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 MRB encompasses 24 terrestrial ecosystems, providing habitat for 100 species of mammals, reptiles, and amphibians Its floodplain supports 40% of the waterfowl and wading birds in North America, and the MRB's . 6. 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. Thus, stakeholders can select different products, using different downscaling approaches that are appropriate to their needs. A number of sub-basins are nested within each other, as shown in the right panel along with their relative sizes. 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. Topographic corrections for precipitation and temperature are carried out by rescaling the data by a fixed factor for each calendar month so that the mean values from 1971 to 2000 match the PRISM climatology for the same period. Bias adjustment was also used in preparing the specific reservoir modelling support products discussed below. 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. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph. The Columbia River is the fourth largest river in North America. Lows in the upper 30s to lower 40s. Retrieved from, CIG (Climate Impacts Group). About 50 of the 80 sites evaluated show monthly NSE scores greater than or equal to approximately 0.7 (good to excellent fit). 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. In much of the CRB, however, summer AET is water limited (i.e., there is abundant surface energy to evaporate whatever water is available), and changes in AET are dominated by decreasing summer precipitation in the scenarios, which effectively decreases summer AET in most cases. are estimated by the VIC hydrologic model (discussed below) using empirical methods described by Kimball, Running and Nemani (Citation1997) and Thornton and Running (Citation1999). Over the last several years, the USFS and USFWS have engaged with the CIG to produce a set of initial climate change hydrologic scenarios over much of the west using a common methodology intended to support landscape-scale assessment of climate change impacts (Littell et al., Citation2011). (, 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. Columbia Basin | WA - DNR This advance through the native forest has been driven, primarily, by cattle ranching. 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. unpublished manuscript). In addition to the time series gridded data, the long-term monthly mean data for each hydrologic variable, for each scenario, is provided in GridASCII format, compatible with ArcGIS. 8) experience little change in the shape of the monthly hydrograph because there is only occasional low-elevation snow in mid-winter in the twentieth century base case; therefore, there is relatively little sensitivity of monthly runoff timing to warming. Thursday Sunny. To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below: Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content? Columbia Basin Care is the region's only independent nonprofit skilled nursing facility for long-term care and short-term rehabilitation. These data were compiled from naturalization studies prepared for the BPA (Crook, Citation1993), WDOE (Flightner, Citation2008), OWRD (Cooper, Citation2002), IDWR, and the USBR. (2000). Elsner et al. Columbia River Basin Impacts Assessment, PN Region - usbr.gov Click the download link to get the current station data. Additional details on the approach and methods are available in the CBCCSP study report (Hamlet, Carrasco, et al., Citation2010a). Climate Change Challenge In The Columbia River Basin: Managing Water Clima em Guarant do Norte, Mato Grosso - weather.com The largest changes in flood risk are simulated in mixed-rain-and-snow basins. Most of the fundamental details regarding the VIC implementation used in this study are covered by Elsner et al. 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. Naturalized streamflow data were used exclusively in the CBCCSP to calibrate the hydrologic model. This daily disaggregation technique sometimes introduces an undesirable discontinuity in the bias-corrected daily values at the beginning and end of months. Lows in the lower 50s. Contact Carri Hessman Program Manager (208) 378-5106 chessman@usbr.gov Bureau of Reclamation The CBCCSP also provided a complete and well-tested data processing sequence for post-processing and summarizing the hydrologic data to provide figures and analysis efficiently. Eleven of the last twelve years (1995 -2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850). To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. 135 0 obj <>stream Thanks to Shrad Shukla, at the UW for 1/16 degree VIC model calibration over the Yakima basin. 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. The CBCCSP (and extensions over the west) has greatly reduced the costs of these types of studies by supplying (at essentially no cost) a wide range of high-quality hydrologic scenarios as a foundation for further work. Daily streamflow data from the CD and HD downscaling methods are first processed to extract the peak daily flow in each water year of the simulations (91 years). 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. Thus, each site is bias-corrected using either naturalized or modified flow but not both. . A primary focus of the Assessment is to generate future climate change flow at more than 300 locations across the Columbia River Basin (Basin) and evaluated the potential impact of those flows at specific sub-basins within the Basin. Explore the basics of climate science arrow . In the remainder of this paper, we present an overview of the development of the CBCCSP, a description of the primary methods used to produce the study databases, an overview of the products and information the study databases provide, and some high-visibility examples of the use of these products and services in regional planning. The primary activities and objectives of the RMJOC studies are described in the Executive Summary of the project report (US Department of the Interior, Citation2012): The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) collaborated to adopt climate change and hydrology datasets for their longer-term planning activities in the ColumbiaSnake River Basin (CSRB). hb```"V* aB@{= ,!It#GjWeyP1% 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. What Does Climate Change Mean for Flooding in the Columbia River Basin 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. Future of Aquatic Flows in the South Central U.S.: Toward Sustainable Cooper, R. M. (2002). 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. Among its most useful features is the predominantly physical basis of the model, which largely avoids concerns about parameter stationarity in a changing climate. Explore this website to learn more about the changes were expecting, and what we can do about them. Additional products such as bias-adjusted inflow sequences for specific reservoir operations models are also included. The CBCCSP had a budget of about US$500 thousand (in 2010 dollars) over two years. These products are based solely on the CD and HD projections listed in Table 1. 2013a. Why is a 1C increase such a big deal? PDF Chapter 4: Columbia River Basin - usbr.gov West-wide studies to support USFS and USFWS needs (including current efforts to include California) will have a budget of less than half this amount, a level of efficiency that would not have been achievable without the CBCCSP pilot effort. Size, however, is only one aspect of what makes the river particularly unique. 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. Zone Area Forecast for Lower Columbia Basin of Washington Les simulations dcoulements de crue et dtiage augmentent en intensit pour la plupart des sites fluviaux compris dans cette tude. The city's average temperature is 57 F (14 C). John Day basin century climate change: +1.5 degF day temperature, +3.2 degF night temperature, -0.4 inch (2%) less precipitation. Confirming the sensitivity to warming demonstrated in earlier studies, the CBCCSP results show widespread reductions in the 1 April snowpack, and systematic reductions in the long-term average SWE2PR, a measure of the importance of snow in the hydrologic cycle (Fig. 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. Naturalized and modified streamflow data were used to produce bias-corrected streamflow realizations (see below). 11 Changes in 7Q10 for 297 river locations expressed as a ratio of 7Q10 for the future period to 7Q10 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, by permission of I. Tohver, A.F. 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. 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. It reaches a thickness estimated at 16,000 feet in places. Salem, Oregon. Fig. A flight of geese circle over Moses Lake Saturday morning. Thursday Night Partly cloudy. 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. Dark red lines show the average of the climate change ensemble. Atmosphere Ocean 51. Three statistical downscaling approaches were selected or developed for the study: Composite Delta (CD): regional average projections compiled from 10 GCMs (Elsner et al., Citation2010), Bias Correction and Spatial Downscaling (BCSD): (Salath, Citation2005; Salath, Mote, & Wiley, Citation2007; Wood, Leung, Sridhar, & Lettenmaier, Citation2004; Wood, Maurer, Kumar, & Lettenmaier, Citation2002), Hybrid Delta (HD): (Hamlet et al., 2010a). 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. 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. (2010). 2860, 59th Legislature (WA 2006). Southwest wind 5 to 15 mph with gusts to around 25 mph. 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. 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. As noted above, such errors are commonly encountered at relatively small spatial scales, particularly when meteorological stations are sparse, and often cannot be resolved using conventional hydrologic model calibration strategies. 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). Des dplacements correspondants des caractristiques dcoulement fluvial du printemps et de lt vers l'hiver sont galement vidents dans les bassins o l'accumulation de neige est importante en hiver (sous le climat actuel). The Columbia Basin-Boundary region is already experiencing a climate thats different from 50 years ago. 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). Highs in the lower to mid 60s. 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. 12). The CBCCSP provided climate change projections of meteorological drivers and a calibrated VIC implementation in support of the study. Exploring a Large Ensemble of Simulations Across a Diversity of Hydroclimates. #! O 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). 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. 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. The largest reductions in low flows occur west of the Cascade Range in the simulations. Climate Change Impacts on Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife These results point to extensive, landscape-scale transformations in hydrologic behaviour associated with climate change. A subsequent study in the Skagit River basin (Lee and Hamlet, unpublished manuscript) has demonstrated that substantial improvements in the simulation of high flow extremes can be achieved by calibrating the routing model, but it is not yet clear whether these conclusions can be generalized to other areas of the domain. About 15 sites in western Washington, outside the CRB, were also included in support of the 2009 WACCIA. 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. The SRES A1B and B1 GHG emissions scenarios (Nakienovi et al. Using these resources, other modelling groups can carry out their own investigations of hydrologic impacts using either their own hydrologic model (just using the driving data) or the VIC implementation from the CBCCSP. Naturalized or modified flow data were available at a number of locations in the PNW. Instead, these areas respond primarily to projected changes in precipitation until late in the twenty-first century, and in fact some of these areas show modest increases in SWE (about +5%) until the middle of the twenty-first century under the combined effects of warming and increasing cool season precipitation. hL4+ze The CBCCSP, in particular, provided access to additional scenarios and downscaling methods that provided a range of hydrologic outcomes associated with uncertainty in the climate projections, which the WACCIA assessments largely did not. From ecosystems, communities, and infrastructure, to our way of lifeeverything will be affected. Dave Rodenhuis, Markus Schnorbus, Arelia Werner, and Katrina Bennett at PCIC at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, also provided in-kind support and funding for collaborative research which contributed materially to this project. In this section we provide an overview of the methods associated with the primary elements of the CBCCSP. Bias-correction procedures provide an alternative statistical approach that effectively avoids these difficulties (Shi, Wood, & Lettenmaier, Citation2008; Snover et al., Citation2003). 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. 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).