Hydroclimatic changes in Alaska portrayed by a high-resolution regional climate simulation

Andrew J. Newman (), Andrew J. Monaghan, Martyn P. Clark, Kyoko Ikeda, Lulin Xue, Ethan D. Gutmann and Jeffrey R. Arnold
Additional contact information
Andrew J. Newman: National Center for Atmospheric Research
Andrew J. Monaghan: University of Colorado
Martyn P. Clark: National Center for Atmospheric Research
Kyoko Ikeda: National Center for Atmospheric Research
Lulin Xue: National Center for Atmospheric Research
Ethan D. Gutmann: National Center for Atmospheric Research
Jeffrey R. Arnold: U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Climate Preparedness and Resilience Programs

Climatic Change, 2021, vol. 164, issue 1, No 17, 21 pages

Abstract: Abstract The Arctic has been warming faster than the global average during recent decades, and trends are projected to continue through the twenty-first century. Analysis of climate change impacts across the Arctic using dynamical models has almost exclusively been limited to outputs from global climate models or coarser regional climate models. Coarse resolution simulations limit the representation of physical processes, particularly in areas of complex topography and high land-surface heterogeneity. Here, current climate reference and future regional climate model simulations based on the RCP8.5 scenario over Alaska at 4 km grid spacing are compared to identify changes in snowfall and snowpack. In general, results show increases in total precipitation, large decreases in snowfall fractional contribution over 30% in some areas, decreases in snowpack season length by 50–100 days in lower elevations and along the southern Alaskan coastline, and decreases in snow water equivalent. However, increases in snowfall and snowpack of sometimes greater than 20% are evident for some colder northern areas and at the highest elevations in southern Alaska. The most significant changes in snow cover and snowfall fractional contributions occur during the spring and fall seasons. Finally, the spatial pattern of winter temperatures above freezing has small-scale spatial features tied to the topography. Such areas would not be resolved with coarser resolution regional or global climate model simulations.

Keywords: Hydroclimate; Regional climate simulation; Snow water equivalent; Precipitation partitioning; Pseudo global warming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-021-02956-x 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:164:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10584-021-02956-x

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

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-021-02956-x

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 ().