Climate and water availability indicators in Canada: Challenges and a way forward. Part II – Historic trends

Mortsch, Linda; Cohen, Stewart; Koshida, Grace

doi:10.1080/07011784.2015.1006024

Cited by 22 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 101 publications

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“…Pervasive warming has led to notable declines in the fraction of winter P falling as snow (Vincent et al, 2015;Dumanski et al, 2015). Historical variations and patterns of ET in western Canada have shown mixed trends, in part, due to the challenges with measurement, data availability, and modelling of ET (Mortsch et al, 2015). ET is affected by many variables, including precipitation, air temperature, surface and soil moisture availability, net radiation, wind speed, humidity, and vegetation characteristics.…”

Section: Process Interactions Changes and Their Influence On Water mentioning

confidence: 99%

Summary and synthesis of Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN) research in the interior of western Canada – Part 2: Future change in cryosphere, vegetation, and hydrology

DeBeer¹,

Wheater²,

Pomeroy³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. The interior of western Canada, like many similar cold mid- to high-latitude regions worldwide, is undergoing extensive and rapid climate and environmental change, which may accelerate in the coming decades. Understanding and predicting changes in coupled climate–land–hydrological systems are crucial to society, yet limited by lack of understanding of changes in cold region process responses and interactions, along with their representation in most current generation land surface and hydrological models. It is essential to consider the underlying processes and base predictive models on the proper physics, especially under conditions of non-stationarity where the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future and system trajectories can be unexpected. These challenges were forefront in the recently completed Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN), which assembled and focused a wide range of multi-disciplinary expertise to improve the understanding, diagnosis, and prediction of change over the cold interior of western Canada. CCRN advanced knowledge of fundamental cold region ecological and hydrological processes through observation and experimentation across a network of highly instrumented research basins and other sites. Significant efforts were made to improve the functionality and process representation, based on this improved understanding, within the fine-scale Cold Regions Hydrological Modelling (CRHM) platform and the large-scale Modélisation Environmentale Communautaire (MEC) – Surface and Hydrology (MESH) model. These models were, and continue to be, applied under past and projected future climates, and under current and expected future land and vegetation cover configurations to diagnose historical change and predict possible future hydrological responses. This second of two articles synthesizes the nature and understanding of cold region processes and Earth system responses to future climate, as advanced by CCRN. These include changing precipitation and moisture feedbacks to the atmosphere; altered snow regimes, changing balance of snowfall and rainfall, and glacier loss; vegetation responses to climate and the loss of ecosystem resilience to wildfire and disturbance; thawing permafrost and its influence on landscapes and hydrology; groundwater storage and cycling, and its connections to surface water; and stream and river discharge as influenced by the various drivers of hydrological change. Collective insights, expert elicitation, and model application are used to provide a synthesis of this change over the CCRN region for the late-21st century.

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Section: Process Interactions Changes and Their Influence On Water mentioning

confidence: 99%

Summary and synthesis of Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN) research in the interior of western Canada – Part 2: Future change in cryosphere, vegetation, and hydrology

DeBeer¹,

Wheater²,

Pomeroy³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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show abstract

“…Many studies have examined variability and trends in the magnitude, timing, and other characteristics of river discharge over Canada (e.g., see Koshida et al, 2015;Mortsch et al, 2015). Direct comparison of the results is often difficult due to differences in temporal analysis periods, statistical methodology, region of focus, and datasets (i.e., RHBN and non-RHBN).…”

Section: Changes In River Dischargementioning

confidence: 99%

Recent climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological changes over the interior of western Canada: a synthesis and review

DeBeer

Wheater

Carey

et al. 2015

Preprint

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Abstract. It is well-established that the Earth's climate system has warmed significantly over the past several decades, and in association there have been widespread changes in various other Earth system components. This has been especially prevalent in the cold regions of the northern mid to high-latitudes. Examples of these changes can be found within the western and northern interior of Canada, a region that exemplifies the scientific and societal issues faced in many other similar parts of the world, and where impacts have global-scale consequences. This region has been the geographic focus of a large amount of previous research on changing climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological Earth system components in recent decades, while current initiatives such as the Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN) seek to further develop the understanding and diagnosis of this change and hence improve predictive capacity. This paper provides an integrated review of the observed changes in these Earth system components and a concise and up-to-date regional picture of some of the temporal trends over the interior of western Canada since the mid or late-20th century. The focus is on air temperature, precipitation, seasonal snow cover, mountain glaciers, permafrost, freshwater ice cover, and river discharge. Important long-term observational networks and datasets are described, and qualitative linkages among the changing components are highlighted. Systematic warming and significant changes to precipitation, snow and ice regimes are unambiguous. However, integrated effects on streamflow are complex. It is argued that further diagnosis is required before predictions of future change can be made with confidence.

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“…Following the discussion in Parts I and II Mortsch et al 2015), projections of changes in drought occurrence are first considered. Several case studies have calculated changes in climate-based indicators for the Prairie Provinces, or southern Canada.…”

Section: Climate-based Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate and water availability indicators in Canada: Challenges and a way forward. Part III – Future scenarios

Cohen

Koshida²,

Mortsch

2015

Canadian Water Resources Journal / Revue canadienne des ressour

Self Cite

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Following from Parts I and II of this series (this issue), some common approaches for developing and assessing future scenarios of water availability are reviewed, along with recent case studies of Canadian watersheds. The results of future changes in drought related to climate change are influenced by the choice of indicators. For the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), small changes in drought frequency and severity are projected over southern Canada, reflecting the influence of increases in future annual precipitation only. However, assessments using the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) reveal dramatic increases in the potential for future droughts since this indicator incorporates the combined influences of higher temperatures, soil moisture capacity and precipitation to estimate evapotranspiration. Regarding projected changes in runoff, watersheds in British Columbia tend to show increases in annual and winter runoff. Some watersheds show projected decreases in summer runoff. In the southern Prairies, most watersheds show projected decreases in annual and summer runoff. In Ontario and Quebec, results are mixed. Lake levels in the Great Lakes are projected to decline under most scenarios, but results differ between regional and global climate model-based scenarios due to differences in how lake evaporation is calculated. In New Brunswick, Labrador and northern Quebec, streamflow is projected to increase. Uncertainties in future projections emerge due to differences between climate scenario generating methods, and between hydrologic models used for the assessments. This paper concludes with some thoughts on addressing important research questions related to future scenarios of water availability in Canada. For scenario-based assessments, hydrologic model inter-comparisons might yield some useful insights into uncertainties in model structure that affect evaporation, evapotranspiration and snowmelt calculations. Scenarios developed for assessments should include both future climate and projected land use/cover changes and, where necessary, integration of potential reduction in glacier volume. Finally, as scenarios from regional climate models become more readily available, there may be more opportunity to explore how runoff projections could be applied to basin-scale routing models. À la suite des parties I et II de cette série, des méthodes d'élaboration et d'évaluation de futurs scénarios concernant la disponibilité de l'eau seront examinées, ainsi que des études de cas portant sur les bassins versants du Canada. Les résultats des futurs changements des conditions de sécheresse liés aux changements climatiques sont influencés par le choix des indicateurs. Pour l'indice de précipitation standardisé (SPI), des changements mineurs liés à la fréquence et la gravité des sécheresses sont prévus dans le sud du Canada, indiquant l'influence de l'augmentation des futures précipitations annuelles seulement. Cependant, les évaluations utilisant l'indice de sévérité de sécheresse de Palmer (ISSP) révèlent une aug...

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Climate and water availability indicators in Canada: Challenges and a way forward. Part II – Historic trends

Cited by 22 publications

References 101 publications

Summary and synthesis of Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN) research in the interior of western Canada – Part 2: Future change in cryosphere, vegetation, and hydrology

Summary and synthesis of Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN) research in the interior of western Canada – Part 2: Future change in cryosphere, vegetation, and hydrology

Recent climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological changes over the interior of western Canada: a synthesis and review

Climate and water availability indicators in Canada: Challenges and a way forward. Part III – Future scenarios

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