Climate Change Impacts on Irish River Flows: High Resolution Scenarios and Comparison with CORDEX and CMIP6 Ensembles

Conor Murphy (), Anthony Kettle, Hadush Meresa, Saeed Golian, Michael Bruen, Fiachra O’Loughlin and Per-Erik Mellander
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Conor Murphy: Maynooth University
Anthony Kettle: Maynooth University
Hadush Meresa: Maynooth University
Saeed Golian: Maynooth University
Michael Bruen: University College Dublin
Fiachra O’Loughlin: University College Dublin
Per-Erik Mellander: Johnstown Castle

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2023, vol. 37, issue 5, No 1, 1858 pages

Abstract: Abstract Climate change is likely to impact water quality, resource availability and riverine ecosystems. While large ensembles are available to assess future impacts (e.g., the Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects (CMIP) and/or CORDEX) many countries have developed their own high-resolution ensembles. This poses a selection problem with robust adaptation dependent on plausible ranges of change being adequately quantified. Therefore, it is important to compare projected changes from available ensembles. Here we assess future climate change impacts for 26 Irish catchments. Using a high-resolution national ensemble of climate models projected impacts in mean, low and high flows are assessed and uncertainties in future projections related to catchment size. We then compare future impacts from CORDEX and CMIP6 ensembles for a subset of catchments. Results suggest increases in winter flows (-3.29 to 59.63%), with wide ranges of change simulated for summer (-59.18 to 31.23%), low (-49.30 to 22.37%) and flood (-19.31 to 116.34%) flows across catchments under RCP8.5 by the 2080s. These changes would challenge water management without adaptation. Smaller catchments tend to show the most extreme impacts and widest ranges of change in summer, low and flood flow changes. Both the ensemble mean and range of changes from the national ensemble were more modest and narrower than the CMIP6 and CORDEX ensembles, especially for summer mean and low flows, highlighting the importance of evaluating impacts across ensembles to ensure adaptation decisions are informed by plausible ranges of change.

Keywords: Climate change; River flows; Hydrological model; Ensemble selection; Ireland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s11269-023-03458-4

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