Quantitative Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on the Hydrology of the North Platte River Watershed, Wyoming
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 17, Issue 10
Abstract
The impact of climate change on water resources is a major issue for regions in the world. Climate parameters such as temperature and precipitation are expected to change in the future and could significantly impact available water resources. This paper assesses long-term water availability over the North Platte River watershed, Wyoming, by utilizing the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) hydrologic model and developing streamflow projections under anthropogenic climate change conditions. Uncertainties in the scenarios of climate change and global climate models are assessed by utilizing ensemble multiple models and multiple scenarios from the World Climate Research Programme’s database. The simulated streamflows are compared using an intermodel interscenario approach. Based on streamflow projections, there is a possibility of increased annual streamflow for this region through 2100, with maximum streamflow during 2085–2090. The simulated annual streamflows for future periods vary from −20 to 62% with respect to the baseline period (1971–2000). In the simulations, the wet months are getting wetter, whereas the summer months are found to be growing drier. The streamflow projections and the range of streamflow can be utilized by decision makers in future water supply and demand management study.
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Acknowledgments
This research is supported through the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Project, State of Wyoming, Wyoming Water Development Office (WWDO). The research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is supported by Grants NSF EPS-0814372, NOAA NA070AR4310228, DOE DE-FG02-08ER64709, and DOE DE-EE-0000716. The research at the University of Tennessee is supported by NSF AGS-1003393.
The authors would like to acknowledge the modeling groups, Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Inter-comparison (PCMDI) and WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modeling (WGCM), for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP3 multimodel dataset through the “Bias Corrected and Downscaled WCRP CMIP3 Climate Projections” archive at http://gdo-dcp.ucllnl.org/downscaled_cmip3_projections.
The authors would like to acknowledge the Surface Water Modeling Group at the University of Washington for making available the VIC model and the daily gridded meteorological data.
The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. Andy Wood for his personal time and effort in developing the bias-corrected and spatially disaggregated daily climate output from the GCM output that has been utilized in this research.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 17 • Issue 10 • October 2012
Pages: 1071 - 1083
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 9, 2011
Accepted: Nov 15, 2011
Published online: Nov 17, 2011
Published in print: Oct 1, 2012
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