Join us October 3rd, 2018 at 11:00am (EV3-4412) for a seminar with Dr. Stephen Déry from the University of Nothern British Columbia.
Title: Changing Northern Hemisphere snow conditions and their impacts to the snow hydrology of the Western Cordillera’s rivers
Speaker: Stephen J. Déry
Contributing Authors: Michael Allchin, Siraj Ul Islam
Abstract:
Seasonal snowcovers influence climatological, hydrological, and ecological processes, provide vital water resources, and occasionally induce natural hazards such as floods and droughts. Using the NOAA-Rutgers snowcover archive, we will characterize the spatial and temporal distributions of trends in the start, finish and duration of the snow-dominated season during the past 45 years, and relate these to their physiographic and climatological settings. This section of the presentation will focus on results relating to Canada, as a wider context for patterns observed in the Western Cordillera.
The second part of the talk will discuss the implementation of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrological model to simulate climate change impacts on the snow hydrology of British Columbia’s Fraser and Stikine rivers. First, VIC model simulations driven by statistically-downscaled datasets from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) allow quantification of the impacts of projected air temperature and precipitation changes on snow and snowmelt-driven runoff in the Fraser River basin. We will distinguish the relative climate-driven changes using 30-year time periods, a historical baseline (1980-2009) and representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 8.5 future projections (2040-2069 and 2070-2099). We will then present preliminary results from an updated version of the VIC model (VIC-GL) with the ability to simulate glacier mass balance and dynamics and their impacts on runoff focusing on the Iskut and Tuya rivers, two main tributaries of the Stikine River. To conclude we discuss the potential impacts of projected declining snowpacks and their associated hydrological changes on keystone aquatic species such as salmon.
Stephen's bio can be found here: https://www.unbc.ca/people/dery-dr-stephen
SEMINAR:
October 3rd, 2018
11:00-12:00pm
EV3-4412