Water Stewardship Information Sources
| ID | 1638 |
|---|---|
| Citation | Spiegelhalter, K. 2009. Modelling the coupled influence of climate and glacier change on discharge. Institute of Hydrology: Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg, Germany. |
| Organization | University of Freiburg |
| URL | http://www.hydrology.uni-freiburg.de/abschluss/Spiegelhalter_K_2009_DA.pdf |
| Abstract/Description or Keywords | The daily discharge of the two glacierized catchments Canoe and Illecillewaet in British Columbia, Canada, was simulated using the conceptual precipitation-runoff model HBVEC. Discharge was calculated for the period 2001-2100 considering changes in climate and glacier area. The obtained results were compared with the ones of the Bridge catchment, a highly glacierized catchment in British Columbia, whose discharge was simulated by STAHL ET AL. (2008) in a similar way. The three catchments differ in size as well as in glaciation, heterogeneity in landuse and other catchment characteristics. For calibration and validation a multi-objective approach was used. Besides discharge, snow course, snow pillow and actual snow line data were applied to evaluate model simulation. Future precipitation and temperature, input data of the model, were generated by two different Global Climate Models using two different climate scenarios as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). After each decade the glacier size was adapted via the simulated mass balance and an empirical volume-area relation. The study showed that climate change does not influence discharge in the same way in the three considered catchments. However, total discharge, iceflow and glacier size decline until the end of the 21th century in all three catchments. Considering the high uncertainty due to different parameter sets, Global Climate Models, downscaling results and scenarios, a precise estimation of future discharge is not possible. Keywords: discharge, climate change, glacier, precipitation-runoff simulation, HBVEC, volume-area scaling |
| Information Type | thesis |
| Regional Watershed | Fraser |
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| Project status | complete |
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