Water and Climate Products

Summaries and Forecasts

Data and Modeling Tools

Websites

Summaries and Forecasts

• Intermountain West Climate Summary. Climate information is widely scattered on the web and other locations and consequently water managers and other climate sensitive sectors have requested a single monthly summary of climate information. The Intermountain West Climate Summary releases updated climate and water resource information including precipitation, temperature, snow water equivalent, long-lead temperature and precipitation outlooks, reservoir levels and streamflow forecasts.  Researchers Ray, Lowrey, Alvord, Udall.
• Web-based seasonal guidance for Water Managers, Improve ability of federal, state, and local water managers to plan water operations during drought. Provide input to CPC seasonal outlooks. Researcher Wolter.
• Colorado River Climate Primer.  This publication summarizes Paleo-climate, current climate patterns and future climatology projections for the Colorado River Basin Researchers Kenney, Udall, Pulwarty, Wolter.
• Grand Canyon Adaptive Management. This study develops forecasts of late-summer storms and associated sediment input into the Grand Canyon to support multi-stakeholder adaptive management experiments aimed at sustaining ecological, cultural and recreational activities. This work is in collaboration with the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center.  Researchers Jain, Pulwarty, Eischeid.

Law & Policy

• Water Rights and Climate Change: The Impact of a Shifting Hydrograph on the Timing and Administration of Water Rights in the West:   In many basins throughout the West, snowmelt is coming earlier than in historic times, prompting holders of prior appropriation water rights to demand water at an earlier calendar date than in the past.  This is obviously problematic for those rights defined in terms of specific calendar dates (associated with historic patterns of use), and may be even more troublesome for rights defined more generally (e.g., such as an “irrigation season” right), as this can have the net effect of increasing the diversion season and, thus, the size of the right.  This ongoing project (Summer 2007 to Summer 2008) will examine the extent to which this problem exists in Colorado and in a yet-to-be-determined Pacific Northwest state, where earlier runoff is much more pronounced than in the Rocky Mountain region. Researchers Kenney, NRLC, Klein, CSTPR, Goemans, CSU, Alvord, CIRES.
  
• Native Communities & Climate Change: Legal and Policy Approaches to Protect Tribal Legal Rights: The WWA has contributed to this report, prepared primarily by the University of Colorado Law School (Natural Resources Law Center), examining a diversity of climate change impacts on tribes, as well as how tribes might address these issues through legal and policy measures.  The study focuses on 4 regional case studies-Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, and Florida-to discuss how the effects of climate change impacts tribal resources, communities and activities differently in each of these areas, as well as legal and policy measures that tribes might employ to protect their legal rights in the absence of federal action. The penultimate draft of the report was released for review through a national database of American Indian Tribes in February 2007. Final publication is anticipated for summer 2007. Researchers Mark Squillace, NRLC, Sarah Krakoff, NRLC, Douglas Kenney, NRLC, Jon Hanna, NRLC, Christina Alvord, CIRES, Ethan Plaut, NRLC, Scott Gray, NRLC

Data and Modeling Tools

•  Nonparametric streamflow reconstructions.  This task will investigate an entirely new way of reconstructing streamflows from tree rings, using a statistical technique not previously used by dendrochronologists. This project is jointly funded by US Bureau of Reclamation, Boulder City, NV Office. Researchers Woodhouse, Lukas, Harding, Gangopadhyay (Hydrosphere).
• Streamflow Reconstructions for Water Managers in Gunnison Basin for EIS.  Using a novel combination of historic gage and tree-ring data, this study will create new streamflow reconstructions intended for use in the EIS. Researchers Rajagopalan, Ray, Regonda, Zagona (CADSWES).

Websites

• Colorado River Climate, Management, Law and Policy website.  Enhance and update existing site on matters of interest to Colorado River water managers.  Add discussion of useful existing climate products and new climate product needs by water managers. Researchers Pulwarty, Kenney, Ray, Udall, Lowrey
• Colorado River Streamflow - A Paleo Perspective website.  This site will provide information about long-term variations in streamflow for the Colorado River basin, including the 2006 Woodhouse, Gray, Meko tree-ring reconstruction of flow at the Lees Ferry gage. Researchers Woodhouse, Lukas, Meko (UA-CLIMAS).
• TreeFlow: Streamflow Reconstructions for the West website. This redesigned website will be an expansion of an existing website on tree-ring streamflow reconstructions for Colorado, and encompasses reconstructions across the western U.S. The website allows water managers to access and utilize streamflow sequences much longer than the historical gage record to better plan for climate variability and change. Jointly funded by the NCDC Paleoclimatology Branch. Researchers Woodhouse, Lukas.