Assessment of Climate Change Scenarios on the Yukon River Basin

There are indications that the climate is going to experience drastic change in the future, as it has occurred in the past and is currently happening now. Climate simulations have shown some potential hydrologic effects of climate change in the Yukon River Basin due to changes in temperature and pre...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Yembu, John Ngwembo
Format: Text
Language:unknown
Published: InSPIRe @ Redlands 2012
Subjects:
GIS
Online Access:https://inspire.redlands.edu/gis_gradproj/158
https://inspire.redlands.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=gis_gradproj
Description
Summary:There are indications that the climate is going to experience drastic change in the future, as it has occurred in the past and is currently happening now. Climate simulations have shown some potential hydrologic effects of climate change in the Yukon River Basin due to changes in temperature and precipitation. The Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council currently does not utilize spatial software to manage, analyze, or produce maps of climate change scenarios in the Yukon River basin. It is important to create a geodatabase, determine differences in climate change scenarios, and calculate peak discharge rates in the different regions using geospatial techniques. Climate modeling is one of the best tools available to determine the trends in future climate. In this project, the temperature and precipitation differences for the 20th century (1980-1999) and mid-century (2040-2059), were determined with data from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Community Climate System Model (CCSM), indicating a future increase in temperature and precipitation. The U.S. Geological Survey regression equations, basin characteristics, and PythonWin were used to create a Python script and tool to calculate peak discharge rates. The methods used in this project allow it to be easily adapted for future projects in the Yukon River Basin.