Thermal extremes in regulated river systems under climate change: an application to the southeastern U.S. rivers
Abstract
High river temperatures, or “thermal extremes”, can cause fish mortality and thermoelectric powerplant derating. Under climate change, projected higher air temperature and stronger surface energy fluxes will lead to increased water temperatures, exacerbating thermal extremes. However, cold hypolimnetic releases from thermally stratified reservoirs can depress tailwater temperatures and therefore alleviate thermal extremes. Thermal extremes are more harmful when they coincide with low flows, which we refer to as “hydrologic hot-dry events”. To assess multisectoral impacts of climate change over large regions, we evaluate thermal events according to three impact attributes: duration (D), intensity (I), and severity (S). We apply an established model framework to simulate streamflow and stream temperature over the southeastern US regulated river system. We quantify climate change impacts (by the 2080s under RCP8.5) by comparing historical and future periods and quantify regulation impacts by comparing unregulated and regulated scenarios. We find that climate change will exacerbate thermal extremes (all three metrics) in both unregulated and regulated scenarios, albeit less in the regulated scenario. Thermal mitigation from reservoir regulation will be stronger under climate change, decreasing the three metrics compared to the unregulated case. Even so, thermal extremes in the regulated scenario will still be more severe undermore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[1];
[1]
- Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1669037
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-152660
Journal ID: ISSN 1748-9326
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830; EFRI-1440852
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Environmental Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 15; Journal Issue: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 1748-9326
- Publisher:
- IOP Publishing
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Stream temperature; Thermal extremes; Climate change; Reservoir regulation; Reservoir thermal stratification
Citation Formats
Cheng, Yifan, Voisin, Nathalie, Yearsley, John R., and Nijssen, Bart. Thermal extremes in regulated river systems under climate change: an application to the southeastern U.S. rivers. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab8f5f.
Cheng, Yifan, Voisin, Nathalie, Yearsley, John R., & Nijssen, Bart. Thermal extremes in regulated river systems under climate change: an application to the southeastern U.S. rivers. United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8f5f
Cheng, Yifan, Voisin, Nathalie, Yearsley, John R., and Nijssen, Bart. Tue .
"Thermal extremes in regulated river systems under climate change: an application to the southeastern U.S. rivers". United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8f5f. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1669037.
@article{osti_1669037,
title = {Thermal extremes in regulated river systems under climate change: an application to the southeastern U.S. rivers},
author = {Cheng, Yifan and Voisin, Nathalie and Yearsley, John R. and Nijssen, Bart},
abstractNote = {High river temperatures, or “thermal extremes”, can cause fish mortality and thermoelectric powerplant derating. Under climate change, projected higher air temperature and stronger surface energy fluxes will lead to increased water temperatures, exacerbating thermal extremes. However, cold hypolimnetic releases from thermally stratified reservoirs can depress tailwater temperatures and therefore alleviate thermal extremes. Thermal extremes are more harmful when they coincide with low flows, which we refer to as “hydrologic hot-dry events”. To assess multisectoral impacts of climate change over large regions, we evaluate thermal events according to three impact attributes: duration (D), intensity (I), and severity (S). We apply an established model framework to simulate streamflow and stream temperature over the southeastern US regulated river system. We quantify climate change impacts (by the 2080s under RCP8.5) by comparing historical and future periods and quantify regulation impacts by comparing unregulated and regulated scenarios. We find that climate change will exacerbate thermal extremes (all three metrics) in both unregulated and regulated scenarios, albeit less in the regulated scenario. Thermal mitigation from reservoir regulation will be stronger under climate change, decreasing the three metrics compared to the unregulated case. Even so, thermal extremes in the regulated scenario will still be more severe under climate change, and only 12.2%, 19.7%, and 26.0% of D, I, and S can be mitigated by reservoirs. Despite stronger reservoir stratification, the number of regulated river segments that experience simultaneous high temperature and low flow events (hydrologic hot-dry events) will increase by 21.4% by the 2080s under RCP8.5. These events will have a median annual duration of 10.3 days/year, over 10 times the historical value.},
doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/ab8f5f},
journal = {Environmental Research Letters},
number = 9,
volume = 15,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Aug 18 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Tue Aug 18 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}
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Figure 1: (a) Spatial map of the study’s regulated river system. Panel (b) displays the number of grid cells at different river sizes, with the bars divided according to grid cells influenced by regulation (black) and unregulated grid cells (light blue). Numbers on top of each column denote number ofmore »
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Figures / Tables found in this record:
Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.