Inter-model agreement on projected shifts in California hydroclimate characteristics critical to water management
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Inter-model agreement on projected shifts in California hydroclimate characteristics critical to water management Geeta G. Persad, et al. [full author details at the end of the article] Received: 4 March 2020 / Accepted: 25 September 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract
Shifts away from the historical hydroclimate in populated regions can have dire consequences for water management. Regions like the state of California—where highly engineered, geographically interconnected, and inflexible water management systems are predicated on particular spatiotemporal patterns of water availability—are particularly vulnerable to hydroclimate shifts. However, much of the analysis of hydroclimate sensitivity to anthropogenic climate change has focused on gross metrics like annual mean precipitation, which is highly uncertain at the regional scale. This perceived uncertainty has deterred adaptation investments and quantitative integration of climate projection data into regional water management. Here, we assess projected future shifts in the state of California in a range of hydroclimate metrics critical to water management, using data from 10 statistically downscaled global climate model and two emissions scenarios currently used by the state. We find substantial inter-model agreement under both emissions scenarios—and > 80% inter-model agreement under the more severe climate change scenario—across metrics that collectively point toward an increasingly volatile, temporally concentrated, and extreme precipitation future for the state. We show, via hydrologic and operations modeling, that accounting for shifts in these more nuanced metrics reduces the projected reliability and sustainability of current water management practices to a greater degree than would be inferred from changes in total annual precipitation alone. These results highlight both the viability and critical importance of incorporating climate change projections quantitatively into water management decisions in California and other regions vulnerable to hydroclimate shifts, and underscore the need to develop integrated climate-hydrologic-operations models and decision-making protocols capable of accounting for all projected hydroclimate shifts. Keywords Climate change . Water . California . Hydroclimate . Climate models . Downscaling
1 Introduction California’s hydroclimate conditions have shifted since the mid-twentieth century, generating severe management challenges for the state’s highly engineered water storage and Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-02002882-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Climatic Change
conveyance system and its groundwater reservoirs. Annual mean temperatures have increased by 2 °C statewide (Bedsworth et al. 2018), springtime snow water storage has declined by 10% (Mote et al. 2018), and the proportion of wintertime precipitation falling as snow has decreased statewide (Knowles et al. 2006). The state’s 2012–2016 drought—its
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