The evolution of climate change impact studies on hydrology and water resources in California

Potential global climate change impacts on hydrology pose a threat to water resources systems throughout the world. The California water system is especially vulnerable to global warming due to its dependence on mountain snow accumulation and the snowmelt process. Since 1983, more than 60 studies have investigated climate change impacts on hydrology and water resources in California. These studies can be categorized in three major fields: (1) Studies of historical trends of streamflow and snowpack in order to determine if there is any evidence of climate change in the geophysical record; (2) Studies of potential future predicted effects of climate change on streamflow and; (3) Studies that use those predicted changes in natural runoff to determine their economic, ecologic, or institutional impacts. In this paper we review these studies with an emphasis on methodological procedures. We provide for each category of studies a summary of significant conclusions and potential areas for future work.     

Bright water: hydrosols, water conservation and climate change

Because air?Cwater and water?Cair interfaces are equally refractive, cloud droplets and microbubbles dispersed in bodies of water reflect sunlight in much the same way. The lifetime of sunlight-reflecting microbubbles, and hence the scale on which they may be applied, depends on Stokes Law and the influence of ambient or added surfactants. Small bubbles backscatter light more efficiently than large ones, opening the possibility of using highly dilute micron-radius hydrosols to substantially brighten surface waters. Such microbubbles can noticeably increase water surface reflectivity, even at volume fractions of parts per million and such loadings can be created at an energy cost as low as J m^???2 to initiate and mW m^???2 to sustain. Increasing water albedo in this way can reduce solar energy absorption by as much as 100 W m^???2, potentially reducing equilibrium temperatures of standing water bodies by several Kelvins. While aerosols injected into the stratosphere tend to alter climate globally, hydrosols can be used to modulate surface albedo, locally and reversibly, without risk of degrading the ozone layer or altering the color of the sky. The low energy cost of microbubbles suggests a new approach to solar radiation management in water conservation and geoengineering: Don??t dim the Sun; Brighten the water.     

Assessing the impact of NPP tritium discharges on water bodies

The sources of tritium production at NPPs are considered. The contemporary data on the tritium concentration in the rivers and reservoirs of Russia are presented. The Russian and foreign standards for the permissible tritium concentration in drinking water are compared. The forecast is computed of tritium concentration in a hypothetical river polluted with NPP discharges which meets the EUR tritium discharge requirements. It is demonstrated that tritium discharges from projected NPPs may reliably meet the requirements established by population exposure dose safety standards if general safety rules for tritium discharges to the environment are observed, the correct scheme of water body management is used, and the water use is reasonable.     

Lagrangian transport of water vapor and cloud water in the ECHAM4 GCM and its impact on the cold bias

The Lagrangian advection scheme ATTILA has been applied for the transport of water vapor and cloud water in the general circulation model (GCM) ECHAM4.L39(DLR) (E39) instead of the operational semi-Lagrangian transport scheme (SLT). ATTILA is a purely Lagrangian scheme that is numerically non-diffusive, while the operational semi-Lagrangian scheme exhibits a considerable numerical diffusion in the presence of sharp gradients. The model version E39/SLT significantly overestimates the water vapor mixing ratio in the extratropical lowermost stratosphere (wet bias) by a factor of 3–5 compared to HALOE observations. Compared to E39/SLT, E39/ATTILA shows substantially reduced water vapor mixing ratios in the extratropical lowermost stratosphere up to 70%, and a steeper meridional water vapor gradient in the subtropics which is in better agreement with observations. Furthermore, the temperature distribution as simulated with E39/SLT is characterized by a pronounced cold temperature bias in the extratropical lowermost stratosphere (cold bias) and in the polar stratosphere above 50 hPa in winter (cold pole). The improvements concerning the water vapor distribution in E39/ATTILA lead to a substantial reduction of the simulated cold bias by approximately 5–7 K which also results in a better representation of the modeled tropopause, especially in the extratropics. Sensitivity studies indicate that the warming of the extratropical lowermost stratosphere in E39/ATTILA is directly related to the reduced wet bias resulting in a less infrared radiative cooling. Additionally, the cold pole problem is also slightly reduced in E39/ATTILA by approximately 2–5 K.     

Climate change impact on water and salt balances: an assessment of the impact of climate change on catchment salt and water balances in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia

Climate change has potentially significant implications for hydrology and the quantity and quality of water resources. This study investigated the impacts of climate change and revegetation on water and salt balance, and stream salt concentration for catchments within the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia. The Biophysical Capacity to Change model was used with climate change scenarios obtained using the CSIRO DARLAM 125 (125 km resolution) and Cubic Conformal (50 km resolution) regional climate models. These models predicted up to 25% reduction in mean annual rainfall and a similar magnitude of increase in potential evapotranspiration by 2070. Relatively modest changes in rainfall and temperature can lead to significant reductions in mean annual runoff and salt yield and increases in stream salt concentrations within the Basin. The modelled reductions in mean annual runoff were up to 45% in the wetter/cooler southern catchments and up to 64% in the drier/hotter western and northern catchments. The maximum reductions in salt yield were estimated to be up to 34% in the southern catchments and up to 49% in the northern and western catchments. These changes are associated with average catchment rainfall decreases of 13 to 21%. The results suggest that percentage changes in rainfall will be amplified in runoff. This study demonstrates that climate change poses significant challenges to natural resource management in Australia.     

Assessment of groundwater impact on water quality in the built-up areas at the Lower Don

The impact is assessed that the groundwater flow from the built-up areas on the left bank of the Don River in the Rostov oblast produces on the chemical composition and quality of surface water in the lower river reaches. It is demonstrated that the total average annual groundwater flow from the built-up areas on the left river bank is very small and equals 0.002 km3/year on average or 0.01% of the average annual water flow in the estuarine outlet. Despite the rather high degree of contamination of groundwater and the high content of principal ions, this causes the insignificant impact of groundwater runoff on water quality in the Lower Don. The average total mass of substances that annually come from the left-bank urbanized areas in the groundwater flow is about 4.9 x 10³ t or 0.04% of total mass of substances transported by the Don River to the Taganrog Bay.     

A global assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity

This paper presents a global scale assessment of the impact of climate change on water scarcity. Patterns of climate change from 21 Global Climate Models (GCMs) under four SRES scenarios are applied to a global hydrological model to estimate water resources across 1339 watersheds. The Water Crowding Index (WCI) and the Water Stress Index (WSI) are used to calculate exposure to increases and decreases in global water scarcity due to climate change. 1.6 (WCI) and 2.4 (WSI) billion people are estimated to be currently living within watersheds exposed to water scarcity. Using the WCI, by 2050 under the A1B scenario, 0.5 to 3.1 billion people are exposed to an increase in water scarcity due to climate change (range across 21 GCMs). This represents a higher upper-estimate than previous assessments because scenarios are constructed from a wider range of GCMs. A substantial proportion of the uncertainty in the global-scale effect of climate change on water scarcity is due to uncertainty in the estimates for South Asia and East Asia. Sensitivity to the WCI and WSI thresholds that define water scarcity can be comparable to the sensitivity to climate change pattern. More of the world will see an increase in exposure to water scarcity than a decrease due to climate change but this is not consistent across all climate change patterns. Additionally, investigation of the effects of a set of prescribed global mean temperature change scenarios show rapid increases in water scarcity due to climate change across many regions of the globe, up to 2 °C, followed by stabilisation to 4 °C.     

Modeling the impact of partial surface mulch on soil heat and water flow

Summary Surface residue is an integral part of many cropping systems, and there are opportunities to optimise its value as mulch by improving our understanding of how it affects the near surface soil physical environment. In this study we use field measurements and a coupled soil heat and water flow model to demonstrate the effects of partial surface mulch on the near surface soil physical environment. The model is based on general physical laws and allows analysis of general system behaviour in response to changes in both inputs and systems variables. The field measurements were obtained on both a clay and a sand soil from experiments carried out in the semi-arid tropics. The treatments included a bare soil surface and 0 (completely mulched), 5 cm and 15 cm bare row zones. Both measurements and simulations showed that partial surface mulch cover can have dramatic effects on the soil physical environment near the soil surface, with the development of very strong horizontal gradients across bare soil—mulched soil boundaries. They also show that bare row zones are able to act as either a source or sink for heat and water, and that the resultant soil environmental conditions will exert strong control of soil biological activity. Although model simulations did not always match exactly with the specific measurements, they did capture the major trends given by the field data. While this suggests a certain robustness about the way the processes are modeled, there are several areas in which the model needs improvement and these are highlighted in the paper.Journal Paper No. J16277 of the Iowa Agricultural Home Economics Experiment Station, Ames, IA.With 9 Figures     

The impact of water resources development projects on water vapor pressure trends in a semi-arid region, Turkey

The aim of this study was to investigate long-term seasonal trends and decadal change patterns of monthly mean water vapor pressure (WVP) observation series at 16 meteorological stations scattered point-wisely over the Southeastern Anatolian Project (GAP) area in Turkey, where large-scale soil and water development projects have been put into practice since the 1970s. The record length of WVP observation series of each station varied between 31- and 41-years between 1962 and 2002. The monthly mean WVP observation series of each station was rearranged on seasonal basis. Sequential Mann–Kendall trend test, Sen’s slope estimator, and Spearman’s rank–order correlation tests were employed for detection of likely trends, and Kruskall–Wallis test was used to detect decadal variations in WVP series of each observation station. A possible area of representation for each meteorological station was determined by using the Thiessen polygons technique in a geographical information systems media. It was found that 15 seasonal WVP series have a positive trend covering 97% of the GAP area in the summer season; although one WVP series has a negative trend direction. However, in the spring season, 33% of the area had a positive trend, and a negative trend did not appear in any stations. WVP records in the winter season showed an increasing trend over 19% of the GAP area, whereas a decreasing trend prevailed in 9% of the area. The study results led us to conclude that the substantial increase of WVP observations in summer season could be attributed to both the shift from rain-fed agriculture to irrigated agriculture being made increasingly spacious year by year and building large water reservoirs in the GAP located in a semi-arid region. The results also indirectly suggested that the historical trends in the WVP parameters might be related to global climate change phenomenon.     

Potential impact of climate change on the water availability of South Saskatchewan River Basin

The potential hydrologic impact of climatic change on three sub-basins of the South Saskatchewan River Basin (SSRB) within Alberta, namely, Oldman, Bow and Red Deer River basins was investigated using the Modified Interactions Soil-Biosphere-Atmosphere (MISBA) land surface scheme of Kerkhoven and Gan (Advances in Water Resources 29:808–826 2006). The European Centre for Mid-range Weather Forecasts global re-analysis (ERA-40) climate data, Digital Elevation Model of the National Water Research Institute, land cover data and a priori soil parameters from the Ecoclimap global data set were used to drive MISBA to simulate the runoff of SSRB. Four SRES scenarios (A21, A1FI, B21 and B11) of four General Circulation Models (CCSRNIES, CGCM2, ECHAM4 and HadCM3) of IPCC were used to adjust climate data of the 1961–1990 base period (climate normal) to study the effect of climate change on SSRB over three 30-year time periods (2010–2039, 2040–2069, 2070–2099). The model results of MISBA forced under various climate change projections of the four GCMs with respect to the 1961–1990 normal show that SSRB is expected to experience a decrease in future streamflow and snow water equivalent, and an earlier onset of spring runoff despite of projected increasing trends in precipitation over the 21st century. Apparently the projected increase in evaporation loss due to a warmer climate over the 21st century will offset the projected precipitation increase, leading to an overall decreasing trend in the basin runoff of SSRB. Finally, a Gamma probability distribution function was fitted to the mean annual maximum flow and mean annual mean flow data simulated for the Oldman, Bow and Red Deer River Basins by MISBA to statistically quantify the possible range of uncertainties associated with SRES climate scenarios projected by the four GCMs selected for this study.     

Revisiting forest impact on atmospheric water vapor transport and precipitation

Using a robust global precipitation database, we analyze coast-to-interior seasonal precipitation distributions over the world’s major forest regions. We find that the active functioning of boreal forests in summer is associated with an intense ocean-to-land moisture transport, which declines in winter when forest functioning is minimal. This seasonal switch manifests itself as a change in the exponential scale length of precipitation distribution, which exceeds 15?×?10³ km in summer but decreases to (3–4)?×?10³ km in winter. In equatorial rainforests, which are photosynthetically active throughout the year, annual precipitation remains approximately constant, while the coefficient of variation of monthly precipitation significantly declines toward the continent interior. Precipitation over forest during the periods of active forest functioning is always higher than over the adjacent ocean. Such precipitation patterns support the biotic pump concept according to which forest cover drives the ocean-to-land atmospheric moisture transport on a continental scale.     

Evaluation of the impact of climate changes on water storage and groundwater recharge at the watershed scale

 The increase of concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will certainly affect hydrological regimes. Global warning is thus expected to have major implications on water resources management. Our objective is to present a general approach to evaluate the effect of potential climate changes on groundwater resources. In the current stage of knowledge, large-scale global climate models are probably the best available tools to provide estimates of the effects of raising greenhouse gases on rainfall and evaporation patterns through a continuous, three dimensional simulation of atmospheric, oceanic and cryospheric processes. However their spatial resolution (generally some thousands of square kilometers) is not compatible with that of watershed hydrologic models. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of potential climate changes upon groundwater resources. A general methodology is proposed in order to disaggregate outputs of large-scale models and thus to make information directly usable by hydrologic models. As an illustration, this method is applied to a CO₂-doubling scenario through the development of a local weather generator, although many uncertainties are not yet assessed about the results of climate models. Two important hydrological variables: rainfall and potential evapotranspiration are thus generated. They are then used by coupling with a physically based hydrological model to estimate the effects of climate changes on groundwater recharge and soil moisture in the root zone. Received: 17 April 1998 / Accepted: 29 September 1998     

降温速率对三种类型水滴冻结过程影响的实验研究

大量实验研究表明,水滴的异质冻结既与所含冰核有关,又包含一定的随机过程。本研究一方面对已有的实验研究结果进行验证,同时寻找水滴冻结与温度及时间的定量关系,检验随机假设和奇点假设的相互作用。选用雨水、纯净水和瓶装饮用水3种水样,采用中国气象科学研究院的均匀水滴冻结实验装置,对3类水样做了不同的恒定降温速率实验,并对雨水进行了恒温实验。结果表明,总体来看,随温度降低,降温速率慢的液滴累加冻结比例高于降温速率快的液滴,并且在纯净水和瓶装饮用水中更明显;降温速率越大,平均冻结温度和中值冻结温度越低,不同的是雨水的值跟降温速率成对数关系,而瓶装饮用水的值与降温速率成线性关系(纯净水因为只有两种降温速率,故不能确定是哪一种关系);不同水样的冻结几率随温度的降低指数增大,而瓶装饮用水冻结几率函数中指数前的系数随降温速率的增大指数减小;恒温阶段,雨水的冻结几率随时间指数衰减,在恒温的前2 min衰减较快,之后减慢,并且水滴冻结在前2 min发生较多,之后变的很少,15 min之后则没有冻结事件发生。该现象可以用随机假设和奇点假设结合起来解释,当温度达到或低于特征温度时,水分子在冻结核上的聚合需要一段时间,所以造成了在恒温阶段出现水滴冻结的现象。水滴冻结是两种假设的共同作用。     

Influence of irrigated agriculture on diurnal surface energy and water fluxes, surface climate, and atmospheric circulation in California

The impact of land use change on regional climate can be substantial but also is variable in space and time. Past observational and modeling work suggests that in a ‘Mediterranean’ climate such as in California’s Central Valley, the impact of irrigated agriculture can be large in the dry season but negligible in the wet season due to seasonal variation in surface energy partitioning. Here we report further analysis of regional climate model simulations showing that diurnal variation in the impact of irrigated agriculture on climate similarly reflects variation in surface energy partitioning, as well as smaller changes in net radiation. With conversion of natural vegetation to irrigated agriculture, statistically significant decreases of 4–8?K at 2?m occurred at midday June–September, and small decreases of ~1?K occurred in winter months only in relatively dry years. This corresponded to reduced sensible heat flux of 100–350?W?m^?2 and increased latent heat fluxes of 200–450?W?m^?2 at the same times and in the same months. We also observed decreases of up to 1,500?m in boundary layer height at midday in summer months, and marginally significant reductions in surface zonal wind speed in July and August at 19:00 PST. The large decrease in daytime temperature due to shifts in energy partitioning overwhelmed any temperature increase related to the reduced zonal sea breeze. Such changes in climate and atmospheric dynamics from conversion to (or away from) irrigated agriculture could have important implications for regional air quality in California’s Central Valley.     

Projection of wildfire activity in southern California in the mid-twenty-first century

We estimate area burned in southern California at mid-century (2046–2065) for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change A1B scenario. We develop both regressions and a parameterization to predict area burned in three ecoregions, and apply present-day (1981–2000) and future meteorology from the suite of general circulation models to these fire prediction tools. The regressions account for the impacts of both current and antecedent meteorological factors on wildfire activity and explain 40–46 % of the variance in area burned during 1980–2009. The parameterization yields area burned as a function of temperature, precipitation, and relative humidity, and includes the impact of Santa Ana wind and other geographical factors on wildfires. It explains 38 % of the variance in area burned over southern California as a whole, and 64 % of the variance in southwestern California. The parameterization also captures the seasonality of wildfires in three ecoregions of southern California. Using the regressions, we find that area burned likely doubles in Southwestern California by midcentury, and increases by 35 % in the Sierra Nevada and 10 % in central western California. The parameterization suggests a likely increase of 40 % in area burned in southwestern California and 50 % in the Sierra Nevada by midcentury. It also predicts a longer fire season in southwestern California due to warmer and drier conditions on Santa Ana days in November. Our method provides robust estimates of area burned at midcentury, a key metric which can be used to calculate the fire-related effects on air quality, human health, and the associated costs.     

An assessment of the potential impact of a downward shift of tropospheric water vapor on climate sensitivity

This work uses an energy balance climate model (EBCM) with explicit infrared radiative transfer, parametrized tropospheric temperature and humidity profiles, and separate stratosphere, troposphere, and surface energy balances, to investigate claims that a downward redistribution of tropospheric water vapor in response to surface warming could serve as a strong negative feedback on climatic change. A series of sensitivity tests is carried out using: (1) a variety of relationships between total precipitable water in the troposphere and temperature; (2) feedbacks between surface temperature and the vertical distribution of tropospheric water vapor at low latitudes; and (3) feedback between surface temperature or meridional temperature gradient and lapse rate. Fixed relative humidity (RH) enhances the global mean surface temperature response to a CO₂ doubling by only 50% compared to fixed absolute humidity, giving a response of 1.8 K. When water vapor is assumed to be redistributed downward between 30°S–30°N such that a 1 K surface warming reduces total precipitable water above 600 hPa by 10%, the global mean surface air temperature response is reduced to 1.2 K. Assuming a stronger downward redistribution in relation to surface temperature change has a rapidly diminishing marginal effect on global mean and tropical surface temperature response, while slightly increasing the warming at high latitudes due to the parametrized dependence of middle-to-high latitude lapse rate on the meridional temperature gradient. A modest downward water vapor redistribution, such that absolute humidity in the upper troposphere at subtropical latitudes is constant as total precipitable water increases, can reduce the tropical temperature sensitivity to less than 1 K, while increasing the equator-to-pole amplification of the surface air temperature response from a factor of about three to a factor of four. However, it is concluded that whatever changes in future GCM response might occur as a result of new parametrizations of subgrid-scale processes, they are exceedingly unlikely to produce a climate sensitivity to a CO₂ doubling of less than 1 K even if there is a strong downward shift in the water vapor distribution as climate warms. Received: 23 February 1998 / Accepted: 1 November 1999     

液相色谱法测定城市自来水中的苯并(a)芘

针对目前测定生活饮用水中的苯并(a)芘(简称Bap),采用的是国家标准《生活饮用水标准检验法》GB5750-85中的纸层析—荧光分光光度法,其准确度、精密度很难令人满意,提出了使用高效液相色谱法来定量检测城市自来水中的Bap。实验结果表明:该方法快速、准确,具有优异的重现性,线性范围为4.0～30.0 ng/L,线性系数为0.9999。日内(5 h)、日间(5 d)精密度均小于4.0%(n=5),Bap的回收率为89.0%～93.4%。由于Bap见光极容易分解,影响测定结果,因此采样后应尽快分析。     

水汽输送对云南夏季风爆发及初夏降水异常的影响

为更好地认识青藏高原东南缘地形复杂区降水特征及其成因,利用位于青藏高原东南缘的攀枝花市2015—2020年72个国家、区域气象观测站资料和欧洲中心0.25°×0.25°分辨率的ERA5再分析资料,对攀枝花降水特征及成因进行分析。结果表明：(1) 攀枝花降水具有地形作用突出、北多南少的特点,降水日数是造成降水空间分布差异的主要原因之一。(2) 攀枝花夜雨特征显著,呈单峰型,降水峰值出现在03时(北京时),因攀枝花位于干热河谷区,日间湿度小、夜间湿度大,夜间较饱和的大气更容易凝结,触发降水,湿度的日变化是攀枝花易发生夜雨的原因之一。(3) 攀枝花干湿季分明,6—10月为攀枝花湿季,11月至次年5月为攀枝花干季,6月和10月是干湿转换的过渡期。6月孟加拉湾西南季风爆发,攀枝花雨季开始,干季逐渐结束;10月干燥的高原南支西风气流加强,雨季趋于结束,干季开始。

     

Measuring the effect of overgrazing in the Sonoran Desert

Long term overgrazing in Mexico has caused a sharp discontinuity in vegetative cover along the international border in the semi-arid Sonoran Desert. The United States side, protected from overgrazing by the Taylor Act since 1934, exhibits longer, more plentiful grasses and less bare soil than adjoining Mexican lands. Satellite- and ground-based datasets were used in a multi-scale examination of the differential radiative and reflective characteristics of the two regimes. The more exposed Mexican landscape dries more rapidly than the United States following summer convective precipitation. After about three days, depletion of soil moisture evokes a period of higher surface and air temperatures in Mexico. Good correspondence was found between remote and in situ measures of surface temperature and biomass.