Climate change effects on stream and river temperatures across the Northwest U.S. from 1980 - 2009 and implications for salmonid fishes. 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). 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. %PDF-1.6 % 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). Basin topographic map and smoothed basin boundary at 1/16 degree resolution. 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. Naturalized streamflow data were used exclusively in the CBCCSP to calibrate the hydrologic model. Rain-dominant basins in the United States (e.g., Chehalis River at Grand Mound in Fig. Red dots indicate sites that are essentially unimpaired by human use or for which there is estimated modified* or naturalized flow. Thursday Night Partly cloudy. About 50 of the 80 sites evaluated show monthly NSE scores greater than or equal to approximately 0.7 (good to excellent fit). Post-processing of the primary VIC model output (see Table 2) was carried out to produce a number of specific products discussed in the following sections. Impacts assessments from the WACCIA played a central role in these planning activities, but updated and extended data from the CBCCSP also materially supported these efforts. (Citation2010) interpolated existing 1/8 degree model parameters to 1/16 degree and also included previously calibrated soil parameters for the Yakima sub-basin (please see acknowledgements). Thursday Sunny. 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%. Contract # DE-AC79-92BP21985. 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. Broad changes in shallow groundwater (e.g., localized contributions to streamflow from smaller unconfined aquifers), however, are likely well captured by the VIC model based on a strong correlation between VIC-simulated base flows and observations in many basins examined by Wenger et al. At the other extreme, for those without any hydrologic modelling or post-processing capability the study provides a wide range of hydrologic products that can be used without any expertise in the preceding steps. 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. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page. Small black dots indicate streamflow sites where naturalized flows were not available. 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. 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. #! O But as researchers continue to fine tune climate models, shifting demand for water now must be accounted for, say Washington State University scientists. A primary motivation for the study was to support planning at geographic scales ranging from relatively small river basins (e.g., planning studies in individual sub-basins, such as the Yakima or Okanagan basins) to main-stem planning studies for the CRB as a whole (e.g., planning studies for the Columbia River hydro system). (*Modified flows are essentially naturalized flows with a consistent level of consumptive demand for water supply subtracted for the entire time series.). 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). 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. 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). Warming of the global climate is unequivocal. 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 . 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. Because of space limitations, we will not be able to cover these alternative modelling efforts in this paper. Thus, stakeholders can select different products, using different downscaling approaches that are appropriate to their needs. The interested reader is directed to the CBCCSP report (Hamlet, Carrasco, et al., Citation2010a, Chapter 6) for a detailed discussion of methods and results. 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. The largest increases in flooding are in mixed-rain-and-snow basins whose mid-winter temperatures are presently within a few degrees of freezing. 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. Lows in the lower to mid 30s. 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. 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. Gusts up to 20 mph in the morning. The study was also unique in that this was the first time that these agencies had run their own reservoir operation models to assess climate change impacts in the CRB, an element of the study design which greatly increased the impact of the study conclusions in the agencies involved. Both floods (Q100) and extreme 7-day low flows (7Q10) increase in intensity for most of the river sites simulated. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. A family of greenhouse gas emissions scenarios used in the IPCC effort (Nakienovi et al. These approaches are also useful for avoiding biases in the streamflow simulations that result from systematic errors in gridded precipitation or temperature data. 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. unpublished manuscript). Table 1 summarizes the 77 future meteorological forcing datasets that were prepared for the study. 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. 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. The Hot and the Cold of It Summer comes on strong. 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). 7). The greater Mississippi River Basin (MRB) is the largest river basin in North America and the fourth largest basin in the world. In 2006, The Act relating to Water Resource Management in the Columbia River Basin [hereinafter HB2860] (2006) directed the WDOE to study water resources systems in Washington and identify specific projects in which to invest up to US$200 million provided by the bill to improve water resources infrastructure or management systems. Bias corrected inflows were produced to support the GENESYS and HYDSIM reservoir operations models, which are used by the NWPCC and BPA, respectively, for main-stem studies in the CRB (e.g., NWPCC, Citation2005). 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. 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. 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. .. slide 2 of 5. Figure 1. These emerging needs ultimately led to the CBCCSP, and similar efforts in BC led by PCIC (Werner, Schnorbus, Shrestha, & Eckstrand, Citation2013). 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. This daily disaggregation technique sometimes introduces an undesirable discontinuity in the bias-corrected daily values at the beginning and end of months. 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. 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. Oregon Water Resources Department. 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. Hamlet, and S.-Y. 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). 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). Flooding in the Columbia River basin expected to increase under climate change Date: February 10, 2021 Source: Oregon State University Summary: The Columbia River basin will see an increase. 7). Highs around 80. hbbd```b``z"I09 D.^`,L,=`v0fI" IA$C(QDrML@a`ig c 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). Extreme event statistics are calculated directly from the raw (i.e., not bias-adjusted) daily streamflows at each streamflow site, applying methods developed by Hamlet and Lettenmaier (Citation2007) and Mantua et al. Atmosphere Ocean 51. The Columbia River is the fourth largest river in North America. Elsner MM, et al. 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. Because both these effects increase flood risk in the simulations, the effects are unusually large in these basins (Fig. The Columbia Basin-Boundary region is already experiencing a climate that's 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). These hydrologic studies support detailed assessment of the economic impacts of climate change on irrigation and important crops in WA (Yorgey et al., Citation2011), which in turn will inform decisions regarding best use of funding to improve water supply benefits in WA under climate change. The BCSD runs are transient runs from 1950 to 2098 or 1950 to 2099 (depending on the GCM). 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. Also, at about this time, successful lawsuits challenging NEPA studies because they had not addressed climate change effects began to appear (Hamlet, Citation2011). Additional details on the approach and methods are available in the CBCCSP study report (Hamlet, Carrasco, et al., Citation2010a). These include the full meteorological forcings for the model (variables 18), a suite of water balance variables simulated by the model (variables 916), and five different PET metrics (variables 1721) (Elsner et al., Citation2010). Has spring snowpack declined in the Washington Cascades? 'High Uncertainty' is indicated when Mahalanobis Distance is >1. The Columbia Basin Climate Source is your one-stop destination for information about climate change, impacts, and action in this region. 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). To support ecosystem research and impacts assessment, CIG extended the project to include specific meteorological and hydrological variables needed to support ecological studies (see discussion in Section 3). These products are available for all 77 climate scenarios listed in Table 1, as well as for the historical simulation. YAKIMA Lower Columbia returned to the diamond on Friday with a double-header split against Yakima Valley. Climate Adaptation. Key products from the study include summary data for about 300 river locations in the PNW and monthly Geographic Information System products for 21 hydrologic variables over the entire study domain. Fig. 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. 3. 11). The city's average temperature is 57 F (14 C). Bias-correction procedures provide an alternative statistical approach that effectively avoids these difficulties (Shi, Wood, & Lettenmaier, Citation2008; Snover et al., Citation2003). 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. 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). The summary figures for water balance variables at each site have the same format, two examples of which are shown in Fig. Highs in the lower to mid 60s. Both calibration and validation periods were chosen to test model performance over a wide range of climate and streamflow conditions. These products are based solely on the CD and HD projections listed in Table 1. 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. 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. 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. 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. Corresponding shifts in the seasonal timing of streamflow are also relatively small in the Canadian CRB until late in the twenty-first century. In other words, dry areas east of the Cascade Range have less base-flow potential to lose with increasing evapotranspiration and loss of summer precipitation because the soil moisture is already at very low levels in late summer. 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. This has prompted the National Weather Service to issue a winter weather advisory for the Tri-Cities, Walla Walla, Hermiston, and surrounding areas in effect from 04:00 to 22:00 Sunday. This approach was partly based on practical limitations on time and computational resources but was also informed by previous experience using the VIC model at finer spatial scales. 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. 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.