Impacts of climate change on Blue Nile flows using bias-corrected GCM scenarios

Elshamy, Mohamed; Seierstad, Ivar A.; Sorteberg, Asgeir

doi:10.5194/hess-13-551-2009

Cited by 209 publications

(159 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The headwater starts at Lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands, and most of the flow originates from a large number of downstream tributaries. The river has cut a deep canyon through the highlands and drains a large portion of western Ethiopia (Elshamy et al, 2009). Elevations range from $4000 m in the Ethiopian highlands to $500 m at the EthiopiaSudan border.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Upper Blue Nile basin water budget from a multi-model perspective

Jung

Getirana

Policelli

et al. 2017

Journal of Hydrology

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a b s t r a c tImproved understanding of the water balance in the Blue Nile is of critical importance because of increasingly frequent hydroclimatic extremes under a changing climate. The intercomparison and evaluation of multiple land surface models (LSMs) associated with different meteorological forcing and precipitation datasets can offer a moderate range of water budget variable estimates. In this context, two LSMs, Noah version 3.3 (Noah3.3) and Catchment LSM version Fortuna 2.5 (CLSMF2.5) coupled with the Hydrological Modeling and Analysis Platform (HyMAP) river routing scheme are used to produce hydrological estimates over the region. The two LSMs were forced with different combinations of two reanalysis-based meteorological datasets from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications datasets (i.e., MERRA-Land and MERRA-2) and three observation-based precipitation datasets, generating a total of 16 experiments. Modeled evapotranspiration (ET), streamflow, and terrestrial water storage estimates were evaluated against the Atmosphere-Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) ET, insitu streamflow observations, and NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) products, respectively. Results show that CLSMF2.5 provided better representation of the water budget variables than Noah3.3 in terms of Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient when considering all meteorological forcing datasets and precipitation datasets. The model experiments forced with observation-based products, the Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA), outperform those run with MERRA-Land and MERRA-2 precipitation. The results presented in this paper would suggest that the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Land Data Assimilation System incorporate CLSMF2.5 and HyMAP routing scheme to better represent the water balance in this region.

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Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Upper Blue Nile basin water budget from a multi-model perspective

Jung

Getirana

Policelli

et al. 2017

Journal of Hydrology

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“…Daily meteorological data such as temperature and precipitation were collected from the Ministry of Water Resources and Electricity and other different sources for the period (Beyene et al, 2010;Taye et al, 2011;Enyew et al, 2014;Gebre et al, 2015). The MIROC-ESM and CCSM4 (Jury, 2015) models similarly have been selected (Elshamy et al, 2009;Beyene et al, 2010;Setegn et al, 2011). However, for CCSM4, there is a clear difference in rainfall trend (base period) in some months.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The climate change in the Upper Blue Nile basin has been addressed by many previous studies using different climate models and techniques (Elshamy et al, 2009;Beyene et al, 2010;Taye et al, 2011;Setegn et al, 2011;Enyew et al, 2014;Gebre et al, 2015). The Dinder River (DR) is one of the largest tributaries of the Blue Nile River and a major water resource in the Dinder National Park (DNP).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of climate change under CMIP5 RCP scenarios on the streamflow in the Dinder River and ecosystem habitats in Dinder National Park, Sudan

Basheer

Lü

Omer

et al. 2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The fate of seasonal river ecosystem habitats under climate change essentially depends on the changes in annual recharge of the river, which are related to alterations in precipitation and evaporation over the river basin. Therefore, the change in climate conditions is expected to significantly affect hydrological and ecological components, particularly in fragmented ecosystems. This study aims to assess the impacts of climate change on the streamflow in the Dinder River basin (DRB) and to infer its relative possible effects on the Dinder National Park (DNP) ecosystem habitats in Sudan. Four global circulation models (GCMs) from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 and two statistical downscaling approaches combined with a hydrological model (SWAT -the Soil and Water Assessment Tool) were used to project the climate change conditions over the study periods 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s. The results indicated that the climate over the DRB will become warmer and wetter under most scenarios. The projected precipitation variability mainly depends on the selected GCM and downscaling approach. Moreover, the projected streamflow is quite sensitive to rainfall and temperature variation, and will likely increase in this century. In contrast to drought periods during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the predicted climate change is likely to affect ecosystems in DNP positively and promote the ecological restoration for the habitats of flora and fauna.

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“…[5] used two conceptual hydrological models that were calibrated and used to carry out climate change impact assessment for two future Special Report on Emissions Scenario (SRES) A1B and B1 for 2050s using 17 GCMs for Nile basin. The result of the study has showed that there is unclear trend (like [9] and [10]) in Lake Tana sub-basin for projected flows (mean and high/low) and this is mainly attributed to Global Climate Models (GCMs) uncertainty.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validation of General Climate Models (GCMs) over Upper Blue Nile River Basin, Ethiopia

Bokke¹,

Taye²,

Willems³

et al. 2017

ACS

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Potential of climate change impact assessment on hydrology and water resources of rivers is increasing from time to time due to its importance for water resources planning and management in the future. In order to carry out climate change impact studies, using General Climate Models (GCM) is a common practice and before using any of these models, it is essential to validate the models for the selected study area. Blue Nile River is one of the most sensitive rivers towards climate change impacts. The main source of Blue Nile River is Lake Tana where the two adjacent tributary rivers, Ribb & Gumera, are located and the main object of this paper is validation of current 15 GCM outputs (IPCC-AR5) over these two rivers using empirical quantile perturbation downscaling technique. The performance of the downscaled outputs of GCMs were evaluated using statistical indicators and graphical techniques for evapotranspiration, rainfall and temperature variables using observed daily meteorological datasets collected from five stations (Addis Zemen, Bahirdar, Debretabor, Woreta and Yifag) for the control period 1971-2000. Analysis results showed that the correlation coefficient of all models for mean monthly (MM) rainfall are 12% -45%; and the Bias and RMSE −46 mm to +169 mm and 62 mm to 241 mm, respectively. The Bias and RMSE for MM maximum temperature are −2.5˚C to +35˚C; and 1˚C to 35˚C whereas for MM minimum temperature −6˚C to +22˚C and 1.7˚C to 23˚C, respectively. For the case of MM evapotranspiration, which is estimated using FAOPenman-Montheith equation, the Bias and RMSE values vary from −35 mm to +10 mm; and +11 mm to +36 mm, respectively. The variation in the performance level of these models indicates that there is high uncertainty in the GCM outputs. Therefore, to use these GCM models for any climate change studies in the basin, careful selection has to be made.

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Impacts of climate change on Blue Nile flows using bias-corrected GCM scenarios

Cited by 209 publications

References 30 publications

Upper Blue Nile basin water budget from a multi-model perspective

Upper Blue Nile basin water budget from a multi-model perspective

Impacts of climate change under CMIP5 RCP scenarios on the streamflow in the Dinder River and ecosystem habitats in Dinder National Park, Sudan

Validation of General Climate Models (GCMs) over Upper Blue Nile River Basin, Ethiopia

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