The changing contribution of snow to the hydrology of the Fraser River Basin – A contribution to CanSISE Project B3 Do-Hyuk ‘DK’ Kang 1, Xiaogang Shi 2, Huilin Gao 3 and Stephen Déry 1 1 Environmental Science and Engineering Program University of Northern British Columbia 2 National Hydrology Research Centre Environment Canada 3 Zachry Department of Civil Engineering Texas A & M University

The changing hydrologic regime of the Fraser River Basin during the late 20 th century was assessed using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrological model. Among VIC outputs, SWE melt is extracted along the water years from 1949 to Upper Fraser and Lower Coast Mountains have -200 mm of SWE melt decreases. Furthermore, SWE melt is used to calculate the R SR, an index of snow contribution to the generation of runoff. Source: Kang et al. (2014), On the changing contribution of snow to the hydrology of the Fraser River Basin, Canada, Journal of Hydro- meteorology, in press.

Owing to a 1.5°C rise in air temperature, the contribution of snow to runoff generation, R SR has declined by 19% over this period (left panel). This has also led to a 30-day advance of the spring freshet (right panel) followed by a lengthy attenuation of the runoff. Do Hyuk “DK” Kang Ph.D. at Duke PDF at UNBC with Prof. Stephen Déry Snow Hydrology and Remote Sensing

Acknowledgements Thanks to our colleagues at PCIC for support in ongoing comparisons of VIC model simulations in the FRB. Thanks also to the land surface hydrology group at the University of Washington including Dr. Dennis Lettenmaier and his group members for ongoing support with the VIC model and simulations. Funding provided by NSERC’s Climate Change and Atmospheric Research program in support of the CanSISE network.