations. One of the fundamental difficulties with this task was that there was not, at the time, an available database of hydrologic projections that could support such planning, and regulatory agencies such as WDOE did not have the capacity or expertise to produce these resources themselves. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of other members of the CBCCSP research team at the UW including Lara Whitely Binder, Pablo Carrasco, Jeffrey Deems, Carrie Lee, Dennis P. Lettenmaier, Tyler Kamstra, Jeremy Littell, Nathan Mantua, Edward Miles, Kristian Mickelson, Philip W. Mote, Erin Rogers, Eric Salath, Amy Snover, and Andrew Wood.