Abstract
Abstract. Glacio-hydrological models (GHMs) allow us to develop an understanding of how future climate change will affect river flow regimes in glaciated watersheds. A variety of simplified GHM structures and parameterisations exist, yet the performance of these are rarely quantified at the process level or with metrics beyond global summary statistics. A fuller understanding of the deficiencies in competing model structures and parameterisations and the ability of models to simulate physical processes require performance metrics utilising the full range of uncertainty information within input observations. Here, the glacio-hydrological characteristics of the Virkisá River basin in southern Iceland are characterised using 33 signatures derived from observations of ice melt, snow coverage and river discharge. The uncertainty of each set of observations is harnessed to define the limits of acceptability (LOA), a set of criteria used to objectively evaluate the acceptability of different GHM structures and parameterisations. This framework is used to compare and diagnose deficiencies in three melt and three run-off-routing model structures. Increased model complexity is shown to improve acceptability when evaluated against specific signatures but does not always result in better consistency across all signatures, emphasising the difficulty in appropriate model selection and the need for multi-model prediction approaches to account for model selection uncertainty. Melt and run-off-routing structures demonstrate a hierarchy of influence on river discharge signatures with melt model structure having the most influence on discharge hydrograph seasonality and run-off-routing structure on shorter-timescale discharge events. None of the tested GHM structural configurations returned acceptable simulations across the full population of signatures. The framework outlined here provides a comprehensive and rigorous assessment tool for evaluating the acceptability of different GHM process hypotheses. Future melt and run-off model forecasts should seek to diagnose structural model deficiencies and evaluate diagnostic signatures of system behaviour using a LOA framework.
Highlights
Computational Glacio-hydrological models (GHMs) allow us to develop an understanding of how future climate change will affect river flow regimes in glaciated watersheds (Lutz et al, 2014; Radicand Hock, 2014; Teutschbein et al, 2015; Ragettli et al, 2016; Singh et al, 2016)
The results indicate that the ice melt signatures are the best discriminators
The first aim of this study was to investigate whether a signature-based approach within a limits of acceptability (LOA) framework could be used to diagnose deficiencies in the different melt and runoff-routing model structures
Summary
Computational GHMs allow us to develop an understanding of how future climate change will affect river flow regimes in glaciated watersheds (Lutz et al, 2014; Radicand Hock, 2014; Teutschbein et al, 2015; Ragettli et al, 2016; Singh et al, 2016). The exact form that these model components should take, both in terms of their governing equations. Mackay et al.: Glacio-hydrological melt and run-off modelling (structure) and numerical constants (parameterisation) is not known. Based models which solve equations derived from first principles, typically over a distributed grid, are our closest approximation of the “true” structure. Limited parameterisation data and computer resources often preclude the use of such complex models, in remote mountainous regions where data are scarce and where the inclusion of extra complexity does not guarantee better predictions (e.g. Gabbi et al, 2014)
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