Identification

Title

High resolution coupled climate-runoff simulations of seasonal snowfall over Colorado: A process study of current and warmer climate

Abstract

Climate change is expected to accelerate the hydrologic cycle, increase the fraction of precipitation that is rain, and enhance snowpack melting. The enhanced hydrological cycle is also expected to increase snowfall amounts due to increased moisture availability. These processes are examined in this paper in the Colorado Headwaters region through the use of a coupled high-resolution climate-runoff model. Four high-resolution simulations of annual snowfall over Colorado, U.S.A. are conducted. The simulations are verified using SNOwpack TELemetry (SNOTEL) data. Results are then presented regarding the grid spacing needed for appropriate simulation of snowfall. Finally, climate sensitivity is explored using a Pseudo Global Warming approach. The results show that proper spatial and temporal depiction of snowfall adequate for water resource and climate change purposes can be achieved with the appropriate choice of model-grid spacing and parameterizations. The Pseudo Global Warming simulations indicate enhanced snowfall on the order of 10-25% over the Colorado Headwaters region, with the enhancement being less in the core Headwaters region due to topographic reduction of precipitation upstream of the region (rain shadow effect). The main climate change impact is the enhanced melting at the lower elevation bound of the snowpack, and increased snowfall at higher elevations. The changes in peak snow mass are generally near zero due to these two compensating effects, and simulated wintertime total runoff is above current levels. The 1 April Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is reduced by 25% in the warmer climate, and the date of maximum SWE occurs 2-17 days prior to current climate results, consistent with previous studies.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7ns0w6d

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

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title

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reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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date type

publication

effective date

2011-06-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2011 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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None

Responsible organisations

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contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

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