We used 20th century simulations by nine global climate models (GCMs) to provide input for a streamflow model to simulate baseline hydrologic conditions in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB). Statistical tests revealed that streamflow data produced by members of the GCM multi-model ensemble were serially uncorrelated at all lags and formed unimodal distributions and that GCM multi-model results may be used to assess annual streamflow in the UMRB. Although all low-resolution GCMs produced large differences from observations of streamflow and hydrological components simulated by the streamflow model, the nine-member ensemble performed quite well. Results of statistical tests indicate that, of all models used, the high-resolution GCM – the only high-resolution model tested – gives simulated streamflows much closer to observed values, despite the fact that its low-resolution sister model has no advantage over the other seven low-resolution models.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/eugene-takle/56/
This article is published as Takle, Eugene S., Manoj Jha, and Christopher J. Anderson. "Hydrological cycle in the upper Mississippi River basin: 20th century simulations by multiple GCMs." Geophysical research letters 32, no. 18 (2005). DOI:10.1029/2005GL023630. Posted with permission.