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Future Climate and Hydrology from the Basin Characterization Model (BCMv8) using LOCA-downscaled Global Climate Model CCSM4

Metadata Updated: July 6, 2024

This data release contains monthly 270-meter resolution Basin Characterization Model (BCMv8) climate and hydrologic variables for Localized Constructed Analog (LOCA; Pierce et al., 2014)-downscaled CCSM4 Global Climate Model (GCM) for Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 (medium-low emissions) and 8.5 (high emissions) for hydrologic California. The LOCA climate scenarios span water years 1950 to 2099 with greenhouse-gas forcings beginning in 2006. The LOCA downscaling method has been shown to produce better estimates of extreme events and reduces the common downscaling problem of too many low-precipitation days (Pierce et al., 2014). Ten GCMs were selected from the full ensemble of models from the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project from the World Climate Research Programme (CMIP5) based on GCM historical performance to address specific needs for California water-resource planning (California Department of Water Resources Climate Change Technical Advisory Group, 2015). The 10 GCMs with RCP 4.5 and 8.5 each were statistically downscaled using the LOCA method (Pierce et al., 2014) from 2-degree (approximately 222-kilometer; km) quadrangles to 6-km resolution. Next, the scenarios were spatially downscaled from 6 km to 270 meters (Flint and Flint, 2012) and run through the BCMv8 using the same model parameters and input files as the historical BCM model (BCMv8; Flint et al., 2021). Downscaled gridded climate variables include precipitation (ppt), minimum temperature (tmn), maximum temperature (tmx), and potential evapotranspiration (pet). Gridded hydrologic variables include: actual evapotranspiration (aet), climatic water deficit (cwd), snowpack (pck), recharge (rch), runoff (run), and soil storage (str). The units for temperature variables are degrees Celsius, and all other variables are in millimeters per month. Monthly variables from water years 1951 to 2099 are summarized into water year files (for example, water year 1951 includes October 1950 - September 1951) and 30-year average summaries from 1951 to 2099. Raster grids are in the NAD83 California Teale Albers, (meters) projection in an open format ascii text file (*.asc). This data release includes a child item for each RCP (4.5 & 8.5) for the CCSM4 GCM. Each RCP child item contains 4 child items: 1. 30-year summaries (Water year files averaged for selected 30-year periods, zipped by variable) 2. Monthly BCM hydrology variables (monthly BCM hydrology variables zipped by decade) 3. Monthly climate variables (monthly climate variables zipped by decade) 4. Water year summaries (monthly files summed (aet, cwd, pck, rch, run, str, pet, and ppt) or averaged (tmn and tmx) by water year, zipped by variable) References cited: California Department of Water Resources Climate Change Technical Advisory Group, 2015, Perspectives and guidance for climate change analysis: Sacramento, Calif., California Department of Water Resources Technical Information Record, 142 p. Flint, L.E., Flint, A.L., and Stern, M.A., 2021, The Basin Characterization Model - A monthly regional water balance software package (BCMv8) data release and model archive for hydrologic California (ver. 3.0, June 2023): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9PT36UI. Flint, L.E., and Flint, A.L., 2012, Downscaling future climate scenarios to fine scales for hydrologic and ecological modeling and analysis: Ecological Processes, v. 1, no. 2, 15 p., https://doi.org/10.1186/2192-1709-1-2. Pierce, D.W., Cayan, D.R. and Thrasher, B.L., 2014. Statistical downscaling using localized constructed analogs (LOCA). Journal of hydrometeorology, 15(6), pp.2558-2585.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date April 19, 2024
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 19, 2024
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
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Identifier USGS:655e7bc4d34e3aa43a4374f2
Data Last Modified 20240408
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
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Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
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Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
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Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
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