Abstract
Abstract Estimating the water budgets in a small-scale basin is a challenge, especially in the mountainous western United States, where the terrain is complex and observational data in the mountain areas are sparse. This manuscript reports on research that downscaled 5-yr (1999–2004) hydrometeorological fields over the upper Rio Grande basin from a 2.5° NCEP–NCAR reanalysis to a 4-km local scale using a regional climate model [fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model (MM5), version 3]. The model can reproduce the terrain-related precipitation distribution—the trend of diurnal, seasonal, and interannual precipitation variability—although poor snow simulation caused it to overestimate precipitation and evapotranspiration in the cold season. The outcomes from the coupled model are also comparable to offline Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) and Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS)/Mosaic land surface simulations that are driven by observed and/or analyzed surface meteorological data.
Highlights
Investigating river basin water cycles in the western U.S mountainous region poses great challenges for the hydrology community because the region’s multiscale terrain leads to complex atmosphere–land surface interactions and makes it difficult to produce accurate observations
The model simulation’s performance was evaluated using the following observation and analysis data: 1) 25-km and daily precipitation analysis data from the National Weather Service; 2) stage-IV multisource 4 km ϫ 4 km, hourly precipitation data; 3) North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) data with 3-hourly and 32-km resolutions; 4) snowpack telemetry (SNOTEL) precipitation and snow water equivalent (SWE) measurements; 5) offline Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model output at 0.125° spatial resolution (Maurer et al 2002); and 6) offline Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS)/Mosaic model 12-km output
The model had a limited ability to reproduce evaporation and runoff and their annual variability in the cold season. This manuscript reports on research that downscaled 5 yr of data on the hydrometeorological fields of the upper Rio Grande basin to a 4-km grid using a regional model (MM5, version 3) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)–NCAR reanalysis data
Summary
Investigating river basin water cycles in the western U.S mountainous region poses great challenges for the hydrology community because the region’s multiscale terrain leads to complex atmosphere–land surface interactions and makes it difficult to produce accurate observations. Over the western United States, especially in the southwest semiarid region, the limited supply and increasing demand for water resources require accurate estimates of regional and local-scale hydrologic variability that result from interactions between climate and human influences. The Rio Grande has its headwaters in the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, runs southward through New Mexico, continues through western Texas, and becomes the border between Texas and Mexico, until it flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The upper Rio Grande is the stretch from the headwaters to Fort Quitman, western Texas, before it turns into the U.S.–Mexico border.
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