Stern, M.A., and Seymour, W.A., 2023, Basin Characterization Model (BCMv8) for California Coastal Basins - Monthly Historical (water years 1896-2019) and Future (water years 2006-2099) Climate and Hydrology: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9B2AHUR.
Summary
This data release contains monthly 270-meter gridded Basin Characterization Model (BCMv8) climate inputs and hydrologic outputs for San Diego (SD). Gridded climate inputs include: precipitation (ppt), minimum temperature (tmn), maximum temperature (tmx), and potential evapotranspiration (pet). Gridded hydrologic variables include: actual evapotranspiration (aet), climatic water deficit (cwd), snowpack (pck), recharge (rch), runoff (run), and soil storage (str). The units for temperature variables are degrees Celsius, and all other variables are in millimeters. Monthly historical variables from water years 1896 to 2019 are summarized into water year files and long-term average summaries for water years 1981-2010. Four future climate [...]
Summary
This data release contains monthly 270-meter gridded Basin Characterization Model (BCMv8) climate inputs and hydrologic outputs for San Diego (SD). Gridded climate inputs include: precipitation (ppt), minimum temperature (tmn), maximum temperature (tmx), and potential evapotranspiration (pet). Gridded hydrologic variables include: actual evapotranspiration (aet), climatic water deficit (cwd), snowpack (pck), recharge (rch), runoff (run), and soil storage (str). The units for temperature variables are degrees Celsius, and all other variables are in millimeters. Monthly historical variables from water years 1896 to 2019 are summarized into water year files and long-term average summaries for water years 1981-2010. Four future climate scenarios were spatially downscaled from 6 kilometers to 270 meters, and run through the BCMv8 using the same model parameters. The future climate scenarios are all Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 and include: CanESM2, CNRM-CM5, HadGEM2-ES, and MIROC5 from California's Forth Climate Change Assessment. Future climate scenarios span from water year 2007 to 2099, and monthly variables were summarized by water year and the average 2070 to 2099 period. Streamflow for each calibration basin was calculated using a post processing Excel spreadsheet and BCMv8 recharge and runoff, and are provided in tabular comma separated *.csv files. Raster grids are in the NAD83 California Teale Albers, (meters) projection in an open format ascii text file (*.asc).
The Basin Characterization Model was developed to produce fine-scale gridded estimates of recharge, runoff, and other water balance components. These are natural estimates of the water balance components and do not reflect anthropogenic factors like irrigation, diversions, and other water management decisions.
