Projections and downscaling of 21st century temperatures, precipitation, radiative fluxes and winds for the Southwestern US, with focus on Lake Tahoe

Dettinger, Michael D.

doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0501-x

Cited by 28 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Compared to wet regions, dry regions are projected to have more severe drought conditions represented by SPEI. Those findings are generally consistent with what have been reported in previous studies [21,26,28,76]. A new finding of this study is that the coolest region, North Lahontan, tends to have the highest increases in both minimum and maximum temperature and a significant amount of increase in wet season precipitation, indicative of naturally increasing flood risk in this region.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

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Projected Changes in Precipitation, Temperature, and Drought across California’s Hydrologic Regions in the 21st Century

He¹,

Schwarz²,

Lynn³

et al. 2018

Climate

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This study investigated potential changes in future precipitation, temperature, and drought across 10 hydrologic regions in California. The latest climate model projections on these variables through 2099 representing the current state of the climate science were applied for this purpose. Changes were explored in terms of differences from a historical baseline as well as the changing trend. The results indicate that warming is expected across all regions in all temperature projections, particularly in late-century. There is no such consensus on precipitation, with projections mostly ranging from −25% to +50% different from the historical baseline. There is no statistically significant increasing or decreasing trend in historical precipitation and in the majority of the projections on precipitation. However, on average, precipitation is expected to increase slightly for most regions. The increases in late-century are expected to be more pronounced than the increases in mid-century. The study also shows that warming in summer and fall is more significant than warming in winter and spring. The study further illustrates that, compared to wet regions, dry regions are projected to become more arid. The inland eastern regions are expecting higher increases in temperature than other regions. Particularly, the coolest region, North Lahontan, tends to have the highest increases in both minimum and maximum temperature and a significant amount of increase in wet season precipitation, indicative of increasing flood risks in this region. Overall, these findings are meaningful from both scientific and practical perspectives. From a scientific perspective, these findings provide useful information that can be utilized to improve the current flood and water supply forecasting models or develop new predictive models. From a practical perspective, these findings can help decision-makers in making different adaptive strategies for different regions to address adverse impacts posed by those potential changes.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…No projections indicate any decreases for any region, which is different from precipitation projections that have no such consensus. This is also reported in previous studies [30,[75][76][77][78][79]. Comparing two future periods, higher increases are expected in the late-century.…”

Section: Temperaturesupporting

confidence: 88%

Projected Changes in Precipitation, Temperature, and Drought across California’s Hydrologic Regions in the 21st Century

He¹,

Schwarz²,

Lynn³

et al. 2018

Climate

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“…For example, the current reservoir operation rule curves in the Central Valley are mostly built on historical record of runoff, precipitation, and temperature with the assumption being no changes in those variables, while this study shows increasing warm extremes in a range of areas across the Central Valley. The warming trend is projected to continue [70][71][72], mostly likely leading to increased flooding risks [73,74] and more precipitation falling as rainfall instead of snowfall [75,76]. The traditional operation rules need to be updated accordingly to better manage water resources to satisfy increasing and often competing demands in California.…”

Section: Implications Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Extremes of Temperature, Precipitation, and Runoff in California’s Central Valley During 1949–2010

He¹,

Russo²,

Anderson³

et al. 2017

Hydrology

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This study presents a comprehensive trend analysis of precipitation, temperature, and runoff extremes in the Central Valley of California from an operational perspective. California is prone to those extremes of which any changes could have long-lasting adverse impacts on the society, economy, and environment of the State. Available long-term operational datasets of 176 forecasting basins in six forecasting groups and inflow to 12 major water supply reservoirs are employed. A suite of nine precipitation indices and nine temperature indices derived from historical (water year 1949-2010) six-hourly precipitation and temperature data for these basins are investigated, along with nine indices based on daily unimpaired inflow to those 12 reservoirs in a slightly shorter period. Those indices include daily maximum precipitation, temperature, runoff, snowmelt, and others that are critical in informing decision making in water resources management. The non-parametric Mann-Kendall trend test is applied with a trend-free pre-whitening procedure in identifying trends in these indices. Changes in empirical probability distributions of individual study indices in two equal sub-periods are also investigated. The results show decreasing number of cold nights, increasing number of warm nights, increasing maximum temperature, and increasing annual mean minimum temperature at about 60% of the study area. Changes in cold extremes are generally more pronounced than their counterparts in warm extremes, contributing to decreasing diurnal temperature ranges. In general, the driest and coldest Tulare forecasting group observes the most consistent changes among all six groups. Analysis of probability distributions of temperature indices in two sub-periods yields similar results. In contrast, changes in precipitation extremes are less consistent spatially and less significant in terms of change rate. Only four indices exhibit statistically significant changes in less than 10% of the study area. On the regional scale, only the American forecasting group shows significant decreasing trends in two indices including maximum six-hourly precipitation and simple daily intensity index. On the other hand, runoff exhibits strong resilience to the changes noticed in temperature and precipitation extremes. Only the most southern reservoir (Lake Isabella) shows significant earlier peak timing of snowmelt. Additional analysis on runoff indices using different trend analysis methods and different analysis periods also indicates limited changes in these runoff indices. Overall, these findings are meaningful in guiding reservoir operations and water resources planning and management practices. IntroductionClimatic and weather-induced hazards including excessive heat, flooding, and drought are often economically, environmentally, and societally disruptive [1][2][3]. Previous studies have suggested that such hazards are typically caused by changes in the frequency and intensity rather than the mean of hydro-climatic variables including precipita...

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“…For this reason, reanalysis data were also used in the assessment of the variability of thunderstorm phenomena occurrences in the most recent IPCC report (2013). However, they are not sufficient as far as spatial resolution is concerned, and consequently, numerous attempts in employing downscaling methods and various types of climatic models have been made (e.g., Cavazos and Hewitson 2005;Yoshimura and Kanamitsu 2008;Dettinger 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of RegCM gridded dataset for thunderstorm favorable conditions analysis over Poland—climatological approach

Walawender

Kielar

Ustrnul

2015

Theor Appl Climatol

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The paper analyzes equivalent data for a low density meteorological station network (spatially discontinuous data) and poor temporal homogeneity of thunderstorm observational data. Due to that, a Regional Climate Model (RegCM) dataset was tested. The Most Unstable Convective Available Potential Energy index value (MUCAPE) above the 200 J kg −1 threshold was selected as a predictor describing favorable conditions for the occurrence of thunderstorms. The quality of the dataset was examined through a comparison between model results and soundings from several aerological stations in Central Europe. Good, statistically significant (0.05 significance level) results were obtained through correlation analysis; the value of Pearson's correlation coefficient was above 0.8 in every single case. Then, using methods associated with gridded climatology, data series for 44 weather stations were derived and an analysis of correlation between RegCM modeled data and in situ thunderstorm observations was conducted with coefficients in the range of 0.75-0.90. The possibility of employing the dataset in thunderstorm climatology analysis was checked via a few examples by mapping monthly, seasonal, and annual means. Moreover, longterm variability and trend analysis along with modeled MUCAPE data were tested. As a result, the RegCM modeled MUCAPE gridded dataset was proposed as an easily available, suitable, and valuable predictor for thunderstorm climatology analysis and mapping. Finally, some limitations are discussed and recommendations for further improvements are given.

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Projections and downscaling of 21st century temperatures, precipitation, radiative fluxes and winds for the Southwestern US, with focus on Lake Tahoe

Cited by 28 publications

References 23 publications

Projected Changes in Precipitation, Temperature, and Drought across California’s Hydrologic Regions in the 21st Century

Projected Changes in Precipitation, Temperature, and Drought across California’s Hydrologic Regions in the 21st Century

Changes in Extremes of Temperature, Precipitation, and Runoff in California’s Central Valley During 1949–2010

Use of RegCM gridded dataset for thunderstorm favorable conditions analysis over Poland—climatological approach

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