Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Climate change will have significant impacts on water resources around the world due to the close connection between climate and the hydrologic cycle. Climate models with their complete closed water and energy budgets including both the atmospheric and land surface branches, are ideal tools for studying projected changes to the terrestrial and atmospheric water cycle. At this point in time, Regional Climate Models (RCMs) offer higher spatial resolution than Global Climate Models (GCMs), allowing for greater topographic complexity and finer-scale atmospheric dynamics to be simulated and thereby representing a more adequate tool for generating climate change information required for water related sectors. The energy sector holds a predominant place in Quebec economy, with 96% of consumed electricity coming from hydroelectric generating stations of Hydro-Quebec, the industrial partner of his proposal. Information related to changes in streamflow characteristics are important in the management and future planning/adaptation of these hydroelectric stations and reservoirs in the context of a changing climate. The main objectives of this proposed collaborative project are (1) to develop advanced diagnostics to study changes to land surface hydrology and streamflow characteristics and quantification of associated uncertainties, (2) to improve process and feedback representation in the regional climate model at very high resolution, for high-latitude regions and (3) assessment of regional modelling approaches including choice of model domain and nesting technique. Thus, a regional climate modelling system, with improved representation of land surface processes, and advanced diagnostics capable of providing detailed information of climate-change impacts on land hydrology will be an important deliverable of this project. In addition to the industrial partner, the results will also be communicated to the broad climate impacts community.