Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Modeling 21st Century Peak Streamflows In The Stillaguamish Watershed Using Dynamically Downscaled General Circulation Model Projections, James Marcell Robinson

WWU Graduate School Collection

Climate change is projected to increase river flooding in the Puget Sound region of Washington State by reducing snowpack and yielding more intense storm events. Pairing meteorological forcings from general circulation models (GCMs) with a physically based hydrologic model is a robust method of assessing watershed response to projected climate. Before GCM forcings can be applied to regional hydrologic models, some form of downscaling or regionalization is required. Dynamical downscaling is a means of incorporating mesoscale atmospheric processes within GCM-informed boundary conditions. Here I apply climate projections, dynamically downscaled using the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), to the Stillaguamish …