Sept. 25, 2019 - Adrian Harpold, University of Nevada:
"How Will Changing Snow Change Streamflow? Implications for Mountain Water Management and Downstream Water Security"
Upland ecosystems and downstream communities have relied on seasonal snowpacks to act as ‘mountain water towers’ that store winter precipitation and release it predictably when ecological and societal demands are high. As a consequence of climate change, snowmelt amounts, rates, and timing have changed unevenly in the western U.S. In this talk, I will explore two questions using a variety of observations and modeled water budgets: 1. How are declines in snow storage likely to impact upland evapotranspiration and streamflow exports? 2. How will changes in snow storage impact water supply forecasts and what can be done to mitigate declines in forecast accuracy? Our results quantify how loss of snow can alter streamflow timing and extremes in ways that are challenging to predict with empirical models. However, new tools to inform water managers could be capable of mitigating declining forecast skill as physically-based weather and real-time hydrology models improve.
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