EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON HYDROLOGY AND WATER RESOURCES IN THE COLUMBIA RIVER BASIN1

作者：Alan F. Hamlet, Dennis P. Lettenmaier · 发表于：JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association · 年份：1999 · DOI：10.1111/j.1752-1688.1999.tb04240.x · 被引用次数：484 · 研究领域：Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies、Climate variability and models、Hydrology and Drought Analysis

ABSTRACT: As part of the National Assessment of Climate Change, the implications of future climate predictions derived from four global climate models (GCMs) were used to evaluate possible future changes to Pacific Northwest climate, the surface water response of the Columbia River basin, and the ability of the Columbia River reservoir system to meet regional water resources objectives. Two representative GCM simulations from the Hadley Centre (HC) and Max Planck Institute (MPI) were selected from a group of GCM simulations made available via the National Assessment for climate change. From these simulations, quasi‐stationary, decadal mean temperature and precipitation changes were used to perturb historical records of precipitation and temperature data to create inferred conditions for 2025, 2045, and 2095. These perturbed records, which represent future climate in the experiments, were used to drive a macro‐scale hydrology model of the Columbia River at 1/8 degree resolution. The altered streamflows simulated for each scenario were, in turn, used to drive a reservoir model, from which the ability of the system to meet water resources objectives was determined relative to a simulated hydrologic base case (current climate). Although the two GCM simulations showed somewhat different seasonal patterns for temperature change, in general the simulations show reasonably consistent basin average increases in temperature of about 1.8–2.1°C for 2025, and about 2.3–2.9°C for 2045. The...