Natural and Externally Forced Hydroclimatic Variability in the North Saskatchewan River Basin

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The objective of the proposed project is to provide the industrial partner, EPCOR Utilities Inc., with projections of future climate and runoff in the North Saskatchewan River Basin (NSRB) that consider both natural variability and human caused climate change. We will evaluate the uncertainty in these projections and determine the probability of reaching extreme water levels. This project will be based on outputs from the latest generation of Regional Climate Models (RCMs). We will compare climate and runoff projections from different RCMs and multiple runs of the same RCM. This will enable us to determine how much uncertainty is due to using different models, using different greenhouse gas emission scenarios, or to the natural variability of the regional climate regime. We will compare data from the climate models to 900 years of weekly river flows based on the growth of trees in the river basin, and a method of scaling the annual flows to weekly estimates. We will also relate observations from groundwater wells to weather station data and to climate model simulations of groundwater recharge. Our projections and analysis of the variability in climate and water will provide EPCOR Utilities Inc. with improved capacity for planning and implementing adaptive strategies for water management under climate change.