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Uncertainties in Projections of Future Changes in Extremes

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Extremes in a Changing Climate

Part of the book series: Water Science and Technology Library ((WSTL,volume 65))

Abstract

Water resource managers share a common challenge in understanding what climate change could mean for future hydroclimate extremes. In order to make decisions about whether to invest in adaptation measures today or to wait for more convincing information, it is critical that managers understand the uncertainties of projecting changes in extremes. Uncertainties arise from several methodological choices including criteria that drive selection of global climate projection information to frame the assessment, whether and how to bias-correct global projection information, and how to represent local controls on how to spatially downscale translations of these projections. This chapter highlights such uncertainties, focusing on projected changes in two precipitation metrics: annual total and annual maximum daily amount, and for both typical (i.e. median metrics) and extreme conditions (i.e. annual totals related to drought, having 0.01 and 0.05 cumulative probabilities; and, annual maximum daily amounts related to floods, having 0.95 and 0.99 cumulative probabilities). The evaluation is conducted on 53 daily precipitation projections over the contiguous U.S., southern Canada and northern Mexico. Focusing on two future periods, and the chapter presents: (a) assessed changes in typical metric conditions and determining their significance, (b) assessed changes in extreme metric conditions, (c) decomposition of uncertainties in both types of changes relative to three sources of global climate projection uncertainty (emissions scenario, global climate model, internal variability), and (d) characterization of how projected changes may be sensitive to spatial downscaling.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We acknowledge the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and the WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modeling (WGCM) for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset, available at: http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/projects/cmip/index.php. Support of this dataset is provided by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy.

  2. 2.

    For the ECHAM5/MPI-OM model, PCMDI did not contain projections of the A1b emissions scenario.

  3. 3.

    The resulting REGRID, BC and BCCA projections are available at the online Bias Correction and Downscaled WCRP CMIP3 Climate Projections archive (http://gdo-dcp.ucllnl.org/downscaled_cmip3_projections/dcpInterface.html).

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contribution of the anonymous reviewers and discussions with Dr. Gilbert Compo in improving the manuscript. Dr. Barsugli was supported by the Western Water Assessment, a NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program at the University of Colorado and the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. Dr. Brekke was supported by the Reclamation Research and Development Office and Science and Technology Program. We also acknowledge the WCRP Working Group on Coupled Modeling as well as the archive hosts at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s PCMDI and Green Data Oasis for their roles in respectively making available the WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset and the Bias Corrected and Downscaled WCRP CMIP3 Climate Projections dataset (containing REGRID, BC and BCCA data discussed herein).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bureau of Reclamation (U.S. Department of the Interior), Research and Development Office, Denver, CO, 303-445-2494, USA

    Levi D. Brekke

  2. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, 303-497-6042, USA

    Joseph J. Barsugli

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  1. Levi D. Brekke
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Correspondence to Levi D. Brekke .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Dept. of Civil and Env. Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Engineering Gateway E/4130, Irvine, 92697, California, USA

    Amir AghaKouchak

  2. NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, Patton Avenue 151, Asheville, 28801-5001, North Carolina, USA

    David Easterling

  3. , Dept. of Civil and Env. Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Engineering Gateway E/4130, Irvine, 92697, California, USA

    Kuolin Hsu

  4. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt Road 8800, Greenbelt, 20771, USA

    Siegfried Schubert

  5. , Dept. Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Engineering Gateway E/4130, Irvine, 92697, California, USA

    Soroosh Sorooshian

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Brekke, L.D., Barsugli, J.J. (2013). Uncertainties in Projections of Future Changes in Extremes. In: AghaKouchak, A., Easterling, D., Hsu, K., Schubert, S., Sorooshian, S. (eds) Extremes in a Changing Climate. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 65. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4479-0_11

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