Projected warming portends seasonal shifts of stream temperatures in the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, USA and Canada

Leslie A. Jones (), Clint C. Muhlfeld () and Lucy A. Marshall ()
Additional contact information
Leslie A. Jones: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center
Clint C. Muhlfeld: Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center
Lucy A. Marshall: University of New South Wales

Climatic Change, 2017, vol. 144, issue 4, No 9, 655 pages

Abstract: Abstract Climate warming is expected to increase stream temperatures in mountainous regions of western North America, yet the degree to which future climate change may influence seasonal patterns of stream temperature is uncertain. In this study, a spatially explicit statistical model framework was integrated with empirical stream temperature data (approximately four million bi-hourly recordings) and high-resolution climate and land surface data to estimate monthly stream temperatures and potential change under future climate scenarios in the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, USA and Canada (72,000 km2). Moderate and extreme warming scenarios forecast increasing stream temperatures during spring, summer, and fall, with the largest increases predicted during summer (July, August, and September). Additionally, thermal regimes characteristic of current August temperatures, the warmest month of the year, may be exceeded during July and September, suggesting an earlier onset and extended duration of warm summer stream temperatures. Models estimate that the largest magnitude of temperature warming relative to current conditions may be observed during the shoulder months of winter (April and November). Summer stream temperature warming is likely to be most pronounced in glacial-fed streams where models predict the largest magnitude (> 50%) of change due to the loss of alpine glaciers. We provide the first broad-scale analysis of seasonal climate effects on spatiotemporal patterns of stream temperature in the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem for better understanding climate change impacts on freshwater habitats and guiding conservation and climate adaptation strategies.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-017-2060-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:144:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s10584-017-2060-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-017-2060-7

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().