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 Global Climate Models (GCMs) for Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 (medium-low emissions) and 8.5 (high emissions) for hydrologic California. The 20 future climate scenarios consist of ten GCMs with RCP 4.5 and 8.5 each: ACCESS 1.0, CanESM2, CCSM4, CESM1-BGC, CMCC-CMS, CNRM-CM5, GFDL-CM3, HadGEM2-CC, HadGEM2-ES, and MIROC5. 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 GCM. Each GCM child item contains two RCP (4.5 & 8.5) child items. 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.

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 Global Climate Models (GCMs) for Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 (medium-low emissions) and 8.5 (high emissions) for hydrologic California. The 20 future climate scenarios consist of ten GCMs with RCP 4.5 and 8.5 each: ACCESS 1.0, CanESM2, CCSM4, CESM1-BGC, CMCC-CMS, CNRM-CM5, GFDL-CM3, HadGEM2-CC, HadGEM2-ES, and MIROC5. 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 GCM. Each GCM child item contains two RCP (4.5 & 8.5) child items. 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.

This data release contains output from a numerical snow simulation for a 65 kilometer (km) × 81 km model domain in parts of Montana and Wyoming, United States, encompassing the Gallatin River watershed upstream of the U.S. Geological Survey streamgage near Gallatin Gateway, MT (06043500). Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model convection-permitting and orography-resolving regional climate simulations with 4-km horizontal resolution provided the atmospheric forcing conditions to SnowModel in both a historical and future climate scenario. Two continuous, 13-water-year (2001-2013) WRF model simulations were utilized: (1) a historical climate control (CTL) simulation forced using ERA-Interim reanalysis, and (2) a future climate simulation using the pseudo-global-warming (PGW) method that uses the ERA-Interim reanalysis for the same period as (1) and adds an ensemble mean climate delta from the end of the century (2071-2100) for the most extreme 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario. The ten SnowModel simulated outputs provided in this data release include (1) air temperature (tair), (2) precipitation (prec), (3) solid precipitation (spre), (4) liquid precipitation (rpre), (5) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow interface from snowmelt (smlt), (6) snow sublimination (ssub), (7) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow or soil-air interface either from snowmelt or rainfall (roff), (8) snow depth (snod), (9) snow water equivalent depth (swed), and (10) snow density (sden). The simulations used to produce these outputs were conducted on a 30-m geospatial grid. Land cover information for the simulation was provided by the 2010 North American Land Change Monitoring System and elevation information was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey National Elevation Dataset. The historical (CTL) and future climate (PGW) simulations were conducted using annual precipitation bias correction surfaces (prec_cf), which were computed by comparing SnowModel-simulated CTL snow water equivalent to Natural Resources Conservation Service snow telemetry station (SNOTEL) observations to generate a precipitation correction that was interpolated using SnowModel.

This data release contains output from a numerical snow simulation for a 65 kilometer (km) × 81 km model domain in parts of Montana and Wyoming, United States, encompassing the Gallatin River watershed upstream of the U.S. Geological Survey streamgage near Gallatin Gateway, MT (06043500). Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model convection-permitting and orography-resolving regional climate simulations with 4-km horizontal resolution provided the atmospheric forcing conditions to SnowModel in both a historical and future climate scenario. Two continuous, 13-water-year (2001-2013) WRF model simulations were utilized: (1) a historical climate control (CTL) simulation forced using ERA-Interim reanalysis, and (2) a future climate simulation using the pseudo-global-warming (PGW) method that uses the ERA-Interim reanalysis for the same period as (1) and adds an ensemble mean climate delta from the end of the century (2071-2100) for the most extreme 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario. The ten SnowModel simulated outputs provided in this data release include (1) air temperature (tair), (2) precipitation (prec), (3) solid precipitation (spre), (4) liquid precipitation (rpre), (5) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow interface from snowmelt (smlt), (6) snow sublimination (ssub), (7) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow or soil-air interface either from snowmelt or rainfall (roff), (8) snow depth (snod), (9) snow water equivalent depth (swed), and (10) snow density (sden). The simulations used to produce these outputs were conducted on a 30-m geospatial grid. Land cover information for the simulation was provided by the 2010 North American Land Change Monitoring System and elevation information was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey National Elevation Dataset. The historical (CTL) and future climate (PGW) simulations were conducted using annual precipitation bias correction surfaces (prec_cf), which were computed by comparing SnowModel-simulated CTL snow water equivalent to Natural Resources Conservation Service snow telemetry station (SNOTEL) observations to generate a precipitation correction that was interpolated using SnowModel.

This archive contains daily statistically downscaled climate projections and simulated land surface water and energy fluxes for the western United States and southern British Columbia at 1/16th (0.0625) degree resolution. Climate and hydrologic variables (21 total) are as follows: precipitation, temperature (avg./max./min.), outgoing longwave radiation, incoming shortwave radiation, relative humidity, vapor pressure deficit, evapotranspiration, runoff, baseflow, soil moisture (3-layers), snow water equivalent, snow depth, and potential evapotranspiration (5 vegetation references). The downscaling used is the Modified Delta approach (see Littell et al. 2011), based on 10 models from Phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3), a critical source of data to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR4). Documentation home: http://cses.washington.edu/cig/data/wus.shtml Note that time-stamps on these data are not in the future. See the statistical downscaling chapter from this report for more information. http://warm.atmos.washington.edu/2860/r7climate/study_report/CBCCSP_chap4_gcm_final.pdf Reference: This research was sponsored by a grant from the Department of the Interior, CIDA NW Climate Science Center, a multi-institution DOI-funded project located at the University of Washington, Oregon State University, and the University of Idaho. We also acknowledge the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and the WCRP's Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset. Support of this dataset is provided by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy.

This archive contains daily dynamically downscaled climate projections and simulated land surface water and energy fluxes for the northwestern United States and part of southern British Columbia (N of about 38 degrees N and W of about 105 degrees W) at 1/16th (0.0625) degree resolution. Climate and hydrologic variables (21 total) are as follows: precipitation, temperature (avg./max./min.), outgoing longwave radiation, incoming shortwave radiation, relative humidity, vapor pressure deficit, evapotranspiration, runoff, baseflow, soil moisture (3-layers), snow water equivalent, snow depth, and potential evapotranspiration (5 vegetation references). The downscaling is based on the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional model. WRF was run using boundary conditions from the ECHAM5 global model and the SRES A1B emissions scenario, one of the models from Phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3), a critical source of data to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR4). Climate simulations were performed using an inner grid resolution of 12-km over the region and a 100-year (1970-2070) simulation. Documentation home: http://cses.washington.edu/cig/data/wus.shtml Reference: This research was sponsored by a grant from the Department of the Interior, CIDA NW Climate Science Center, a multi-institution DOI-funded project located at the University of Washington, Oregon State University, and the University of Idaho. We also acknowledge the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and the WCRP's Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset. Support of this dataset is provided by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy.

The continental United States (CONUS) was modeled to produce simulations of historical and potential future streamflow using the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) application of the USGS National Hydrologic Model infrastructure (NHM; Regan and others, 2018). This child page specifically contains outputs of streamflow for each stream segment in the model domain and is based on parameterization with static land cover. Simulations were conducted for each of the global circulation model (GCMs) and relative concentration pathway (RCP) presented in table1_GCMs_used.csv.

The continental United States (CONUS) was modeled to produce simulations of historical and potential future streamflow using the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (PRMS) application of the USGS National Hydrologic Model infrastructure (NHM; Regan and others, 2018). This child page specifically contains outputs of streamflow for each stream segment in the model domain and is based on parameterization with static land cover. Simulations were conducted for each of the global circulation model (GCMs) and relative concentration pathway (RCP) presented in table1_GCMs_used.csv.

This data release contains SnowModel snow evolution simulation output on a 100-meter (m) geospatial grid for a 311 kilometer (km) × 300 km model domain in Colorado, United States, encompassing the Colorado and Gunnison River Basin headwaters in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model convection-permitting and orography-resolving (4-km grid spacing) regional climate simulations provided the atmospheric forcing conditions to drive SnowModel in both a current and future climate scenario. A pair of continuous 13-water-year (2001-13) WRF model simulations was utilized: (1) a current climate control (CTL) simulation forced using ERA-Interim reanalysis, and (2) a future climate simulation using the pseudo-global-warming (PGW) method that uses the ERA-Interim reanalysis for the same period as (1) and adds an ensemble mean climate delta from 100 years in the future for the most extreme Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario. The six SnowModel simulated outputs provided separately as child items in this data release include (1) air temperature (tair), (2) precipitation (prec), (3) precipitation amount falling as snow (spre), (4) snow water equivalent (swed), (5) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow interface from snowmelt (smlt), and (6) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow or soil-air interface either from snowmelt or rainfall (roff). The simulations used to produce these outputs were conducted on a 100-m geospatial grid. Land cover information (file vege.asc) for the simulation was provided by the 2010 North American Land Change Monitoring System and elevation information (file topo.asc) was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey National Elevation Dataset.

This data release contains SnowModel snow evolution simulation output on a 100-meter (m) geospatial grid for a 311 kilometer (km) × 300 km model domain in Colorado, United States, encompassing the Colorado and Gunnison River Basin headwaters in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model convection-permitting and orography-resolving (4-km grid spacing) regional climate simulations provided the atmospheric forcing conditions to drive SnowModel in both a current and future climate scenario. A pair of continuous 13-water-year (2001-13) WRF model simulations was utilized: (1) a current climate control (CTL) simulation forced using ERA-Interim reanalysis, and (2) a future climate simulation using the pseudo-global-warming (PGW) method that uses the ERA-Interim reanalysis for the same period as (1) and adds an ensemble mean climate delta from 100 years in the future for the most extreme Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario. The six SnowModel simulated outputs provided separately as child items in this data release include (1) air temperature (tair), (2) precipitation (prec), (3) precipitation amount falling as snow (spre), (4) snow water equivalent (swed), (5) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow interface from snowmelt (smlt), and (6) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow or soil-air interface either from snowmelt or rainfall (roff). The simulations used to produce these outputs were conducted on a 100-m geospatial grid. Land cover information (file vege.asc) for the simulation was provided by the 2010 North American Land Change Monitoring System and elevation information (file topo.asc) was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey National Elevation Dataset.