Combined impacts of uncertainty in precipitation and air temperature on simulated mountain system recharge from an integrated hydrologic model

Schreiner-McGraw, Adam P.; Ajami, Hoori

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1145-2022

Articles | Volume 26, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1145-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1145-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 4

Research article

|

28 Feb 2022

Research article |

| 28 Feb 2022

Combined impacts of uncertainty in precipitation and air temperature on simulated mountain system recharge from an integrated hydrologic model

Adam P. Schreiner-McGraw and Hoori Ajami

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Final revised paper (published on 28 Feb 2022)
Preprint (discussion started on 21 Jan 2021)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on hess-2020-558', Anonymous Referee #1, 29 Mar 2021
This manuscript reports on a study that evaluates the influence of uncertainties in meteorological forcings mainly precipitation and temperature, on the mountain system recharge. The study finds substantial differences in various components of mountain system recharge when the same hydrologic model, used to simulate those components, are driven by different combinations of meteorological forcings. The study highlights the need for improvement in quality of atmospheric forcings in mountainous regions. The topic of this study is certainly suitable for publication, the manuscript is well written and easy to follow. In my opinion though more could be done to address the robustness of the results of this study which would make this an important study and definitely suitable for publication

It needs to be demonstrated how/if the results of this study depend on the single year of the simulation. Why not extend the study period to include the last 30 years or so? All of the forcings used in this study go back to early 1980s. Even MODIS goes back to the early 2000s. A longer period of analysis can also help address the question of impact of forcing uncertainties on the long-term changes in mountain system recharge, which would be of interest given the focus on global warming driven changes in precipitation and temperature. A longer analysis period could also allow for independent verification of the mountain system recharge simulations such as by using GRACE based estimates of recharge, which goes back to early 2000s. This could help identify the set of atmospheric forcings which yield the most realistic estimates of the recharge.

Additionally, how are the results of this study dependent on the choice of the hydrologic model? As shown by Vano et al, 2012 (cited by this manuscript too) depending on the choice of hydrologic model sensitivity of hydrologic variables (such as runoff) to changes in precipitation and temperature can vary substantially.

Finally, it also should be at least discussed how the results of this study may depend on the choice of the study domain.

Minor comments:

I am surprised a bit about the differences in the simulated variables generated using GridMET, NLDAS and PRISM datasets. As described in Abatzoglou 2013, GridMET is based on the NLDAS-2 and PRISM dataset. Please at least discuss why this might be the case.

Page 1, line 28: “high qualify” should be “high quality”.

Page 8, 217-219, how does this chosen threshold of 2.5 deg C for partition of precipitation into rainfall and snow, affect the results of this analysis, especially in the mid to low elevation parts of the domain?

Page 22, lines 496-498, I am not sure why land surface temperature and soil moisture would not be affected by the choice of forcings, wouldn’t changes in ET affect both? Please clarify.

References:

Vano, J. A., Das, T., & Lettenmaier, D. P. (2012). Hydrologic Sensitivities of Colorado River Runoff to Changes in Precipitation and Temperature, Journal of Hydrometeorology, 13(3), 932-949. Retrieved Mar 29, 2021, from https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/hydr/13/3/jhm-d-11-069_1.xml

Abatzoglou, J.T. (2013), Development of gridded surface meteorological data for ecological applications and modelling. Int. J. Climatol., 33: 121-131. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3413
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2020-558-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Adam Schreiner-McGraw, 03 May 2021
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2020-558/hess-2020-558-AC1-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2020-558-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on hess-2020-558', Anonymous Referee #2, 12 Apr 2021

This manuscript reports a simulation study of the impacts of precipitation and temperature input data uncertainty on various groundwater recharge pathways in a mountainous watershed as simulated by a coupled model. Four and five actual precipitation and temperature datasets are used, respectively. The precipitation and temperature uncertainties are propagated separately and in combination. The application of this type of analysis to a groundwater model in a mountainous setting and with respect to different recharge pathways is novel as far as I know. The study is executed well, analysed in detail and some interesting results are obtained.

What could be added is a discussion of how the model parameterisation affects the conclusions. Such a discussion is started on page 14 but could be more comprehensive.

In terms of presentation, although the paper is generally well written, it is repetitive in places and the flow of arguments could be sharpened.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2020-558-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Adam Schreiner-McGraw, 03 May 2021
  
  The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2020-558/hess-2020-558-AC2-supplement.pdf
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2020-558-AC2

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (28 May 2021) by Jim Freer

Dear Authors, I thank you for your responses to the reviewer comments, I think you have made suggestions for changes to the manuscript that should resolve the core points the reviewer have made, but given that new results need to be realized I will be sending this paper out for review again.
I, like one of the reviewers, core concerns is the limited evaluation of a year to make significant judgements on the sensitivities of climatological data on a range of snow, snowmelt, hydrological and groundwater processes, to me this is not justifiable to make strong conclusions without serious self critical evaluation, which really makes any such conclusions weakly supported at this time. Whilst I appreciate there are computational constraints to consider, and the suggestion to extend the period evaluated to 2 more years, I can only encourage strongly that multi-year analyses is key to reflect the variabilities of annual processes and thus reflect the importance of the uncertainties in the driving climatological with reference to these. I also highly recommend that in doing a multi-year analyses the authors think about the value they can add in terms of understanding such variability as part of their core results. I'd also like to see reflected in how the years chosen can be considered to longer term variations not necessarily including model simulations but to give appropriate context and discuss those issues. Perhaps if the span of variability cannot be easily accommodated to 2 more years this may need to be considered further. Finally I think it may be important to think if to avoid any spin up issues that concurrent years should be simulated if a suitable period can be found that has a good selection of natural variation in observed climatology, hydrology and gw variations

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AR by Adam Schreiner-McGraw on behalf of the Authors (08 Jul 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (09 Aug 2021) by Jim Freer

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (29 Oct 2021) by Jim Freer

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (09 Dec 2021)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (23 Dec 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Dear Authors,

Thank you for providing your response to my comments. In general I find them to be satisfactory. I do however have a remaining and important comment. I am still confused about which dataset you mean by "Princeton CONUS forcings" dataset. Are you referring to MSWEP V2.2? If yes, then that dataset does go back to 1979, plus its a global dataset hence now mainly based on NLDAS-2, which is only available over North America. I am also confused because currently the Beck et al., 2019 paper that you are citing does not describe a new precipitation dataset it whereas compares several precipitation datasets including MSWEP. Do you mean to cite other Beck et al, 2019 paper which was published in BAMS?

Also, I might suggest to use a different term than "Princeton CONUS forcings" for the forcings dataset you are using, as there are other forcings datasets generated by the Princeton Group, most notably Sheffield et al., 2006 dataset.

References:

Beck, H. E., Pan, M., Roy, T., Weedon, G. P., Pappenberger, F., Van Dijk, A. I. J. M., Huffman, G. J., Adler, R. F. and Wood, E. F.: Daily evaluation of 26 precipitation datasets using Stage-IV gauge-radar data for the CONUS, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 23(1), 207–224, doi:10.5194/hess-23-207-2019, 2019. *Currently being cited in the manuscript

Beck, H. E., Wood, E. F., Pan, M., Fisher, C. K., Miralles, D. G., van Dijk, A. I. J. M., McVicar, T. R., & Adler, R. F. (2019). MSWEP V2 Global 3-Hourly 0.1° Precipitation: Methodology and Quantitative Assessment, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 100(3), 473-500. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/100/3/bams-d-17-0138.1.xml

Sheffield, J., Goteti, G., & Wood, E. F. (2006). Development of a 50-Year High-Resolution Global Dataset of Meteorological Forcings for Land Surface Modeling, Journal of Climate, 19(13), 3088-3111. https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/19/13/jcli3790.1.xml

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (24 Dec 2021) by Jim Freer

AR by Adam Schreiner-McGraw on behalf of the Authors (03 Jan 2022) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (14 Jan 2022) by Jim Freer

AR by Adam Schreiner-McGraw on behalf of the Authors (18 Jan 2022)

Short summary

We assess the impact of uncertainty in measurements of precipitation and air temperature on simulated groundwater processes in a mountainous watershed. We illustrate the role of topography in controlling how uncertainty in the input datasets propagates through the soil and into the groundwater. While the focus of previous investigations has been on the impact of precipitation uncertainty, we show that air temperature uncertainty is equally important in controlling the groundwater recharge.