Future shifts in extreme flow regimes in Alpine regions

Brunner, Manuela I.; Farinotti, Daniel; Zekollari, Harry; Huss, Matthias; Zappa, Massimiliano

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4471-2019

Articles | Volume 23, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4471-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4471-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 23, issue 11

Research article

|

30 Oct 2019

Research article |

| 30 Oct 2019

Future shifts in extreme flow regimes in Alpine regions

Manuela I. Brunner, Daniel Farinotti, Harry Zekollari, Matthias Huss, and Massimiliano Zappa

Download

Final revised paper (published on 30 Oct 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 09 Apr 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Article Evaluation', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 May 2019
- AC1: 'Answers to reviewer 1', Manuela Irene Brunner, 11 Jun 2019
RC2: 'Review of article Future shifts in extreme flow regimes, Brunner et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 16 May 2019
- AC2: 'Answers to reviewer 2', Manuela Irene Brunner, 11 Jun 2019
  - EC1: 'Comment from the editor', Axel Bronstert, 09 Jul 2019
    - AC3: 'Validation of model for current conditions', Manuela Irene Brunner, 10 Jul 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (17 Jun 2019) by Axel Bronstert

AR by Manuela Irene Brunner on behalf of the Authors (18 Jun 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Jul 2019) by Axel Bronstert

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (09 Aug 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (28 Aug 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Comments on revised manuscript: Future shifts in extreme flow regimes in Alpine regions. Brunner, M.I. et al. Hydro. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2019-144

Based on the revised Figures 7 – 10, it appears that the authors have addressed the major concern I raised in my previous review, i.e. the need for a comparison of future simulations with simulations for the current period, both of which should be based on climate model data. In the previous version of this paper, the ‘current’ period was modelled using observed meteorological data and used for comparisons with the future period. As I understand it from the authors’ reply to my review (and please correct me if I have misunderstood), this has now been replaced in the figures by the multi-model mean value from the 39 climate simulations for the reference period for comparison with the full distribution of results for the future period. In other words, a mean value estimated from the distribution of ‘reference’ simulations shown in Figure 6 has been used in Figures 7-10. The effects of this change is most noticeable in the significant reduction in the variability in the change in the mean discharge between catchments, shown in Figure 8 and 10. That you have chosen to use the multi-model mean for these comparisons rather than the full distribution for the reference period needs to be mentioned in the text; otherwise, it is unclear as to what ‘Current’ refers to in the legends for fig. 7 and 9, and what the baseline (i.e. 0 value) is for Figures 8 and 10. In addition, Fig. 10 needs be adjusted so that the full range of values is shown for the box plots in the first row. Other than these two very minor changes, I have no further comments.

Hide

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (09 Sep 2019) by Axel Bronstert

AR by Manuela Irene Brunner on behalf of the Authors (09 Sep 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

River flow regimes are expected to change and so are extreme flow regimes. We propose two methods for estimating extreme flow regimes and show on a data set from Switzerland how these extreme regimes are expected to change. Our results show that changes in low- and high-flow regimes are distinct for rainfall- and melt-dominated regions. Our findings provide guidance in water resource planning and management.