Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 44, Issue 24, Pages 12208-12217Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1002/2017GL076043
Keywords
streamflow prediction and forecasting; climate prediction; temperature; nonstationarity; water resources; snowmelt-driven hydrology
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Funding
- National Science Foundation
- Postdoc Applying Climate Expertise (PACE) fellowship - NOAA Climate Program Office
- Bureau of Reclamation
- Reclamation [R11AC80816]
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Climate Preparedness and Resilience Program
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Seasonal streamflow predictions provide a critical management tool for water managers in the American Southwest. In recent decades, persistent prediction errors for spring and summer runoff volumes have been observed in a number of watersheds in the American Southwest. While mostly driven by decadal precipitation trends, these errors also relate to the influence of increasing temperature on streamflow in these basins. Here we show that incorporating seasonal temperature forecasts from operational global climate prediction models into streamflow forecasting models adds prediction skill for watersheds in the headwaters of the Colorado and Rio Grande River basins. Current dynamical seasonal temperature forecasts now show sufficient skill to reduce streamflow forecast errors in snowmelt-driven regions. Such predictions can increase the resilience of streamflow forecasting and water management systems in the face of continuing warming as well as decadal-scale temperature variability and thus help to mitigate the impacts of climate nonstationarity on streamflow predictability.
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