Changes in Climate and Its Effect on Timing of Snowmelt and Intensity Duration Frequency Curves
Abstract
Snow is a critical water resource for much of the U.S. and failure to account for changes in climate could deleteriously impact military assets. In this study, we produced historical and future snow trends through modeling at three military sites (in Washington, Colorado, and North Dakota) and the Western U.S. For selected rivers, we performed seasonal trend analysis of discharge extremes. We calculated flood frequency curves and estimated the probability of occurrence of future annual maximum daily rainfall depths. Additionally, we generated intensity-duration-frequency curves (IDF) to find rainfall intensities at several return levels. Generally, our results showed a decreasing trend in historical and future snow duration, rain-on-snow events, and snowmelt runoff. This decreasing trend in snowpack could reduce water resources. A statistically significant increase in maximum streamflow for most rivers at the Washington and North Dakota sites occurred for several months of the year. In Colorado, only a few months indicated such an increase. Future IDF curves for Colorado and North Dakota indicated a slight increase in rainfall intensity whereas the Washington site had about a twofold increase. This increase in rainfall intensity could result in major flood events, demonstrating the importance of accounting for climate changes in infrastructure planning.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1144610
Entities
People
- A. M. Wagner
- Arthur B. Gelvin
- Christopher A. Hiemstra
- Dan S. Cooley
- Glen E. Liston
- Katrina E. Bennett
Organizations
- Colorado State University
- Engineer Research and Development Center
- Los Alamos National Laboratory