Impact of climate warming on low flows, snow drought, and streamflow drought

In western North America, snowpack supplies much of the water used for irrigation and for municipal and industrial uses, and snowmelt recharges groundwater and provides ecosystem-sustaining baseflow during low flow periods. Continued climate warming is expected to have large impacts on snowmelt hydrology, with subsequent impacts on low flows and snow and streamflow drought regimes. To improve our understanding of snow drought and streamflow drought in the context of a warming climate, this research combined two separate methodologies: 1) a data-driven (downward) approach and 2) a process-based (upward) approach. The data-drive approach combined observed hydroclimatic time series with multiple statistical methods, including bivariate and partial correlation and temporal and spatial analogs. The process-based approach combined climate change projections and hydrological modeling.

These two different research methods yielded consistent results that, together, illustrate that snow drought and streamflow drought are sensitive to winter climate conditions, particularly winter precipitation and thawing degrees. In the context of a warming climate, increased winter season thawing degrees leads to increased warm (temperature-driven) snow drought, shorter and less severe winter low flows, longer and more severe summer low flows, and increased summer streamflow drought risk in catchments with seasonal snow cover. Further, this research showed that the response of snow melt hydrology to climate warming is non-linear, and regions with winter temperatures near freezing exhibit substantially larger impacts from +2°C of warming compared to regions with winter temperatures far below freezing.

Temperature-driven shifts in snow drought, low flows, and streamflow drought regimes will have widespread implications for surface water supply security. As summer low flow periods become more severe and snow-drought related summer streamflow droughts become more frequent, the potential for more severe summer water shortages increases. The most severe shortages will likely occur due to the co-occurrence of warm and dry conditions.