Predictability and Prediction of Decadal Climate and Its Societal Impacts in the Missouri River Basin: A Regional Study Integrating Earth System, Hydrologic, Agricultural, Economic and Land Use Models.

The overarching objective of this NIFA-funded project is to develop an ‘end-to-end’, decadal climate impacts prediction and adaptive management system, using the Missouri River Basin (Basin hereafter) as a case study. Building on a variety of Earth System Models (EaSMs) and an existing stakeholder-policymaker network, the system will be ready for routine use by the end of the project. Specific objectives of the project are to: (1) assess simulations and hindcasts of two decadal climate variability (DCV) phenomena -- the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperature (SST) gradient oscillation (TAG for brevity) -- and their effects on the Basin’s hydro-meteorology (HM) by NCAR, GFDL, and U.K. Met. Office-Hadley Centre (UKMO-HC) global EaSMs (GEaSMs) participating in WCRP’s CMIP5 project; (2) downscale simulated and hindcast data from relatively coarse resolution GEaSMs to relatively high resolution as input to water and crop yield models, using statistical techniques and dynamical Non-hydrostatic Modeling System (NMS); (3) quantify decadal predictability of water and crop yields in the Basin, using downscaled GEaSM data and HM observations-based DCV scenarios in HUMUS-SWAT model; (4) quantify value of adaptive actions given decadal predictions of water and crop yields in terms of potential economic and other impacts, using FASOM and RIVERSIM models; (5) develop an experimental decadal climate and impacts prediction system for the Basin using hydrologic, crop, and economic models; and downscaled data from GEaSMs, along with DCV scenarios based on observed HM data; and (6) develop water and crop management systems instructed by decadal climate and impacts predictions, and assess their effectiveness via interactions with stakeholders and policymakers.

 The proposed project is assessing predictions of DCV and its societal impacts in the Basin through a better understanding of coupled physical, biological, and human processes; quantifying impacts of DCV on agricultural and other human systems, and identifying and quantifying feedback loops through which human systems help determine outcomes of DCV; maximizing utility of available observational and GEaSM data for impact and vulnerability/resilience assessments through downscaling activities; and effectively translating results from GEaSMs, and hydrology, crop, and economic impact models and the uncertainties associated with them into a scientific basis for well-informed societal adaptation to and management decisions for decadal climate and impacts prediction in the Basin. This project is also contributing to further development of NCAR, GFDL, and UKMO-HC GEaSMs; and NMS, HUMUS-SWAT, FASOM, and RIVERSIM EaSMs. Thus, this project is contributing substantially towards achieving goals of NSF, USDA-NIFA, and DOE.  The methods developed will serve as a prototype for development of similar systems elsewhere.

 In this poster presentation, results of analyses of decadal climate hindcasts (retrospective predictions) made under the World Climate Research Program’s Coupled Model Intercomparison 5 project, downscaling of these hindcasts to very high resolutions for the Basin, decadal hindcasts of water availability and crop yield anomalies, and stakeholder involvement in modeling of decadal climate impacts will be described.