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 NorthDakota) and the Western U.S. For selected rivers, we performed seasonal trend analysis of discharge extremes. We calculated flood frequencycurves and estimated the probability of occurrence of future annual maximum daily rainfall depths. Additionally, we generated intensityduration-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 forseveral months of the year. In Colorado, only a few months indicated such an increase. Future IDF curves for Colorado and North Dakotaindicated a slight increase in rainfall intensity whereas the Washington site had about a twofold increase. This increase in rainfall intensitycould 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
- AD1189841
Entities
People
- A. M. Wagner
- Arthur B. Gelvin
- Christopher A. Hiemstra
- Dan S. Cooley
- Glen E. Liston
- Katrina E. Bennett
Organizations
- Engineer Research and Development Center