New Publication: Impacts of climate change in three hydrologic regimes in British Columbia, Canada

In a paper published recently in the journal Hydrological Processes, PCIC hydrologists Markus Schnorbus and Arelia Werner, and coauthor Katrina Bennett, examine the impacts of climate change in the Peace, Campbell and Columbia River watersheds of British Columbia. Working from a set of projections from eight different global climate models being driven by three different emissions scenarios, the authors used statistical downscaling to drive a hydrology model to determine what changes could be seen to the hydrology of these regions. The authors found a variety of potential changes to these areas, including: a shift in the timing of streamflow due to changing snow accumulation and melt, a decrease of snow water equivalent precipitation (in the Peace and Campbell and in lower elevation areas of the Columbia) and an increase in snow water equivalent precipitation in the higher elevation areas of the Columbia.

Schnorbus, M., A. Werner and K. Bennett, 2012: Impacts of climate change in three hydrologic regimes in British Columbia, Canada. Hydrol. Process.. doi: 10.1002/hyp.9661 <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hyp.9661/full>