The physical impact of the late 1980s climate regime shift on Swiss rivers and lakes

North, Ryan P.; Livingstone, David M.; Hari, Renata E.; Köster, Oliver; Niederhauser, Pius; Kipfer, Rolf

doi:10.5268/iw-3.3.560

Cited by 50 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…The cut-off length of the test corresponds to a low-pass filter, so that regimes with a shorter length are disregarded in the analysis (Rodionov and Overland, 2005). Here, we set the cut-off length to 10 years as atmospheric oscillations often occur at decadal intervals (Overland et al, 2008). Furthermore, the Huber weight parameter (set to 1 in our study) included in the STARS procedure improves the treatment of outliers by weighting them proportionally to their deviation from the mean value (Overland et al, 2008).…”

Section: Regime Shift Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, we here apply a sequential t test analysis for regime shifts (STARS) to detect possible abrupt climate regime shifts (CRSs) in the temperature time series (Rodionov, 2004;Rodionov and Overland, 2005). The STARS method has been successfully used by recent studies to identify abrupt changes in the longterm mean of environmental time series (Marty, 2008;North et al, 2013) and GWT time series (Figura et al, 2011). STARS is a parametric test that can detect multiple regime shifts and needs no a priori assumption for the timing of possible shifts.…”

Section: Regime Shift Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Table 3 presents the assumed subsurface thermal properties for each well for both the saturated and unsaturated zones. A potential range in these values was estimated from literature values taking into account variations in lithology obtained from drilling logs as well as the variability of water content in the unsaturated zone ranging from dry to saturated conditions (VDI, 2010;Menberg et al, 2013). Because we consider temperature rise at different depths below the water table within the aquifer, the effective thermal diffusivities utilized in the analytical solution for each of the four locations were obtained from a weighted arithmetic average (weighted by zone thickness) of the saturated and unsaturated zone thermal diffusivities.…”

Section: Analytical Solutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we set the cut-off length to 10 years as atmospheric oscillations often occur at decadal intervals (Overland et al, 2008). Furthermore, the Huber weight parameter (set to 1 in our study) included in the STARS procedure improves the treatment of outliers by weighting them proportionally to their deviation from the mean value (Overland et al, 2008). As pointed out by Seidel and Lanzante (2004), atmospheric data tend to be highly temporally auto-correlated, so that especially in short time series, spurious regime shifts may be detected due to serial correlation (Rudnick and Davis, 2003).…”

Section: Regime Shift Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Figura et al (2011) show that temperature variations in Swiss aquifers that are recharged by river water through bank infiltration can be related to changes in climate oscillations systems by applying a statistical regime shift analysis. Characterizing changes in time series of various climatic, physical and biological parameters with the concept of abrupt regime shifts has been the focus of numerous studies in the last 2 decades (e.g., Hare and Mantua, 2000;Overland et al, 2008). In this context, a regime is often defined as a period with quasi-stable behavior or with a quantifiable quasiequilibrium state (deYoung et al, 2004), and accordingly a rapid transition between states with differing average characteristics over multi-annual to multi-decadal periods is referred to as a regime shift (Bakun, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Observed groundwater temperature response to recent climate change

Menberg

Blum

Kurylyk

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

130

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Abstract. Climate change is known to have a considerable influence on many components of the hydrological cycle. Yet, the implications for groundwater temperature, as an important driver for groundwater quality, thermal use and storage, are not yet comprehensively understood. Furthermore, few studies have examined the implications of climate-change-induced groundwater temperature rise for groundwater-dependent ecosystems. Here, we examine the coupling of atmospheric and groundwater warming by employing stochastic and deterministic models. Firstly, several decades of temperature time series are statistically analyzed with regard to climate regime shifts (CRSs) in the long-term mean. The observed increases in shallow groundwater temperatures can be associated with preceding positive shifts in regional surface air temperatures, which are in turn linked to global air temperature changes. The temperature data are also analyzed with an analytical solution to the conductionadvection heat transfer equation to investigate how subsurface heat transfer processes control the propagation of the surface temperature signals into the subsurface. In three of the four monitoring wells, the predicted groundwater temperature increases driven by the regime shifts at the surface boundary condition generally concur with the observed groundwater temperature trends. Due to complex interactions at the ground surface and the heat capacity of the unsaturated zone, the thermal signals from distinct changes in air temperature are damped and delayed in the subsurface, causing a more gradual increase in groundwater temperatures. These signals can have a significant impact on largescale groundwater temperatures in shallow and economically important aquifers. These findings demonstrate that shallow groundwater temperatures have responded rapidly to recent climate change and thus provide insight into the vulnerability of aquifers and groundwater-dependent ecosystems to future climate change.

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Section: Regime Shift Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Regime Shift Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Analytical Solutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Regime Shift Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Observed groundwater temperature response to recent climate change

Menberg

Blum

Kurylyk

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

130

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Prediction of river water temperature: a comparison between a new family of hybrid models and statistical approaches

Piccolroaz

Calamita

Majone

et al. 2016

Hydrological Processes

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Abstract:River water temperature is a key physical variable controlling several chemical, biological and ecological processes. Its reliable prediction is a main issue in many environmental applications, which however is hampered by data scarcity, when using datademanding deterministic models, and modelling limitations, when using simpler statistical models. In this work we test a suite of models belonging to air2stream family, which are characterized by a hybrid formulation that combines a physical derivation of the key equation with a stochastic calibration of parameters. The air2stream models rely solely on air temperature and streamflow, and are of similar complexity as standard statistical models. The performances of the different versions of air2stream in predicting river water temperature are compared with those of the most common statistical models typically used in the literature. To this aim, a dataset of 38 Swiss rivers is used, which includes rivers classified into four different categories according to their hydrological characteristics: low-land natural rivers, lake outlets, snow-fed rivers and regulated rivers. The results of the analysis provide practical indications regarding the type of model that is most suitable to simulate river water temperature across different time scales (from daily to seasonal) and for different hydrological regimes. A model intercomparison exercise suggests that the family of air2stream hybrid models generally outperforms statistical models, while cross-validation conducted over a 30-year period indicates that they can be suitably adopted for long-term analyses.

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On the predictability of lake surface temperature using air temperature in a changing climate: A case study for Lake Tahoe (U.S.A.)

Piccolroaz

Healey

Lenters

et al. 2017

Limnology & Oceanography

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Can we predict long‐term trends of lake surface temperature based on air temperature alone? We explore this question by analyzing the performance of a hybrid model (air2water) as a predictive tool for defining scenarios of lake surface temperature in the framework of climate change studies. Employing Lake Tahoe (U.S.A.) as a case study, we apply the model using different air temperature datasets (in situ measurements, gridded observations, and downscaled General Circulation Models). Through a data‐driven calibration of the model parameters based on surface water temperature records, we show that air2water provides good performance (root mean square error ∼ 0.5°C, on a monthly scale) regardless of the input dataset. The model is able to accurately capture the historical long‐term trend and interannual fluctuations over decades (from 1969 to present), using only 7 yr of monthly measurements of surface water temperature for calibration. Additionally, when used to predict future surface water temperature of the lake, air2water produces the same projections irrespective of the air temperature dataset used to drive the model. This is certainly desirable, but not immediately expected when using a relatively simple model. Overall, the results suggest the high potential and robustness of air2water as a predictive tool for climate change assessment. Lake surface temperature warming of up to 1.1°C (RCP 4.5) and 2.9°C (RCP 8.5) was simulated at the end of the 21st century during summer months in Lake Tahoe. Such a scenario, if realized, would lead to serious consequences on lake water chemistry, primary productivity, plankton community structure, and nutrient cycling.

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The physical impact of the late 1980s climate regime shift on Swiss rivers and lakes

Cited by 50 publications

References 39 publications

Observed groundwater temperature response to recent climate change

Observed groundwater temperature response to recent climate change

Prediction of river water temperature: a comparison between a new family of hybrid models and statistical approaches

On the predictability of lake surface temperature using air temperature in a changing climate: A case study for Lake Tahoe (U.S.A.)

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