Future projections of High Atlas snowpack  and runoff under climate change

Tuel, Alexandre; El Moçayd, Nabil; Hasnaoui, Moulay Driss; Eltahir, Elfatih A. B.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-571-2022

Articles | Volume 26, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-571-2022

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-571-2022

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

Articles | Volume 26, issue 3

Research article

|

02 Feb 2022

Research article |

| 02 Feb 2022

Future projections of High Atlas snowpack and runoff under climate change

Alexandre Tuel, Nabil El Moçayd, Moulay Driss Hasnaoui, and Elfatih A. B. Eltahir

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Final revised paper (published on 02 Feb 2022)
Preprint (discussion started on 18 Dec 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of hess-2020-622', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Jan 2021
- AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Alexandre Tuel, 12 Mar 2021
RC2: 'Review hess-2020-622', Anonymous Referee #2, 08 Jan 2021
- AC3: 'Reply on RC2', Alexandre Tuel, 12 Mar 2021
SC1: 'Comment on hess-2020-622', Simon Gascoin, 16 Jan 2021
- AC1: 'Reply on SC1', Alexandre Tuel, 05 Mar 2021

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (30 Apr 2021) by Luis Samaniego

AR by Alexandre Tuel on behalf of the Authors (02 Jun 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (30 Jun 2021) by Luis Samaniego

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (29 Jul 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review (after major revision)

Future projections of High Atlas snowpack and runoff under climate change
Tuel et al. 2020: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2020-622

General comment

In my view, the manuscript improved substantially compared to the previous version. The manuscript is better structured now and results and discussion are more clear. However, I still have a few minor suggestions/comments, which should be considered before acceptance. Page/Line numbers refer to the file hess-2020-622-ATC1.pdf

Line 28:
Not sure if 'however' fits here? At least I had to stop when I was reading it. Maybe something like 'Previous investigation indicate...' is better?

Fig 1: Include overview map? Not sure whether everyone knows where the Atlas and Morocco (country borders) is. Is it possible to include the information on what the red dotted line and black lines are into the legend directly? Then the reader would not have to search for it in the figure caption.

Line 83: 'variability' of the seasonal snow cover?

Line 103: 'runoff will be modeled' Maybe be a bit more specific here? For a moment, I thought (again) you actually run a hydrological model for this.

Line 158: 'MRCM output must be bias-corrected' You do this in this study or was this done by T20b already? Please specify. As T20a, T20bb and this study are so interlinked, is it possible to add this information into the scheme Fig. 4?

Line 174: What about temperatures? You do not downscale temperature?

Line 174: What lapse-rate do you use to downscale µ = ?

Line 183: SWE usually used for snow water equivalent not snow water content. Please consider changning.

Line 190: Where is this formula coming from? Why do you use this? Why 0.85 and not 0.9?

Line 198: Do the parameters differ a lot between the ERA and GCM calibrations? Maybe a small table with the resulting parameters?

Fig. 5: What time frame is shown here? Can you maybe add it to the figure caption?

Fig. 6 + 7 + A1: I find it hard to see the differences here. Maybe actually calculate the differences between the maps and show it?

Line 252-259: Move to discussion?

Line 416: What do you mean by 'peak snow cover' here? Maximum snow cover extent? What figure do you refer to here? I was not sure what those values represent...

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (29 Sep 2021)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (15 Nov 2021) by Luis Samaniego

AR by Alexandre Tuel on behalf of the Authors (23 Nov 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (07 Jan 2022) by Luis Samaniego

AR by Alexandre Tuel on behalf of the Authors (08 Jan 2022) Manuscript

Short summary

Snowmelt in the High Atlas is critical for irrigation in Morocco but is threatened by climate change. We assess future trends in High Atlas snowpack by modelling it under historical and future climate scenarios and estimate their impact on runoff. We find that the combined warming and drying will result in a roughly 80 % decline in snowpack, a 5 %–30 % decrease in runoff efficiency and 50 %–60 % decline in runoff under a business-as-usual scenario.