From GCMs to river flow: a review of downscaling methods and hydrologic modelling approaches

The scientific literature of the past decade contains a large number of reports detailing the development of downscaling methods and the use of hydrologic models to assess the potential effects of climate change on a variety of water resource issues. This article reviews the current state of methodologies for simulating hydrological responses to global climate change. Emphasis is given to recent advances in climatic downscaling and the problems related to the practical application of appropriate models in impact studies. Following a discussion of the advantages and deficiencies of the various approaches, challenges for the future study of the hydrological impacts of climate change are identified.

[1]  Iver A. Lund.  Map-Pattern Classification by Statistical Methods , 1963 .

[2]  S. Manabe.  CLIMATE AND THE OCEAN CIRCULATION1 , 1969 .

[3]  T. A. McMahon,et al.  A model for the simulation of streamflow data from climatic records , 1971 .

[4]  E. J. Winter.  The Water Balance , 1974 .

[5]  Franz Bultot,et al.  CONCEPTUAL HYDROLOGICAL MODEL FOR AN AVERAGE-SIZED CATCHMENT AREA, I. CONCEPTS AND RELATIONSHIPS , 1976 .

[6]  W. Boggess,et al.  Geohydrological Implications of Climate Change on Water Resource Development , 1979 .

[7]  D. Parker,et al.  A study of climatic variability of daily central england temperatures in relation to the lamb synoptic types , 1981 .

[8]  C. W. Richardson.  Stochastic simulation of daily precipitation, temperature, and solar radiation , 1981 .

[9]  J. Němec,et al.  Sensitivity of water resource systems to climate variation , 1982 .

[10]  R. H. Meade,et al.  World-Wide Delivery of River Sediment to the Oceans , 1983, The Journal of Geology.

[11]  Peter H. Stone,et al.  Efficient Three-Dimensional Global Models for Climate Studies: Models I and II , 1983 .

[12]  William M. Alley,et al.  On the Treatment of Evapotranspiration, Soil Moisture Accounting, and Aquifer Recharge in Monthly Water Balance Models , 1984 .

[13]  D. Wilks,et al.  The Statistical Problem of Climate Inversion: Determination of the Relationship between Local and Large-Scale Climate , 1984 .

[14]  V. Klemeš,et al.  Operational Testing of Hydrological Simulation Models , 2022 .

[15]  R. Barthelmie,et al.  Acidity of Scottish rainfall influenced by climatic change , 1986, Nature.

[16]  Statistical modeling of daily rainfall occurrences , 1987 .

[17]  Peter H. Gleick,et al.  Methods for evaluating the regional hydrologic impacts of global climatic changes , 1986 .

[18]  Roger G. Barry,et al.  Characteristics and frequency of reversals in mean sea level pressure in the north Atlantic sector and their relationship to long-term temperature trends , 1987 .

[19]  E. Foufoula.  A Markov Renewal Model for Rainfall Occurrences , 1987 .

[20]  Peter H. Gleick,et al.  The development and testing of a water balance model for climate impact assessment: Modeling the Sacramento Basin , 1987 .

[21]  Peter H. Gleick,et al.  Regional hydrologic consequences of increases in atmospheric CO2 and other trace gases , 1987 .

[22]  The impact of the greenhouse effect on catchment hydrology and storage-yield relationships in both winter and summer rainfall zones , 1988 .

[23]  F. Bultot,et al.  Repercussions of a CO2 doubling on the water cycle and on the water balance — A case study for Belgium , 1988 .

[24]  Keith Beven,et al.  Changing ideas in hydrology — The case of physically-based models , 1989 .

[25]  D. Wilks.  Conditioning stochastic daily precipitation models on total monthly precipitation , 1989 .

[26]  G. McCabe,et al.  Simulation of precipitation by weather type analysis , 1991 .

[27]  J. Schaake,et al.  Development and application of simple water balance models to understand the relationship between climate and water resources , 1989 .

[28]  Gary T. Bates,et al.  The climatological skill of a regional model over complex terrain , 1989 .

[29]  Gregory J. McCabe,et al.  HYDROLOGIC EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE DELAWARE RWER BASIN1 , 1989 .

[30]  Guido Visconti,et al.  Use of a limited-area model nested in a general circulation model for regional climate simulation over Europe , 1990 .

[31]  F. Giorgi.  Simulation of Regional Climate Using a Limited Area Model Nested in a General Circulation Model , 1990 .

[32]  T. Wigley,et al.  Obtaining sub-grid-scale information from coarse-resolution general circulation model output , 1990 .

[33]  Linda O. Mearns,et al.  Analysis of climate variability in general circulation models: Comparison with observations and changes in variability in 2xCO2 experiments , 1990 .

[34]  P. E. Waggoner,et al.  From climate to flow. , 1990 .

[35]  M. Schlesinger,et al.  A Method of Relating General Circulation Model Simulated Climate to the Observed Local Climate. Part I: Seasonal Statistics , 1990 .

[36]  K. Cooley.  Effects of CO2-induoed climatic changes on soowpack and streamflow , 1990 .

[37]  G. Russell,et al.  Global river runoff calculated from a global atmospheric general circulation model. , 1990 .

[38]  Effect of Climate Variability and Change in Groundwater in Europe , 1990 .

[39]  G. McCabe,et al.  Effects of climatic change on the Thornthwaite moisture index , 1990 .

[40]  Dennis P. Lettenmaier,et al.  Hydrologic sensitivities of the Sacramento‐San Joaquin River Basin, California, to global warming , 1990 .

[41]  P. Gleick,et al.  Sensitivity of streamflow in the Colorado Basin to climatic changes , 1991 .

[42]  M. Maccracken,et al.  The Use of General Circulation Models to Predict Regional Climatic Change , 1991 .

[43]  Ramakrishna R. Nemani,et al.  Regional hydrologic and carbon balance responses of forests resulting from potential climate change , 1991 .

[44]  Peter Guttorp,et al.  A Hidden Markov Model for Space‐Time Precipitation , 1991 .

[45]  G. Cavadias,et al.  Regional hydrological effects of climate change , 1991 .

[46]  F. Giorgi,et al.  Approaches to the simulation of regional climate change: A review , 1991 .

[47]  B. Vehviläinen,et al.  The effects of climate change on discharges and snow cover in Finland , 1991 .

[48]  J. Miller,et al.  Seasonal river runoff calculated from a global atmospheric model , 1992 .

[49]  Keith Beven,et al.  The future of distributed models: model calibration and uncertainty prediction. , 1992 .

[50]  D. Panagoulia.  Impacts of GISS-modelled climate changes on catchment hydrology , 1992 .

[51]  Hans von Storch,et al.  The Atmospheric Circulation and Sea Surface Temperature in the North Atlantic Area in Winter: Their Interaction and Relevance for Iberian Precipitation , 1992 .

[52]  B. Hewitson,et al.  Large‐scale atmospheric controls on local precipitation in tropical Mexico , 1992 .

[53]  G. Russell,et al.  The impact of global warming on river runoff , 1992 .

[54]  Dionysia Panagouoa.  Hydrological response of a medium-sized mountainous catchment to climate changes , 1992 .

[55]  P. E. O'Connell,et al.  Future of distributed modelling: The Systeme Hydrologique Europeen , 1992 .

[56]  Nigel W. Arnell,et al.  Factors controlling the effects of climate change on river flow regimes in a humid temperate environment , 1992 .

[57]  F. Bultot,et al.  Repercussions of a CO2 doubling on the water balance. A case study in Switzerland , 1992 .

[58]  D. Wilks.  Adapting stochastic weather generation algorithms for climate change studies , 1992 .

[59]  Steven W. Hostetler,et al.  Use of a regional atmospheric model to simulate lake-atmosphere feedbacks associated with Pleistocene Lakes Lahontan and Bonneville , 1992 .

[60]  G. McCabe,et al.  Use of weather types to disaggregate general circulation model predictions , 1992 .

[61]  A. Bárdossy,et al.  SPACE-TIME MODEL FOR DAILY RAINFALL USING ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION PATTERNS , 1992 .

[62]  Sensitivity of Streamflow Simulation to Changes in Climatic Inputs , 1992 .

[63]  Mike Hulme,et al.  A COMPARISON OF LAMB CIRCULATION TYPES WITH AN OBJECTIVE CLASSIFICATION SCHEME , 1993 .

[64]  U. Cubasch,et al.  Downscaling of global climate change estimates to regional scales: an application to Iberian rainfal , 1993 .

[65]  James P. Hughes,et al.  A stochastic approach for assessing the effect of changes in synoptic circulation patterns on gauge precipitation , 1993 .

[66]  F. Giorgi,et al.  Use of output from high-resolution atmospheric models in landscape-scale hydrologic models: An assessment , 1993 .

[67]  Lucien Duckstein,et al.  Linkage between the occurrence of daily atmospheric circulation patterns and floods: an Arizona case study , 1993 .

[68]  R. Wilby.  The influence of variable weather patterns on river water quantity and quality regimes , 1993 .

[69]  Steven J. Nieman,et al.  The Multiyear Surface Climatology of a Regional Atmospheric Model over the Western United States , 1993 .

[70]  T. Wigley,et al.  Application of Markov models to area-average daily precipitation series and interannual variability in seasonal totals , 1993 .

[71]  T. Carter,et al.  IPCC technical guidelines for assessing climate change impacts and adaptations : part of the IPCC special report to the first session of the conference of the parties to the UN framework convention on climate change , 1994 .

[72]  G. Kite,et al.  Simulation of streamflow in a macroscale watershed using general circulation model data , 1994 .

[73]  F. Giorgi,et al.  Regional Climate Change Scenarios over the United States Produced with a Nested Regional Climate Model , 1994 .

[74]  Y. Durand,et al.  Simulation of Discharge using Different Methods of Meteorological Data Distribution, Basin Discretization and Snow Modelling , 1994 .

[75]  Eric F. Wood,et al.  Evaluating GCM Land Surface Hydrology Parameterizations by Computing River Discharges Using a Runoff Routing Model: Application to the Mississippi Basin , 1994 .

[76]  G. Leavesley.  Modeling the effects of climate change on water resources - a review , 1994 .

[77]  S. W. Hostetler,et al.  Hydrologic and atmospheric models: The (continuing) problem of discordant scales , 1994 .

[78]  Lucien Duckstein,et al.  Knowledge Based Classification of Circulation Patterns for Stochastic Precipitation Modeling , 1994 .

[79]  Translating monthly temperature from regional to local scale in the southeastern United States , 1995 .

[80]  Lucien Duckstein,et al.  Fuzzy rule-based classification of atmospheric circulation patterns , 1995 .

[81]  E. Källén,et al.  Climate change scenarios for the Nordic countries , 1995 .

[82]  Linda O. Mearns,et al.  Analysis of daily variability of precipitation in a nested regional climate model: comparison with observations and doubled CO2 results , 1995 .

[83]  Robert L. Wilby,et al.  Simulation of precipitation by weather pattern and frontal analysis , 1995 .

[84]  Effect of climate change on regional precipitation in Lake Balaton watershed , 1995 .

[85]  Richard G. Jones,et al.  Simulation of climate change over europe using a nested regional‐climate model. I: Assessment of control climate, including sensitivity to location of lateral boundaries , 1995 .

[86]  John Ewen,et al.  Validation of catchment models for predicting land-use and climate change impacts. 1. Method , 1996 .

[87]  R. Vogel,et al.  Global warming and the hydrologic cycle , 1996 .

[88]  John Ewen,et al.  VALIDATION OF CATCHMENT MODELS FOR PREDICTING LAND-USE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS. : 2. CASE STUDY FOR A MEDITERRANEAN CATCHMENT , 1996 .

[89]  R. Katz.  Use of conditional stochastic models to generate climate change scenarios , 1996 .

[90]  E. Foufoula‐Georgiou,et al.  Linkage of scaling and thermodynamic parameters of rainfall: Results from midlatitude mesoscale convective systems , 1996 .

[91]  B. Hewitson,et al.  Climate downscaling: techniques and application , 1996 .

[92]  P. Jones,et al.  Precipitation and air flow indices over the British Isles , 1996 .

[93]  Chong-Yu Xu,et al.  Regional water balance modelling in the NOPEX area: development and application of monthly water balance models , 1996 .

[94]  Linda O. Mearns,et al.  The effect of changes in daily and interannual climatic variability on CERES-Wheat: A sensitivity study , 1996 .

[95]  M. Semenov,et al.  USE OF A STOCHASTIC WEATHER GENERATOR IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOS , 1997 .

[96]  T. Brandsma,et al.  Statistical linkage of daily precipitation in Switzerland to atmospheric circulation and temperature , 1997 .

[97]  M. Rummukainen.  Methods for statistical downscaling of GCM simulations , 1997 .

[98]  T. Wigley,et al.  Downscaling general circulation model output: a review of methods and limitations , 1997 .

[99]  R. Schulze,et al.  Impacts of global climate change in a hydrologically vulnerable region: challenges to South African hydrologists , 1997 .

[100]  The effect of climate change on river flow and snow cover in the NOPEX area simulated by a simple water balance model , 1997 .

[101]  Eric J. Barron,et al.  Global climate model and coupled regional climate model simulations over the eastern United States: GENESIS and RegCM2 simulations , 1997 .

[102]  J. Stone.  Climate change 1995: The science of climate change. Contribution of working group I to the second assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change , 1997 .

[103]  Robert L. Wilby,et al.  NON‐STATIONARITY IN DAILY PRECIPITATION SERIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR GCM DOWN‐SCALING USING ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION INDICES , 1997 .

[104]  Vijay P. Singh,et al.  A Review on Monthly Water Balance Models for Water Resources Investigations , 1998 .