The greater Mississippi River Basin (MRB) is the largest river basin in North America and the fourth largest basin in the world. The DOI via the USFWS has recently established a set of LCCs across the United States (USFWS, Citation2013) and has generated additional funding to support a group of regional CSCs, one of which was recently established in the PNW (PNWCSC), combining the efforts of about 15 PNW research universities, jointly led by the USGS, Oregon State University, the UW, and the University of Idaho. 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). These include the following: Columbia River Basin Impact Assessment: Reclamation conducted the Columbia River Basin Impact Assessment to evaluate the potential effects of future climate change on river flows at 158 locations across the basin. 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. 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. As noted above, the study also supports planning efforts over a wide range of geographic scales. The VIC model has been widely applied in climate change studies at both the regional scale (e.g., Christensen & Lettenmaier, Citation2007; Lettenmaier, Wood, Palmer, Wood, & Stakhiv, Citation1999; Maurer, Citation2007; Maurer & Duffy, Citation2005; Payne et al., Citation2004; Van Rheenen, Wood, Palmer, & Lettenmaier, Citation2004) and global scale (e.g., Adam, Hamlet, & Lettenmaier, Citation2009; Nijssen, O'Donnell, Hamlet, & Lettenmaier, Citation2001). (1 April SWE and SWE2PR values were calculated using the CD VIC scenarios.). Isaak DJ et al. 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. This study represents one of the first attempts to dynamically couple a sophisticated, physically based hydrologic model with a detailed crop model to estimate the integrated impacts on water supply and crop viability at a range of spatial scales. 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. 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). (, 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. 7). Rain-dominant basins in the United States (e.g., Chehalis River at Grand Mound in Fig. Application Process How to Apply Sign-up for Program Updates Registered in England & Wales No. These approaches were further developed and refined during the WACCIA in 2009 (Miles, Elsner, Littell, Binder, & Lettenmaier, Citation2010), which included assessments of aquatic and forest ecosystem impacts (Littell et al., Citation2010; Mantua, Tohver, & Hamlet, Citation2010). This is a good example of the use of the study data to support relatively fine-scale planning needs. 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. Report of A.G. Crook Company to Bonneville Power Administration, Portland, OR. Full knowledge of the preceding steps is not required to use the products obtained at any level of the study, which increases the utility of the products. Both floods (Q100) and extreme 7-day low flows (7Q10) increase in intensity for most of the river sites simulated. One of the first major efforts of CIG in this area was focused on the preparation of a detailed and comprehensive regional assessment report for the PNW for the 1999 National Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Variability and Change in the United States (ultimately published as Mote et al., Citation2003). Elsner MM, et al. The CBCCSP was designed from the outset to support users with a very wide range of technical sophistication and capacity. But as researchers continue to fine tune climate models, shifting demand for water now must be accounted for, say Washington State University scientists. The largest increases in flooding are in mixed-rain-and-snow basins whose current mid-winter temperatures are within a few degrees of freezing. Site specific data [Data]. 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. Thanks to Sean Fleming (Environment Canada) for spearheading this contribution to Atmosphere-Ocean. The six panels display results from the combination of three time periods (rows) and two emissions scenarios (columns) used in the HD downscaling process. Many locations could see increases of 100% or more in the 50-year and 100-year flood magnitude, with some smaller tributaries potentially seeing increases of as much as 175%. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of two anonymous reviewers and the lead and associate editors for Atmosphere-Ocean, whose constructive suggestions substantially improved the paper during the review process. Naturalized or modified flow data were available at a number of locations in the PNW. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. Blue dots represent the historical values; the red dots show the range of values from the HD ensemble (10 or 9 values); black dashes show the mean of the HD ensemble, and the orange dots show the single value calculated for the CD projections. Current weather in Queens Cup Basin and forecast for today, tomorrow, and next 14 days To select an appropriate group of specific streamflow locations to include in the study to meet these diverse needs, the primary funding agencies for the study and several other key water management agencies in the region (MDNR, IDWR, USBR, and USACE) were asked to submit prioritized lists of streamflow locations. An understanding of the basin's transboundary nature has also informed CIG's hydrologic modelling studies, which have consistently provided complete coverage of the Canadian and US portions of the basin. Highs in the lower to mid 40s. Bias adjustment was also used in preparing the specific reservoir modelling support products discussed below. A 20 percent chance of rain showers in the evening. These emerging needs ultimately led to the CBCCSP, and similar efforts in BC led by PCIC (Werner, Schnorbus, Shrestha, & Eckstrand, Citation2013). endstream endobj startxref Casola, J. H., Kay, J. E., Snover, A. K., Norheim, R. A., Binder, L. C. W., & the Climate Impacts Group. Fig. 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. These approaches are also useful for avoiding biases in the streamflow simulations that result from systematic errors in gridded precipitation or temperature data. This was coordinated through the River Management Joint Operating Committee (RMJOC), a sub-committee of the Joint Operating Committee which was established through direct funding Memorandum of Agreements between BPA, Reclamation, and the USACE. 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. Blue lines show average historical values (19162006) (repeated in each panel). These basins experience dramatic losses of snowpack and substantial changes in seasonal flow timing (Fig. It reaches a thickness estimated at 16,000 feet in places. 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. Figure 10 shows a map of Q100 ratios (future Q100 to historical Q100) for 297 river locations and a scatterplot of the Q100 ratio as a function of winter temperature regime in each basin. (Citation2010) also updated the soil depth map using a more sophisticated approach developed for the DHSVM (Wigmosta, Nijssen, Storck, & Lettenmaier, Citation2002; Wigmosta, Vail, & Lettenmaier, Citation1994) that varies soil depth with elevation. Dark red lines show the average of the climate change ensemble. 5. Each of the six panels in the figure shows the long-term monthly mean for the 10 (9 for B1) HD GCM scenarios (red lines) and the historical simulations (blue lines). Highs in the lower to mid 40s. 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. 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. 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. 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. Future work on the project will likely focus on expanding the number of streamflow sites for which products are available (e.g., inclusion of additional sites in coastal Oregon in the site-specific products) and providing a comprehensive suite of products associated with CMIP5 results (Taylor, Stouffer, & Meehl, Citation2012) associated with IPCC AR5. 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). Sites without modified or natural flow estimates are shown in yellow. 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. Fig. Retrieved from, CIG (Climate Impacts Group). 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. The Water Hub contains numerical and spatial data, reports, photos and other types of information about streams, lakes, wetlands, groundwater, snow, glaciers and climate in the Columbia Basin both historical and current. About 50 of the 80 sites evaluated show monthly NSE scores greater than or equal to approximately 0.7 (good to excellent fit). Ltude a produit une squence de traitements de donnes de bout en bout, la fine pointe, partant d'une sortie brute de modle climatique pour aboutir une srie de produits de modlisation hydrologique, qui sont offerts la communaut d'utilisateurs via une base de donnes Web. Contact Carri Hessman Program Manager (208) 378-5106 chessman@usbr.gov Bureau of Reclamation The dark red lines show the average of the climate change ensemble. Precipitation Regression on Independent Slopes Model (Daly et al., Extreme daily high flow value with a 20-year recurrence interval (20-year flood), Extreme daily high flow value with a 50-year recurrence interval (50-year flood), Extreme daily high flow value with a 100-year recurrence interval (100-year flood), River Management Joint Operating Committee. hL4+ze Columbia Basin Care is the region's only independent nonprofit skilled nursing facility for long-term care and short-term rehabilitation. Changes in PET (PET3, see Table 2) and AET (see Table 2) are shown in 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. During initial model development steps, Elsner 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 two time periods also represent very different patterns of decadal climate variability in the historical record, providing a useful test in the context of simulating a changing climate. Fig. The RMJOC is specifically dedicated to reviewing the practices, procedures, and processes of each agency to identify changes that could improve the overall efficiency of the operation and management of the Federal Columbia River Power System projects. Regional summaries were prepared by Tohver et al. This advance through the native forest has been driven, primarily, by cattle ranching. A knowledge-based approach to the statistical mapping of climate, A statistical-topographic model for mapping climatological precipitation over mountainous terrain, Constructing retrospective gridded daily precipitation and temperature datasets for the conterminous United States, Implications of 21st century climate change for the hydrology of Washington State, Interdecadal modulation of ENSO teleconnections, The role of transboundary agreements in the Columbia River basin: An integrated assessment in the context of historic development, climate, and evolving water policy, Assessing water resources adaptive capacity to climate change impacts in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Crook, A. G. (1993). In 2008, many of the financial and institutional barriers to climate change assessment and adaptation that had been erected over the preceding eight years by the Bush Administration were substantially reduced by the incoming Obama Administration. Daily and monthly streamflow for each streamflow site are provided in two formats: a) raw VIC simulations, and b) bias-adjusted simulations. Yakima River Basin Study The approach and methods are more fully described in the study report (Hamlet, Carrasco, et al., Citation2010a, Chapter 3) and also by Elsner et al. Columbia Basin Dive Rescue has been serving the community for almost 50 years. 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). Read on for information on our current project. Contract # DE-AC79-92BP21985. Wind speed data are based on interpolated NCEP reanalysis data (Kalnay et al., Citation1996) using methods described by Elsner et al. . Results from the study show profound changes in spring snowpack and fundamental shifts from snow and mixed-rain-and-snow to rain-dominant behaviour across most of the domain. Because of a general lack of observed naturalized daily time-step flow for most streamflow sites, daily time step calibration using additional parameters such as the infiltration parameter (bi ) in VIC (Liang et al., Citation1994), or routing parameters (such as the unit hydrograph for each cell) were not attempted during the study. 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. The Columbia River is the fourth largest river in North America and the largest river in the Pacific Northwest. 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. Simulation of spatial variability in snow and frozen soil, A multi-model ensemble approach to assessment of climate change impacts on the hydrology and water resources of the Colorado River basin, CIG (Climate Impacts Group). The NSE scores for about 20 sites are marginal (between 0.3 and 0.7). Although not as extreme as A1FI, the high-end A2 scenario was archived by most GCMs and could have been used in the CBCCSP in place of the A1B scenario. 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 Climate Resilience Program helps communities in the Basin become more climate resilient by supporting large-scale, multi-year, shovel-ready climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience projects that address sources of climate change or manage the risks of climate change impacts. In this section we provide an overview of the methods associated with the primary elements of the CBCCSP. Previso do tempo local de hora em hora, condies climticas, precipitao, ponto de condensao, umidade, vento no Weather.com e The Weather Channel Click the download link to get the current station data. (2005). The same basic effects are seen in the SWE2PR maps, where snowmelt remains dominant in the northern tip of the CRB even at the end of the twenty-first century, whereas in the US portions of the domain there are widespread transformations of mixed-rain-and-snow river basins to rain-dominant basins and snowmelt-dominant basins to mixed-rain-and-snow basins. From ecosystems, communities, and infrastructure, to our way of lifeeverything will be affected. 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. 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). Even with substantial cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, scientists expect our climate to continue changing over the coming decades. 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. Littell, J. S., Elsner, M. M., Mauger, G. S., Lutz, E. R., Hamlet, A. F., & Salath, E. P. (2011). 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. These products are based solely on the HD projections listed in Table 1. A key design element of the CBCCSP from the outset of the project was to produce a well-organized and well-documented end-to-end (i.e., GCM to hydrologic products) data processing sequence and a web-accessible data archive that would greatly reduce the cost of producing updates in response to each subsequent CMIP/IPCC cycle. A family of greenhouse gas emissions scenarios used in the IPCC effort (Nakienovi et al. John Day basin century climate change: +1.5 degF day temperature, +3.2 degF night temperature, -0.4 inch (2%) less precipitation. How do I view content? 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 changes in the importance of snow in some areas of the United States are particularly striking. This daily disaggregation technique sometimes introduces an undesirable discontinuity in the bias-corrected daily values at the beginning and end of months. Hi/Low, RealFeel, precip, radar, & everything you need to be ready for the day, commute, and . Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. 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). 2013a. All of the meteorological forcing data, except wind speed, are reproduced in the output files produced by the hydrologic model. A number of high-visibility studies have made use of the CBCCSP database to date, a few of which are summarized below. Because of space limitations, we will not be able to cover these alternative modelling efforts in this paper. Preparing for climatic change: The water, salmon, and forests of the Pacific Northwest. Act relating to state agency climate leadership, S. 5560, 61st Legislature (WA 2009). Special thanks to Kurt Unger and Ken Slattery, who were the primary architects of the CBCCSP at WDOE. During the study (and afterwards), some stakeholders expressed interest in including less optimistic emissions scenarios (such as SRES A1FI), in order to better understand the implications of a potential worst case scenario. 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. Potential evapotranspiration increases over most of the PNW in summer because of rising temperatures; however, actual evapotranspiration is reduced in all but a few areas of the domain because evapotranspiration is mostly water limited in summer, and summer precipitation decreases in the simulations. 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). These results point to extensive, landscape-scale transformations in hydrologic behaviour associated with climate change. 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). Des accroissements gnraliss simuls de la rhumidification du sol en automne et en hiver dans les secteurs o l'accumulation de neige en hiver est importante (sous le climat actuel) appuient les hypothses de risque accru de glissement de terrain et de transport de sdiments durant l'hiver dans le futur. 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. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page. Glacier outlines are automatically generated from satellite imagery and are provided by, Species and Ecosystems at Risk as identified by the, Current bioclimates and modeled bioclimates for three future climate scenarios in 2080s. 8) and warmer and drier summers (which increase PET) (Fig. 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. The PET increases over most of the PNW in summer as a result of rising temperatures; however, AET is reduced in all but a few areas of the domain because AET is water limited and summer precipitation decreases in the simulations.