Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Climate and Water: From Climate Models to Water Resources Management and Vice Versa

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article reviews the recent developments in the functional chain from climate models to climate scenarios, through hydrology all the way to water resources management, design and policy making. Although climate models, such as Global Circulation Models (GCMs) continue to evolve, their outputs remain crude and often even inappropriate to watershed-scale hydrological analyses. The bridging techniques are evolving, though. Many families of regionalization technologies are under progress in parallel. Perhaps the most important advances are in the field of regional weather patterns, such as ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation), NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and many more. The gap from hydrology to water resources development is by far not that wide. The traditional and contemporary practices are well in place. In climate change studies, the bottleneck is not in this link itself but in the climatic input. The tendency seems to be towards integrated water resources assessments, where climate is only one among many changes that are expected to occur, such as demography, land cover and land use, economy, technologies, and so forth. In such a pragmatic setting a risk–analytic interpretation of those scenarios is often called for. The above-outlined continuum from climate to water is a topic where the physically based modelers, the empiricists and the pragmatists should not get restricted to their own way of thinking. The issues should develop hand in hand. Perhaps the greatest challenge is to incorporate and respect the pragmatic policy-related component to the two other branches. For this purpose, it is helpful to reverse the direction of thinking from time to time to start—instead of climate models—from practical needs and think how the climate scenarios and models help really in the difficult task of designing better water structures, outline better policies and formulate better operational rules in the water field.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Arora, V. K.: 2001, 'Streamflow Simulations for Continental-Scale River Basins in a Global Atmo-spheric General Circulation Model', Adv. Water Resour. 24, 775–791.

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker, A.: 2000, 'Transdisciplinary Regional Studies: RAGTIME Regional Assessment of Global Change Impacts Through Integrated Modelling in European River Basins', in Boysen, M. (ed.), Biennal Report 1998 & 1999, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, pp. 59–67.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bellone, E., Hughes, J. P., and Guttrop, P.: 2000, 'A Hidden Markov Model for Downscaling Synoptic Atmospheric Patterns to Precipitation Amounts', Clim. Res. 15, 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bitz, C. M., Holland, M. M., Weaver, A. J., and Eby, M.: 2001, 'Simulating the Ice-Thickness Distribution in a Coupled Climate Model', J. Geophys. Res. 106, 2441–2464.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bouraoui, F., Vachaud, L., Li, L. Z. X., Le Treut, H., and Chen, T.: 1999, 'Evaluation of the Impact of Climate Changes on Water Storage and Groundwater Recharge at the Watershed Scale', Clim. Dynam. 15, 153–161.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cannon, A. J. and Whitfield, P. H.: 2002, 'Downscaling Recent Streamflow Conditions in British Columbia, Canada Using Ensemble Neural Network Models', J. Hydrol. 259, 136–151.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cess, R. D., Potter, G. L., Blanchet, J. P., Boer, G. J., Genio, A. D. D., Deque, M., Dymnikov, V., Galin, V., Gates, W. L., Ghan, S. J., Kiehl, J. T., Lacis, A. A., Le Treut, H., Li, Z. X., Liang, X. Z., McAvaney, B. J., Meleshko, V. P., Mitchell, J. F. B., Morcrette, J. J., Randall, D. A., Rikus, L., Roeckner, E., Roer, J. F., Schlese, U., Sheinin, D. A., Slingo, A., Sokolov, A. P., Taylor, K. E., Washington, W. M., Wetherald, R. T., Yagai, I., and Zhang, M. H.: 1990, 'Intercomparison and Interpretation of Climate Feedback Processes in 19 Atmospheric General Circulation Models', J. Geophys. Res. 95, 16601–16615.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, J. H. and Christensen, O. B.: 2001, 'Regional Climate Simulations-A Study on Precipitation', in Jørgensen, A., Fenger, J., and Halsnaes, K. (eds.), Climate Change Research: Danish Contributions, Danish Meteorological Institute/Danish Climate Centre, Copenhagen, pp. 151–166. http://www.dmi.dk/f+u/publikation/dkc-publ/klimabog/klimabog.html.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, J., Hulme, M., Von Storch, H., Whetton, P., Jones, R., Mearns, L., and Fu, C.: 2001, 'Regional Climate Information-Evaluation and Projections', in Houghton, J. T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D. J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P. J., Dai, X., Maskell, K., and Johnson, C. A. (eds.), Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Re-port of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, pp. 583–638.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, G. K. C., Le Treut, H., Lindzen, R. S., Meleshko, V. P., Mugara, R. K., Palmer, T. N., Pierrehumbert, R. T., Sellers, P. J., Trenberth, K. E., and Willebrand, J.: 2001, 'Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks', in Houghton, J. T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D. J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P. J., Dai, X., Maskell, K., and Johnson, C. A. (eds.), Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, pp. 417–470.

    Google Scholar 

  • Compagnucci, R., da Cunha, L., Hanaki, K., Howe, C., Mailu, G., Shiklomanov, I., and Stakhiv, E.: 2001, 'Hydrology and Water Resources', in McCarthy, J. J., Canziani, O. F., Leary, N. A., Dokken, D. J., and White, K. S. (eds.), Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaption, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, pp. 191–233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conway, D. and Jones, P. D.: 1996, POPSICLE-Production of Precipitation Scenarios for Climate Impacts in Europe, Final Report of European Community Environment Research Programme, University of East Anglia, Norwich, p. 50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conway, D. and Jones, P. D.: 1998, 'The Use of Weather Types and Air Flow Indices for GCM Downscaling', J. Hydrol. 212-213, 348–361.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conway, D., Wilby, R. L., and Jones, P. D.: 1996, 'Precipitation and Air Flow Indices over the British Isles', Climate Res. 7, 169–183.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cox, P., Huntingford, C., and Harding, R.: 1998, 'A Canopy Conductance and Photosynthesis Model for Use in a GCM Land Surface Scheme', J. Hydrol. 212-213, 79–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crane, R. G. and Hewitson, B. C.: 1997, 'Doubled CO2 Precipitation Changes for the Susquehanna Basin: Downscaling from the GENESIS General Circulation Model', Int. J. Climatol. 17, 1–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cubasch, U., Dai, X., Ding, Y., Griggs, D. J., Hewitson, B., Houghton, J. T., Isaksen, I., Karl, T., McFarland, M., Meleshko, V. P., Mitchell, J. F. B., Noguer, M., Nyenzi, B. S., Oppenheimer, M., Penner, J. E., Pollonais, S., Stocker, T., and Trenberth, K. E.: 2001, 'Technical Summary', in Houghton, J. T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D. J., Noguer, M., van der Linden, P. J., Dai, X., Maskell, K., and Johnson, C. A. (eds.), Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I tothe Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, pp. 21–83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cubasch, U., Hasselman, K., Höck, H., Maier-Reimer, E., Mikolajewicz, U., Santer, B. D. and Sausen, R.: 1992, 'Time-dependent Greenhouse Warming Computations with a Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Model', Clim. Dynam. 7, 55–69.

    Google Scholar 

  • Déqué, M., Marquet, P., and Jones, R.: 1998, 'Simulation of Climate Change over Europe Using a Global Variable Resolution General Circulation Model', Clim. Dynam. 14, 173–189.

    Google Scholar 

  • Déqué, M. and Piedelievre, J. P.: 1995, 'High Resolution Climate Simulation over Europe', Clim Dynam. 11, 321–339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dickinson, R. E., Errico, R. M., Giorgi, F., and Bates, G. T.: 1989, 'A Regional Climate Model for Western United States', Clim. Change 15, 383–422.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernau, M. E., Makofske, W. J., and South, D. W.: 1993, 'Review and Impacts of Climate Change Uncertainties', Futures 25, 853–863.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox-Rabinovitz, M. S.: 2000, 'Regional Climate Simulation of the Anomalous U.S. Climate Events with a Variable-Resolution Stretched-Grid GCM', J. Geophys. Res. 105, 29635–29646.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox-Rabinovitz, M. S., Takacs, L. L., and Suarez, M. J.: 2001, 'A Variable Resolution Stretched Grid GCM: Regional Climate Simulation', Mon. Weather Rev. 129, 453–469.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frey-Buness, A., Heimann, D., and Sausen, R.: 1995, 'A Statistical-Dynamical Downscaling Proce-dure for Global Climate Simulations', Theor. Appl. Climatol. 50, 117–131.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuentes, U. and Heimann, D.: 2000, 'An Improved Statistical-Dynamical Downscaling Scheme and Its Application to the Alpine Precipitation Climatology', Theor. Appl. Climatol. 65, 119–135.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerstengarbe, F.: 2000, 'WAVES Water Availability, Vulnerability of Ecosystems and Society in the Northeast of Brazil', in Boysen, M. (ed.), Biennal Report 1998 & 1999, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, pp. 68–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • GEWEX: 2003, Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment. Silver Springs, Maryland. www.gewex.org.

  • Ghil, M.: 2002, 'Natural Climate Variability,' in MacCracken, M. C. and Pery, J. S. (eds.), Encyclo-pedia of Global Environmental Change, Volume 1. The Earth System: Physical and Chemical Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, pp. 544–549.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giorgi, F.: 1995, 'Perspectives for Regional Earth System Modeling', Global Planet. Change 10, 23–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giorgi, F. and Francisco, R.: 2000, 'Uncertainties in Regional Climate Change Prediction: A Regional Analysis of Ensemble Simulations with the HADCM2Coupled AOGCM', Clim. Dynam. 16, 169–182.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giorgi, F., Marinucci, M. R., and Visconti, G.: 1990, 'Use of a Limited Area Model Nested in a General Circulation Model for Regional Climate Simulation over Europe', J. Geophys. Res. 95, 18413–18431.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giorgi, F. and Mearns, L. O.: 1999, 'Regional Climate Model Revisited: An Introduction to the Special Issue', J. Geophys. Res. 104, 6335–6352.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gleick, P. H.: 1987, 'Regional Hydrological Consequences of Increases in Atmospheric CO2 and Other Trace Gases', Clim. Change 10, 137–161.

    Google Scholar 

  • GLOWA: 2003, Global Change in the Hydrological Cycle. German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Berlin. www.glowa.org.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodess, C., Hulme, M., and Osborn, T.: 2001, The Identification and Evaluation of Suit-able Scenario Development Methods for the Estimation of Future Probabilities of Extreme Weather Events,Working Paper 6, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Norwich. www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/working papers/wp6.pdf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregory, J. M., Wigley, T. M. L., and Jones, P. D.: 1993, 'Application of Markov Models to Area-Average Daily Precipitation Series and Interannual Variability in Seasonal Totals', Clim. Dynam. 8, 299–310.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grotzner, A., Latif, M., and Barnett, T. P.: 1998, 'A Decadal Climate Cycle in the North Atlantic Ocean as Simulated by the ECHO Coupled GCM', J. Climate 11, 831–847.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grübler, A.: 1999, 'Uncertainties in Social and Economic Projections', in Carter, T. R., Hulme, M., and Viner, D. (eds.), Representing Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies ECLAT-2 Workshop Report No.1, Helsinki, Finland, 14-16 April 1999, Climatic Research Unit, Norwich, pp. 55–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gyalistras, D.: 1999, 'Techniques for Estimating Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies-Quantitative Techniques' in Carter, T. R., Hulme, M., and Viner, D. (eds.), Representing Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies ECLAT-2 Workshop Report No.1, Helsinki, Finland, 14-16 April 1999, Climatic Research Unit, Norwich, pp. 74–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, A. and Manabe, S.: 1999, 'The Role of Water Vapor Feedback in Unperturbed Climate Variability and Global Warming', J. Climate 12, 2327–2346.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hansen, J., Fung, I., Lacis, A., Rind, D., Lebedeff, S., Ruedy, R., and Russell, G.: 1988, 'Global Climate Changes as Forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies Three-dimensional Model', J. Geophys. Res. 93, 9341–9364.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hansen, J., Russell, G., Rind, D., Stone, P., Lacis, A., Lebedeff, S., Ruedy, R., and Travis, L.: 1983, 'Efficient Three-dimensional Global Models for Climate Studies: Models I and II', Mon. Weather Rev. 111, 609–662.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartmann, D. L.: 1999, 'Radiation, Clouds, Water Vapor, Precipitation, and Atmospheric Circulation', in King, M. D. (ed.), EOS Science Plan: The State of Science in the EOS Program,NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, pp. 39–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Held, I. M. and Soden, B. J.: 2000, 'Water Vapor Feedback and Global Warming',Ann. Rev. Energy Env. 25, 441–475.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henderson-Sellers, A. and McGuffie, K.: 1998, 'Concepts of Good Science in Climate Change Mod-eling. Comments on S. Shackley et al., Climatic Change 38, 1998', Clim. Change 42, 597–610.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewitson, B. C. and Crane, R. G.: 1992a, 'Large-Scale Atmospheric Controls on Local Precipitation in Tropical Mexico, Geophys. Res. Lett. 19, 1835–1838.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewitson, B. C. and Crane, R. G.: 1992b, 'Regional Climate Prediction from the GISS GCM', Palaeogeogr. Palaeocl. 97, 249–267.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewitson, B. C. and Crane, R. G.: 1994, 'Looks and Uses', in Hewitson, B. C. and Crane, R. G. (eds.), Neural Nets: Applications in Geography, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 1–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewitson, B. C. and Crane, R. G.: 1996, 'Climate Downscaling: Techniques and Application', Climate Res. 7, 58–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hopple, G. W.: 1986, 'Decision Aiding Dangers: The Law of the Hammer and Other Maxims', IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics 16, 948–963.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hostetler, S. W. and Giorgi, F.: 1993, 'Use of Output from High-resolution Atmospheric Models in Landscape-Scale Hydrologic Models: An Assessment', Water Resour. Res. 29, 1685–1695.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes, J. P., Lettenmaier, D. P. and Guttorp, P.: 1993, 'A Stochastic Approach for Assessing the Effect of Changes in Synoptic Circulation Patterns on Gauge Precipitation', Water Resour. Res. 29, 3303–3315.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hulme, M. and Brown, O.: 1998, 'Portraying Climate Scenario Uncertainties in Relation to Tolerable Regional Climate Change', Climate Res. 10, 1–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hulme, M. and Carter, T.: 1999, 'Representing Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies', in Carter, T. R., Hulme, M., and Viner, D. (eds.), Representing Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies ECLAT-2 Workshop Report No.I, Helsinki, Finland, 14-16 April 1999, Climatic Research Unit, Norwich, pp. 11–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huth, R. and Kyselý, J.: 2000, 'Constructing Site-Specific Climate Change Scenarios on a Monthly. Scale Using Statistical Downscaling', Theor. Appl. Climatol. 66, 13–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, R. N.: 2000, 'Managing Uncertainty in Climate Change Projections-Issues for Impact Assessment', Clim. Change 45, 403–419.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, R. W.: 1977a, 'An Application of Chain-Dependent Processes to Meteorology', J. Appl. Prob. 14, 598–603.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, R. W.: 1977b, 'Precipitation as a Chain-Dependent Process', J. Appl. Meteorol. 16, 671–676.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, R. W.: 1999, 'Techniques for Estimating Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies', in Carter, T. R., Hulme, M. and Viner, D. (eds.), Representing Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies ECLAT-2 Workshop Report No.1, Helsinki, Finland, 14-16 April 1999, Climatic Research Unit, Norwich, pp. 38–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, R. W.: 2001, Techniques for Estimating Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Im-pact Studies, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, p. 63. www.esig.ucar.edu/ HP rick/eclatcr.pdf.

  • Kairoutdinov, M. and Randall, D.: 2003, 'Climate Simulations Using a 2-D Cloud-System Resolving Model as the Super-Parameterization of Clouds', Geophys. Res. Abstr. 5, 04750.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kilsby, C.: 1999, 'Hydrological Impact Modelling and the Role of Downscaling', in Carter, T. R., Hulme, M., and Viner, D. (eds.), Representing Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies ECLAT-2 Workshop Report No.1, Helsinki, Finland, 14-16 April 1999, Climatic Research Unit, Norwich, pp. 87–89.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kucharik, C. J., Foley, C., Delire, C., Fisher, V. A., Coe, M. T., Lenters, J. D., Young-Molling, C., Ramankutty, N., Norman, J. M., and Gower, S. T.: 2000, 'Testing the Performance of a Dynamic Global Ecosystem Model: Water Balance, Carbon Balance, and Vegetation Structure', Global Biogeochem. Cy., 14, 795–825.

    Google Scholar 

  • Landman, W. A., Mason, S. J., Tyson, P. D., and Tennant, W. J.: 2001, 'Statistical Downscaling of GCM Simulations to Streamflow', J. Hydrol. 252, 221–236.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latif, M., Sperber, K., Arblaster, J., Braconnot, P., Chen, D., Colman, A., Cubasch, U., Cooper, C., Delecluse, P., Dewitt, D., Fairhead, L., Flato, G., Hogan, T., Ji, M., Kimoto, M., Kitoh, A., Knutson, T., Le Treut, H., Li, T., Manabe, S., Marti, O., Mechoso, C., Meehl, G., Power, S., Roeckner, E., Sirven, J., Terray, L., Vintzileos, A., Voβ, R., Wang, B., Washington, W., Yoshikawa, I., Yu, J., and Zebiak, S.: 2001, 'ENSIP: The El Niño Simulation Intercomparison Project', Clim. Dynam. 18, 255–276.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leung, L. R. and Ghan, S. J.: 1999a, 'Pacific Northwest Climate Sensitivity Simulated by a Regional Climate Model Driven by a GCM. Part I: Control Simulations', J. Climate 12, 2010–2030.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leung, L. R. and Ghan, S. J.: 1999b, 'Pacific Northwest Climate Sensitivity Simulated by a Regional Climate Model Driven by a GCM. Part II:2 x CO2 Simulations', J. Climate 12, 2031–2053.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lins, H. F. and Slack, J. R.: 1999, 'Streamflow Trends in the United States', Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 227–230.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manabe, S., Stouffer, R. J., Spelman, M. J., and Bryan, K.: 1991, 'Transient Responses of a Cou-pled Ocean-Atmosphere Model to Gradual Changes of Atmospheric CO2.Part I: Annual Mean Response', J. Climate 4, 785–818.

    Google Scholar 

  • May, W. and Roeckner, E.: 2001, 'A Time-Slice Experiment with the ECHAM 4 AGCM at High Resolution: The Impact of Resolution on the Assessment of Anthropogenic Climate Change', Clim. Dynam. 17, 407–420.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mearns, L. O., Bogardi, I., Giorgi, F., Matayasovszky, I., and Palecki, M.: 1999, 'Comparison of Climate Change Scenarios Generated Daily Temperature and Precipitation from Regional Climate Model Experiments and Statistical Downscaling', J. Geophys. Res. 104, 6603–6621.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, J.: 1999, 'An Evaluation of Statistical and Dynamical Techniques for Downscaling Local Climate', J. Climate 12, 2256–2284.

    Google Scholar 

  • National Research Council: 1995, Natural Climate Variablility on Decade-to-Century Time Scales, National Academy Press, Washington DC, p. 644.

    Google Scholar 

  • National Research Council: 2002, Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises, National Academy Press, Washington DC, p. 244.

    Google Scholar 

  • Navarra, A.: 1999, 'Predictability and Surprise', in Carter, T. R., Hulme, M., and Viner, D. (eds.), Representing Uncertainty in Climate Change Scenarios and Impact Studies ECLAT-2 Workshop Report No.1, Helsinki, Finland, 14-16 April 1999, Climatic Research Unit, Norwich, pp. 57–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • NDU: 1978, Climate Change to the Year 2000, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., p. 109.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, C. W.: 1981, 'Stochastic Simulation of Daily Precipitation, Temperature, and Solar Radiation', Water Resour. Res. 17, 182–190.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roeckner, E., Bengtsson, L., Feichter, J., Lelieveld, J., and Rodhe, H.: 1999, 'Transient Climate Change Simulations with a Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean GCM Including the Tropospheric Sulfur Cycle', J. Climate 12, 3004–3032.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roldan, J. and Woolhiser, D. A.: 1982, 'Stochastic Daily Precipitation Models, 1. A Comparison of Occurrence Processes', Water Resour. Res. 18, 1451–1459.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rothrock, D. A.: 1999, 'Ocean Circulation, Productivity, and Exchange with the Atmosphere', in King, M. D. (ed.), EOS Science Plan: The State of Science in the EOS Program,NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, pp. 115–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rummukainen, M., Räisänen, J., Bringfelt, B., Ullerstig, A., Omstedt, A., Willen, U., Hansson, U., and Jones, C.: 2001, 'A Regional Climate Model for Northern Europe: Model Description and Results from the Downscaling of two GCM Control Simulations', Clim. Dynam. 17, 339–359.

    Google Scholar 

  • Santer, B. D., Wigley, T. M. L., Schlesinger, M. E., and Mitchell, J. F. B.: 1990, Developing Climate Scenarios from Equilibrium GCM Results, Report No. 47, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, p. 29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlesinger, M. E. and Zhao, Z. C.: 1989, 'Seasonal Climate Changes Induced by Doubled CO2 as Simulated by the OSU Atmospheric GCM/Mixed-Layer Ocean Model', J. Climate 2, 459–495.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schneider, E. K., Kirtman, B. P., and Lindzen, R. S.: 1999, 'Tropospheric Water Vapor and Climate Sensitivity', J. Atm. Sci. 36, 1649–1658.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sellers, P. J., Dickinson, R. E., Randall, D. A., Betts, A. K., Hall, F. G., Berry, J. A., Collatz, G. J., Denning, A. S., Mooney, H. A., Nobre, C. A., Sato, N., Field, C.B., and Henderson-Sellers, A.: 1997, 'Modeling the Exchanges of Energy, Water, and Carbon between Continents and the Atmosphere', Science 275, 502–509.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shackley, S., Young, P., and Parkinson, S.: 1999, 'Response to A. Henderson-Sellers and K. McGuffie', Clim. Change 42, 611–617.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shackley, S., Young, P., Parkinson, S., and Wynne, B.: 1998, 'Uncertainty, Complexity, and Concepts of Good Science in Climate Change Modelling: Are GCMs the best tools?', Clim. Change 38, 159–205.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stott, P. A. and Tett, S. F. B.: 1998, 'Scale-Dependent Detection of Climate Change', J. Climate 11, 3282–3294.

    Google Scholar 

  • Timbal, B. and McAvaney, B. J.: 2001, 'An Analogue-Based Method to Downscale Surface Air Temperature: Application for Australia', Clim. Dynam. 17, 947–963.

    Google Scholar 

  • Von Storch, H., Hewitson, B., and Mearns, L.: 2000, 'Review of Empirical Downscaling Techniques', in Iversen, T. and Høiskar, B. A. K. (eds.), Regional Climate Development Under Global Warming. General Technical Report No. 4. Conf. Proceedings RegClim Spring Meeting,Jevnaker, Norway, 8-9 May 2000, Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, pp. 29–46.

  • Washington, W. M. and Meehl, G. A.: 1984, 'Seasonal Cycle Experiment on the Climate Sensitivity Due to a Doubling of CO2 with an Atmospheric General Circulation Model Coupled to a Simple Mixed-Layer Ocean', J. Geophys. Res. 89, 9475–9503.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilby, R. L., Conway, D., and Jones, P. D.: 1996a, 'GCM Downscaling Using Airflow Indices', in Proceedings of the International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research: Towards the 21st Century. Volume 1, Water Research Centre, Kyoto University, Kyoto, pp. 325–332.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilby, R. L., Wigley, T. M. L., Wilks, D. S., Hewitson, B. C., Conway, D., and Jones, P. D.: 1996b, Statistical Downscaling of General Circulation Model Output, Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, p. 730.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilby, R. L., Wigley, T. M. L., Conway, D., Jones, P. D., Hewitson, B. C., Main, J., and Wilks, D. S.: 1998, 'Statistical Downscaling of General Circulation Model Output: AComparison of Methods', Water Resour. Res. 34, 2995–3008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilks, D. S.: 1989, 'Conditioning Stochastic Daily Precipitation Models on Total Monthly Precipita-tion', Water Resour. Res. 25, 1429–1439.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilks, D. S.: 1992, 'Adapting Stochastic Weather Generation Algorithms for Climate Change Studies', Clim. Change 22, 67–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilks, D. S.: 1999, 'Interannual Variability and Extreme-Value Characteristics of Several Stochastic Daily Precipitation Models',Agric. For. Meteorol., 93, 153–169.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilks, D. S. and Wilby, R. L.: 1999, 'The Weather Generation Game: A Review of Stochastic Weather Models', Prog. Phys. Geog. 23, 329–357.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, C. A. and Mitchell, J. F. B.: 1987, 'Simulated CO2 Induced Climate Change over Western Europe', Clim. Change 10, 11–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolock, D. M. and McCabe, G. J.: 1999, Estimates of Runoff Using Water-balance and Atmospheric General Circulation Models', J. Am. Water Resour. Ass. 35, 1341–1350.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zorita, E. and von Storch, H.: 1999, 'The Analog Method as a Simple Statistical Downscaling Tech-nique: Comparison with more Complicated Methods', J. Climate 12, 2474–2489.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Water Resources Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, PO Box 5200, 02015, Espoo, Finland

    Olli Varis, Tommi Kajander & Risto Lemmelä

Authors
  1. Olli Varis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tommi Kajander
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Risto Lemmelä
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Varis, O., Kajander, T. & Lemmelä, R. Climate and Water: From Climate Models to Water Resources Management and Vice Versa. Climatic Change 66, 321–344 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CLIM.0000044622.42657.d4

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CLIM.0000044622.42657.d4

Keywords

Search

Navigation