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Hydrology I

E.C. LaRue measuring Deer Creek flow
E.C. LaRue measuring Deer Creek flow

HYDROLOGY: the science dealing with continental waters, their occurrence, distribution and movements through the entire cycle of precipitation, evapotranspiration, atmospheric circulation, surface flow, and subsurface flow.

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This section offers a broad analysis of sea level fluctuations, streamflow, drought, pluvials, atmospheric rivers, floods, sediment transport, historic and prehistoric climate, natural- and human-caused climate change, changes in sea-surface temperature (Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), and El Niño & La Niña (ENSO).

  • Please also visit sections entitled Floods and Groundwater
  • CLICK HERE - to  use Colorado River Open Source Simulator (CROSS) and determine your own analysis of what the Colorado River system of reservoirs will look like in a future.

THE URGENCY OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS

STUDENTS FOR RESEARCH

CENTER FOR CLIMATE INTEGRITY

TRIBUTE TO ROGER R. D. REVELLE

GLOBAL WARMING

THE KEELING CURVE

SCRIPPS ATMOSPHERIC OXYGEN RESEARCH

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

CYCLES AND LAYERS

SEA LEVEL RISE

  • At the beginning of the 19th century, sea level was on a slow, downward trend. In the decade of the 1880s, the trend began to rise. At the beginning of the 21st century, the total rise in sea level was about 7 inches. As of 2024, the total rise in sea level since 1880 is about 10 inches. The projection for sea level rise at the beginning of the 22nd century is an additional 24 inches.
  • If it takes 3 centuries to elevate the ocean 34 inches, than it will take 3 centures to lower the ocean by 34 inches.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HYDROLOGY
Luna B. Leopold Victor R. Baker

RECOMMENDED WEB SITES

OCEAN OSCILLATIONS

    Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)

    Pacific El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

    Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO)

    North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)

    Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

SUITE OF PAPERS ABOUT OCEAN OSCILLATION

SUITE OF PAPERS ON NORTH AMERICAN MOONSOONS

SCRIPPS: SUITE OF CONSISTENT SCIENCE PAPERS ON GLOBAL WARMING

PROCEEDINGS FROM NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: CLIMATE DOCUMENT SUITES

2010 - The suite from Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

2020 - Anthropology as a paleoclimate proxy from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

Other anthropology proxies

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CLIMATE DOCUMENTS

1879 - Lands of the Arid West. Powell.

1928 - Report of the Colorado River Board on the Boulder Canyon Dam Project. Sibert.

1944 - Water Supply Paper 918. USGS; Dickinson.

1948 - Floods in Colorado. USGS; Follansbee.

1946 - Cloudburst floods in Utah. Woolley. US Geological Survey.

1946 - Light on the Mexican Treaty. Ely. (identified the structural deficit of the lower Colorado River)

1950 - Hydrology of the upper Colorado River basin. Upper Colorado River Commission. (Full Annual Report)

1953 - Depletion of water supplies allocated to state of Colorado by Colorado River Compacts. Hill. Colorado Water Conservation Board. (notes on report)
Note: Includes discussion of oil shale development.

1953 - Hydraulic Geometry of Stream Channels and Physiographic Implications. Leopold et al.

1957 - Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2 during the Past Decades. Revelle.

1959 - Probability Analysis Applied to a Water-Supply Problem. Leopold.

1959 - Water Yield and Reservoir Storage in United States. Langbein.

1965 - Water Supplies of the Colorado River. Tipton. Upper Colorado River Commission. (notes on report).

1976 - Long-term surface-water supply and streamflow trends in the upper Colorado River basin. Stockton and Jacoby. National Science Foundation.

1976 - Hydrology and Sedimentology of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. Emmett M. Laursen and Elliot Silverston.

1977 - A Reverence for Rivers. Leopold.

1979 - Geohydrological Implications of Climate Change on Water Resource Development. Stockton & Boggess.

1983 - Effects of Carbon-Induced Climatic Change on Water Supplies in the Western USA. Revelle and Wagoneer.

1983 - Changing Climate: Report of the Carbon Dioxide Assessment Committee. National Academy of Sciences.

1984 - Secular Variations in Streamflow in Western United States. Meko and Stockton. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology.

1985 - The Colorado River: Instability and Basin Management. Graf. Association of American Geographers.

1986 - Lake Powell Evaporation Study. Bureau of Reclamation.

1988 - Hydrologic determination of the Upper Basin. Bureau of Reclamation.

1990 - An assessment of severe and sustained drought in the Colorado River Basin. Kendall and Dracup.

1990 - Determination of an Upper Limit Design Rainstorm in the Colorado River Basin Above Hoover Dam. Reclamation.

1991 - Sediment Transport in the Colorado River Basin. National Research Council.

1993 - The Colorado River Basin and Climatic Change: The Sensitivity of Streamflow and Water Supply to Variations in Temperature and Precipitation. Nash and Gleick. Environmental Protection Agency.

1995 - A special study on severe and sustained drought in the Colorado River basin. American Water Resources Association.

1995 - The suite of Severe and Sustained Drought Study (SSD) documents

1997 - The effect of draining Lake Powell on water supply and electricity production. Spreck Rosecrans.

1997 - Climate Variability, Climate Change, and Western Water. Miller. National Center for Atmospheric Research.

1997 - Colorado River Basin Study. Pontius. Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission.

1998 - 2000 Years of Drought Variability in Central United States. Woodhouse and Overpeck. American Meteorological Society.

2000 - Alternative principal components regression procedures for dendrohydrologic reconstructions. Hidalgo. Water Resources Research.

Year 2001

2001 - Climate extremes and adaptive management on the Colorado River: Lessons from the 1997–1998 ENSO event. Pulwarty & Melis.

2001 - Changes in the Onset of Spring in the Western United States. Cayan et al. American Meteorological Society.

Year 2002

2002 - Valley-Fill Alluviation During Little Ice Age Paria River basin and southern Colorado Plateau,USA. Hereford.

2002 - Recent Sediment Studies Refute Glen Canyon Dam Hypothesis. Rubin et al. Eos. American Geophysical Union.

Year 2003

2003 - Patterns and sources of multidecadal oscillations in drought-sensitive tree-ring records from the central and southern Rocky Mountains. Gray. Geophysical Research Letters.

2003 - Changes in snowmelt runoff timing in western North America under the 'business as usual' climate change scenario. Stewart et al. Climate Change Journal.

2003 - A 431-Yr Reconstruction of Western Colorado Snowpack from Tree Rings. Woodhouse. Journal of Climate.

2003 - Cadillac Desert Revisisted (Central Arizona Project). Holland et al.

2003 - Computation and Analysis of the Instantaneous-Discharge Record for the Colorado River at Lees Ferry-1921 to 2000. Topping et al.

2003 - Drought Conditions in Utah During 1999-2002: A Historical Perspective. USGS.

Year 2004

2004 - A multi-scale perspective of water pulses in dryland ecosystems: climatology and ecohydrology of the western USA. Loik.

2004 - The effects of climate change on the water resources of the west: Introduction and overview. Barnett et al. Climate Change Journal.

2004 - Tree-ring reconstruction of Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Gray et al.

2004 - The effects of climate change on the hydrology and water resources of the Colorado River basin. Christensen et al. Climate Change Journal.

2004 - Long-Term Aridity in the Western United States. Cook et al. Science.

2004 - Climate precursors of multidecadal drought varibility in the western United States. Hidalgo.

2004 - The Western U.S. Drought: How Bad Is It? Piechota et al. Eos.

2004 - Streamflow variability and Reconstruction for the Colorado River Basin. Piechota et al. American Society of Civil Engineers.

2004 - Pacific and Atlantic Ocean influences on multidecaddal drought frequency in the USA. McCabe, et al. Proceedings of National Academy.

Year 2005

2005 - Trends and Variability in Snowmelt Runoff in the Western United States. McCabe & Clark. American Meteorological Society.

2005 - Changes toward earlier streamflow timing across Western North America. Stewart et al.

2005 - Structure & Functioning of Dryland Ecosystems. USGS.

2005 - Global pattern of trends in streamflow and water availibility in a changing climate. Milly et al. Nature.

2005 - Declining Mountain Snowpack in Western North America. Mote et al. American Meteorological Society.

2005 - Climatic Fluctuations, Drought, and Flow in the Colorado River Basin. Webb. US Geological Survey.

2005 - The twentieth-century pluvial in the western United States. Woodhouse et al. American Geophysical Union.

2005 - Seasonal Cycle Shifts in Hydroclimatology over the Western United States. Regonda et al.

2005 - Less Snow, Less Water: Climate Disruption in the West. Saunders.

2005 - Colorado River Basin Climate. CRWUA.

2005 - Variations of Pacific Decadal Oscillation Over Past Millennium. MacDonald.

Year 2006

2006 - Projecting the Risk of Future Climate Shifts. Enfield.

2006 - Hydrology & Water Quality of Green River Surrounding Agricultural Areas Near Green River in Emery & Grand Counties, Utah. USGS.

2006 - Relationships between Pacific and Atlantic ocean sea surface temperatures and U.S. streamflow. Tootle & Piechota. Water Resources Research.

2006 - Updated Streamflow Reconstructions for the Upper Colorado River Basin. Woodhouse et al. Water Resources Research.

2006 - Managing Drought: Roadmap for Change in the United States. GSA.

2006 - The Past Record of North American Drought. Woodhouse.

Year 2007

2007 - A multimodel ensemble approach to assessment of climate change impacts on the hydrology and water resources of the Colorado River basin. Christensen & Lettenmaier. Hydrology and Earth Sciences.

2007 - North American Droughts of the last Millennium from a Gridded Network of Tree-Ring Data. Herweijer et al. Journal of Climate.

2007 - Past Peak Water in the Southwest. Hoerling & Eischeid. Southwest Hydrology.

2007 - Model Projections of an Imminenet Transition to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern North America. Seager et al. Science.

2007 - Asssociations of Decadal to Multidecadal Sea-Surface Temperature Variability with Upper Colorado River Flow. McCabe et al. American Water Resources Association.

2007 - Medieval Drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Meko et al. American Geophysical Union.

2007 - Colorado River Basin Water Management: Evaluating and Adjusting to Hydroclimatic Variability. National Research Council. National Academy of Sciences.

2007 - Impact of disturbed desert soils on duration of mountain snow cover. Painter et al. Geophysical Research Letters.

2007 - Five hundred years of hydrological drought in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Timilsen et al. Journal of American Water Resources Association

2007 - Warming may create substantial water supply shortages in the Colorado River basin. McCabe and Wolock. Geophysical Research Letters.

2007 - Changes in Aridity in the Western United States. Hidalgo et al.

2007 - Impact of Streamflow Variability on the Colorado River System Operation. Keedy et al.

Year 2008

2008 - Human-Induced Changes in the Hydrology of the Western United States. Barnett, et al. Science.

2008 - Attribution of Declining Western USA Snowpack to Human Effects. Pierce, et al.

2008 - When will Lake Mead go dry? Barnett and Pierce. Journal of Water Resources Research.

2008 - Multi-decadal SST Variability & US Drought. McCabe et al.

2008 - Stationarity Is Dead: Whither Water Management. Milly et al. Science.
Death of stationarity presentation by Stephen Gray.

2008 - Hotter and Drier: The West's Changed Climate. Saunders.

2008 - Climate Warming and 21st Century Drought in Southwestern North America. MacDonald et al. Eos, American Geophysical Union.

2008 -Models, Assumptions, and Stakeholders: Planning for Water Supply Variability in the Colorado River Basin. Garrick et al. American Water Resouces Association.

2008 - Long-Term Global Heating from Energy Usage. Eos. American Geophysical Union.

2008 - Climate Change in Colorado: A Synthesis to Support Water Resources Management and Adaption. University of Colorado at Boulder.

2008 - Climate Change and Water. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Year 2009

2009 - Water Promises: Much Ado About Nothing. Universities Council on Water Resorces.

2009 - Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. Solomon et al.

2009 - Climate Change and Water Resources Management: A Federal Perspective. Brekke et al.

2009 - Persistent Positive Atlantic Oscillation during Medieval Climate. Trouet et al.

2009 - Sustainable water deliveries from the Colorado River in a changing climate. Barnett & Pierce.

2009 - A 1,200-year perspective of 21st century drought in southwestern North America. Woodhouse.

2009 - Global Climate Change Impacts in the USA. U.S. Global Change Research Program

2009 - Water supply risk on the Colorado River: Can management mitigate? Rajagopalan et al. (Nowak PowerPoint) (Barsugli PowerPoint)

2009 - Climate Change Literature Synthesis. USBR.

2009 - Assessing the future of Wyoming's water resources. Univ. of Wyo.

2009 - Biological consequences of earlier snowmelt from desert dust deposition in alpine landscapes. Steltzer et al.

2009 - Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets For Limiting Global Waming To 2 C. Meinshausen et al

2009 - A Nonparametric Approach for Paleohydrologic Reconstruction of Annual Streamflow Ensembles. Gangopadhyay.

2009 - Climate Change & Water Resources Management, a Federal Perspective. USGS.

Year 2010

2010 - "Stationarity Is Dead" - Long Live Transformation: Five Principles for Climate Change Adaption Law. Craig.

2010 - Response of Colorado River runoff to dust radiative forcing in snow. Painter et al.

2010 - Rethinking Vulnerability on the Colorado. Universities Council on Water Resources.

2010 - Rethinking Vulneribility on the Colorado River. Kenney et al.

2010 - Long-term relationships between ocean variability and water resources in NE Utah. Tingstad et al.

2010 - The suite from Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences

2010 - Dry Times Ahead. Overpeck & Udall.

2010 - Overview of Atmospheric River Scenario. USGS

2010 - On the causes and dynamics of the early twentieth century North American pluvial. Cook et al.

Year 2011

2011 - Causes and Dynamics of Early 20th Century Pluvial. Cook et al.

2011 - Responses of wind erosion to climate-induced vegetation changes on the Colorado Plateau. Munson et al.

2011 SECURE Water Report. Reclamation.

2011 - Interim Report Colorado River Basin Study of Supply and Demand Part One (complete). Reclamation.

2011 - Unusual Nature of Recent Snowpack Declines in North American Cordillera. Pederson et al.

2011 - Second Century Megadrought Rio Grande Headwaters. Routson.

2011 - Evaluating Climate Change in the Colorado River Basin Using Regional Climate Models. Gao.

2011- Evidence for Younger Dryas global climate oscillation and human response in the American Southwest. Ballenger et al.

 

List continues at Hydrology Part Two

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Flood documents can be found HERE

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