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Future Climate and Hydrology from Twenty Localized Constructed Analog (LOCA) Scenarios and the Basin Characterization Model (BCMv8)
This data release contains monthly 270-meter resolution Basin Characterization Model (BCMv8) climate and hydrologic variables for Localized Constructed Analog (LOCA; Pierce et al., 2014)-downscaled Global Climate Models (GCMs) for Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 (medium-low emissions) and 8.5 (high emissions) for hydrologic California. The 20 future climate scenarios consist of ten GCMs with RCP 4.5 and 8.5 each: ACCESS 1.0, CanESM2, CCSM4, CESM1-BGC, CMCC-CMS, CNRM-CM5, GFDL-CM3, HadGEM2-CC, HadGEM2-ES, and MIROC5. The LOCA climate scenarios span water years 1950 to 2099 with greenhouse-gas forcings beginning in 2006. The LOCA downscaling method has been shown to produce better estimates of extreme...
Watershed control of hydrologic sources and thermal conditions in SW Alaska streams: a framework for forecasting effects of changing climate
Western Alaska is one of the fastest warming regions on the globe and recent trends are expected to continue into the next century, likely having substantial effects on the aquatic resources of this region. While increased air temperatures will have direct effects on water temperatures, indirect effects due to changes in precipitation, groundwater characteristics, and flow regimes may have much larger effects on aquatic ecosystems. Coastal watersheds of Western Alaska are expected to receive 25-50% more snow and 18-25% more rain in the next century. Future “climate warming” may actually cool some streams if the ratio of snow to rain increases for coastal watersheds, while rain-dominated streams are likely to become...
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Forecasting Changes in Sagebrush Distribution and Abundance Under Climate Change: Integration of Spatial, Temporal, and Mechanistic Models
FY2014Although the future of sage grouse depends on the future of sagebrush, we have limited ability to anticipate impacts of climate change on sagebrush populations. Current efforts to forecast sagebrush habitat typically rely on species distribution models (SDMs), which suffer from a variety of well-known weaknesses. However, by integrating SDMs with complementary research approaches, such as historical data analysis and mechanistic models, we can provide increased confidence in projections of habitat change. Our goal is to forecast the effect of climate change on the distribution and abundance of big sagebrush in order to inform conservation planning, and sage grouse management in particular, across the Intermountain...
Tree die-off, driven by extreme drought and exacerbated by a warming climate, is occurring rapidly across every wooded continent—threatening carbon sinks and other ecosystem services provided by forests and woodlands. Forecasting the spatial patterns of tree die-off in response to drought is a priority for the management and conservation of forested ecosystems under projected future hotter and drier climates. Several thresholds derived from drought-metrics have been proposed to predict mortality of Pinus edulis, a model tree species in many studies of drought-induced tree die-off. To improve future capacity to forecast tree mortality, we used a severe drought as a natural experiment. We compared the ability of existing...
Categories: Publication; Types: Citation
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Hydrologic Monitoring of Glacier-Influenced Watersheds (Hulahula Gage)
The USGS and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Staff operate and maintain a streamgage at Hulahula River near Kaktovik, Alaska. Data from this station is necessary to complement glacier mass-balance studies and provide information necessary to project stream flow regimes under various scenarios of climate change. This project includes operation, acquiring real-time data, analysis of the data, and internet access. The gauge continues to operate as of 2017.
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