1. 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

2. Location

3. Environment

4. Water Resources

5. 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?

6. 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

7. HAR Orography

8. Precipitation – Climatology

9. Precipitation – Inter-Annual Variability

10. Precipitation – Entropy

11. Precipitation – Spatial Patterns

12. Precipitation Gradients

13. HAR Water Balance

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

15. Hydrological Modelling – Flows

16. Hydrological Modelling – SCA

17. Hydrological Model – Water Balance

18. 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

19. 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