Understanding the hydrologic response to climate change requires the characterization of large scale climatic variability—observed and projected—and its relationship to regional climate variability affecting mountainous regions in southwestern North America. Observations unambiguously indicate that temperatures have been increasing throughout the Southwest in recent decades. However the coarse spatial scale and continuing uncertainties in the scenarios developed from IPCC projections (associated with precipitation trends, climate variability and regional land surface feedback mechanisms) make it difficult for local and regional policymakers to incorporate the information into their water management deliberations. To reduce these uncertainties, the proposed research will address the influence of large scale atmospheric circulations on regional and local atmospheric processes and explore how hydrometeorological fluctuations propagate into changes in surface flows downstream.
Coupled Climate—Hydrological Models.We propose a transformative effort to downscale climatic variability directly to a hydrologic model, which requires resolution on the order of 100 m or less. A significant research effort will be required to downscale the output from WRF to the watershed scale required by process-based hydrological models. Large-scale climate simulations will provide lateral boundary conditions for the WRF model.
Improve research capacity in climatology and multi-disciplinary multi-scale climate and hydrology model development- Support research on large-scale climatic influences on New Mexico and
- characterization of climatic variability in the mountainous region of northern New Mexico
- Foster interdisciplinary research among climatologists and hydrologists
- Develop linked models of climate and hydrologic variability
