Untitled DocumentGCMs vs RCM: Do we need regional climate models to simulate the future hydrologic response of the Colorado River Basin?
Macro Theme Area:
Integrated Modeling [Project ID: M32]
PI:
Francina Dominguez
CO-PI(s):
N/A
Basin focus:
N/A
Specific area in
basin /
field sites:
N/A
Summary/Goals: This project is funded under a Center-Directed Initiatives grant through the Water Sustainability Program and reports on a fiscal year basis.
This project aims to assess the water balance of the Colorado River Basin in the next 100 years using a simple hydrologic model driven by Global Climate Model (GCM) projections of future climate scenarios, using both statistical and dynamical downscaling.
Activities and outcomes during past year:
x
Plans for the upcoming year:
In the first phase of our work, we will compare the difference in climate scenarios obtained through statistical and dynamical downscaling of GCM data. While we expect these two products to yield different results, how will they translate into differences in infiltration, runoff and soil moisture storages given the high nonlinearity in the hydrologic response? To provide a first order response to this question, we will use the simple hydrologic model HyMOD at the sub-basin scale. Forced by high-resolution climate data, the semi-distributed HyMOD simulation will provide us with a spatially-heterogeneous hydrologic response of the Colorado River Basin in both statistical and dynamical downscaling cases. The motivation for using a simple hydrologic model is to provide a basis and a proof of concept for ongoing/future scenario efforts involving more complex integrated SAHRA models. In this way we will be able to provide a tangible, useful product in the one-year time frame which can serve as a reference for future, more complex modeling efforts.
