1 / 8

Implications of Climate Change on Global Streamflow Trends

Explore the impact of climate change on the water cycle at regional and global levels through shifts in precipitation, temperature, and streamflow patterns. This study uses climate models and historical data to predict future streamflow changes in various river basins, highlighting potential increases and decreases in water availability. 8 Relevant

roseanne-helen
Télécharger la présentation

Implications of Climate Change on Global Streamflow Trends

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Global pattern of trends in streamflow and water availability in a changing climate By Milly, PCD, DA Dunne, and AV Vecchia In: Nature vol. 438 (17), pp. 347-351 (2005)

  2. General Question How will climate change impact the water cycle on regional and global scales? -streamflow -precipitation -temperature

  3. Climate and Hydrology • Temperature, SVP • Precipitation shifts, regional • Streamflow=P-ET • when averaged over many years • for large river basins

  4. Methods, briefly • Streamflow volume • 165 large rivers, globally distributed • 28-99 years of streamflow data collection • Climate models • To predict streamflow from precipitation and temperature changes • 14 models aggregated • Approach: • Compare modeled streamflow to known streamflow • Predict future streamflow with most accurate models

  5. Regions of Predicted Streamflow Increase by 10-40%, during 2041-2060 La Plata Basin Eastern equatorial Africa http://upload.wikimedia.org www.coffeeproject.com www.gewex.org/LPB.htm high latitude North America and Eurasia

  6. Regions of Predicted Streamflow Decrease • by 10-30%, during 2041-2060 upload.wikimedia.org http://www.greatdreams.com/soeurope.jpg Southern Europe Southwest North America Middle East Southern Africa http://www.travelblog.org/pix/maps/middle-east.jpg http://www.acipco.com

  7. The Skeptics Say… • Runoff equates with “sustainable water availability”??? • Pollution • Groundwater • Irrigation • Questionable model accuracy • Large variability in each model’s predicted streamflow • Does aggregating the 14 most-accurate models solve the problem? • 28 vs. 99 years of data • Low correlation between observations and model output: .34 • Streamflow prediction assumptions: • Future greenhouse gas emissions • Volcanic activity • Solar activity • Temporal lag in streamflow, due to storage

  8. What’s Missing? • Further data collection? • Resource management implications? • Are the results valid, useful?

More Related