Linking atmospheric circulation to daily rainfall patterns across the Murrumbidgee River Basin

Abstract

The hydrological cycle in Australia covers an extraordinary range of climatic and hydrologic regimes. It is now widely accepted that Australian hydrology is significantly different from all other regions and continents with the partial exception of southern Africa. Rainfall variability is very high in almost all regions with respect to amount and the lengths of wet and dry spells. These factors are keys to the behaviour and health of Australian aquatic ecosystems and water resources. Thus assessment of how rainfall may change under a potential future climate is critical. For a case study of the Murrumbidgee River Basin (MRB), a statistical downscaling model that links broad scale atmospheric circulation to multi-site, daily precipitation is assessed using observed data. This model can be driven with climate model simulations to produce rainfall scenarios at the scale required by impacts models. These can then be used in probabilistic risk assessments of climate change impacts on river health. These issues will be discussed in the context of assessing the potential impacts of precipitation changes due to projected climate change on river health.