Climate and hydrology of the Upper Indus Basin from the High Asia Refined Analysis David Pritchard, Hayley Fowler, Nathan Forsythe, Greg O’Donnell, András Bárdossy

Location

Environment

Water Resources

Problem and Question Need to investigate climate variability and change sensitivities to support water resources management Local observations provide only a limited characterisation of mass and energy inputs Can the High Asia Refined Analysis (HAR) help?

High Asia Refined Analysis (HAR) Dynamical downscaling of NCEP Final Analysis over High Mountain Asia (HMA) using WRF ~15 years 10 and 30 km domains Focus today on precipitation: Correspondence with point observations Agreement between water balance and observed runoff

HAR Orography

Precipitation – Climatology

Precipitation – Inter-Annual Variability

Precipitation – Entropy

Precipitation – Spatial Patterns

Precipitation Gradients

HAR Water Balance

Hydrological Modelling Astore catchment TOPKAPI-ETH HAR precipitation Locally measured temperature (and lapse rates)

Hydrological Modelling – Flows

Hydrological Modelling – SCA

Hydrological Model – Water Balance

Conclusions HAR shows reasonably good agreement with point observations HAR water balance is generally consistent with observed runoff TOPKAPI-ETH simulations forced by HAR precipitation show encouraging results

Next Steps Relationships between atmospheric circulation and HAR performance Disaggregation and bias correction of precipitation for the whole UIB Comparison of modelling approaches Climate perturbation study