Climate Impacts on Hydrological Variables in the Mackenzie River Basin

Figures & data

Figure 1. Technical approach flow chart.

Figure 2. (a) Location of the the Mackenzie River Basin in Canada. (b) The Mackenzie River Basin showing the locations of the meteorological stations used for deriving gridded data and the locations of the hydrometric stations used for calibration and validation of the hydrological model.

Table 1. Nash-Sutcliffe values for both data sets for a monthly time step for calibration and validation results.

Station Name	WSC Station Number	Drainage Area (km^2)	Environment Canada	ECMWF
Calibration/Validation Sites
Liard River at Fort Liard	10ED001	222000	0.88	0.67
Mackenzie River at Arctic Red River	10LC014	1680000	0.71	0.61
Validation Sites
Kwadacha River near Ware	07EA002	2410	0.30	0.38
Smoky River above Hells Creek	07GA001	3840	0.51	0.47
Murray River near the Mouth	07FB002	5550	0.48	0.10
Omineca River above Osilinka River	07EC001	5560	0.57	0.05
Carcajou River below Imperial River	10KB001	7400	0.07	0.40
Root River near the Mouth	10GA001	9820	0.55	0.31
Little Smoky River near Guy	07GH002	11100	0.47	0.29
South Nahanni River above Virginia Falls	10EB001	14600	0.68	0.75
Beatton River near Fort St. John	07FC001	15600	0.35	0.27
Arctic Red River near the Mouth	10LA002	18750	0.61	0.67

Table 2. Percentage of grid cells with a significant trend (10% significance level).

	Temperature		Precipitation		Runoff		Evapotranspiration
Time Period	Env. Canada	ECMWF	Env. Canada	ECMWF	Env. Canada	ECMWF	Env. Canada	ECMWF
Jan	+74/ 0.0	+41/0.0	+4.1/34	+1.4/4.3	+18/10	+26/0.5	+21/5.9	+3.0/7.5
Feb	+65/0.0	+31/0.0	+7.2/14	+9.7/2.8	+17/6.8	+21/1.1	+16/3.9	+1.8/5.7
Mar	+71/0.9	+81/0.0	+7.0/15	+12/0.0	+26/5.4	+35/0.2	+38/0.2	+33/1.1
Apr	+47/3.0	+48/0.0	+3.4/18	+6.6/0.1	+30/9.5	+42/0.0	+26/0.0	+33/0.2
May	+24/4.3	+17/0.0	+24/1.1	+43/0.0	+11/30	+9.1/0.5	+52/0.0	+65/0.0
Jun	+50/1.7	+30/0.0	+11/1.5	+35/0.0	+12/13	+31/0.0	+34/0.0	+51/0.0
Jul	+45/1.2	+12/0.0	+24/4.0	+60/0.0	+17/9.2	+51/0.0	+40/0.0	+66/0.0
Aug	+18/2.1	+0.0/0.0	+18/1.4	+29/0.0	+17/12	+41/0.0	+32/0.0	+37/0.0
Sep	+45/1.1	+24/0.0	+24/4.6	+38/0.0	+22/19	+46/0.0	+38/0.0	+47/0.0
Oct	+5.4/37	+0.0/26	+5.5/4.2	+18/0.0	+14/26	+27/0.1	+21/0.0	+1.6/0.0
Nov	+17/0.5	+0.3/0.0	+8.4/16	+3.3/0.0	+17/18	+16/0.3	+12/0.7	+4.5/0.0
Dec	+57/0.0	+0.0/0.0	+7.3/18	+0.0/2.2	+18/14	+24/0.4	+21/8.2	+1.7/9.2
Ann	+90/1.2	+84/0.0	+29/14	+50/0.0	+24/26	+64/0.0	+56/3.0	+83/0.0
Note: Positive values indicate increasing trends and negative values indicate decreasing trends. Bold values indicate results that are field significant at the 10% significance level.

Figure 3. Average temperature trend slopes on a monthly (left y-axis) and annual (right y-axis) basis for the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets based on the 4667 grid cells.

Figure 4. Spatial distribution of significant (10% significance level) annual temperature trends for the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets.

Figure 5. Average precipitation trend slopes on a monthly (left y-axis) and annual (right y-axis) basis for the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets based on the 4667 grid cells.

Figure 6. Spatial distribution of significant (10% significance level) annual precipitation trends for the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets.

Figure 7. Average trend slopes on a monthly (left y-axis) and annual (right y-axis) basis for runoff derived using the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets based on the 4667 grid cells.

Figure 8. Spatial distribution of significant (10% significance level) annual runoff trends for the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets.

Table 3. Comparison of the percentage of grid cells in each of three trend categories (at the 10% significance level) for runoff derived using the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets.

	Environment Canada
ECMWF	Decreasing Trend	No Trend	Increasing Trend	Total
Increasing Trend	10.7%	34.1%	19.3%	64.1%
No Trend	15.5%	15.1%	5.2%	35.9%
Decreasing Trend	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Total	26.3%	49.3%	24.4%	100%

Figure 9. Average trend slopes on a monthly (left y-axis) and annual (right y-axis) basis for evapotranspiration derived using the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets based on the 4667 grid cells.

Figure 10. Spatial distribution of significant (10% significance level) annual evapotranspiration trends for the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets.

Table 4. Comparison of the percentage of grid cells in each of three trend categories (at the 10% significance level) for evapotranspiration derived using the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets.

	Environment Canada
ECMWF	Decreasing Trend	No Trend	Increasing Trend	Total
Increasing Trend	1.65%	36.43%	44.89%	82.97%
No Trend	1.01%	4.97%	11.06%	17.03%
Decreasing Trend	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%
Total	2.66%	41.40%	55.95%	100%

Figure 11. Spatial distribution of significant (10% significance level) annual storage trends for the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets.

Figure 12. Box plots of annual storage trends derived using the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets based on the 4667 grid cells. The boxes show the first quartile, median, and the third quartile. The whiskers extend from the box to the 5 and 95 percentiles.

Table 5. Comparison of the percentage of grid cells in each of three trend categories (at the 10% significance level) for storage derived using the Environment Canada and ECMWF data sets.

ECMWF	Environment Canada
	Decreasing Trend	No Trend	Increasing Trend	Total
Increasing Trend	7.6%	32.5%	9.6%	49.6%
No Trend	20.6%	24.6%	4.5%	49.7%
Decreasing Trend	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.7%
Total	28.8%	57.1%	14.1%	100%