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USGS Surface Water Information
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Global Change Hydrology Program (Hydroclimatology)
Please contact William Kirby with questions.
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Atmospheric circulation over
the North Pacific Ocean at
700-mb (about 10,000 feet),
and associated precipitation
and freshwater inflow from the
Sierra Nevada through the Delta
to San Franciso Bay on March 17,
1983. The image is a single
frame from the hydroclimate
and salinity response movie.
Click on the image to
enlarge. |
Overview
The Global Change Hydrology Program was begun in 1990 to develop data,
understanding, and predictive capabilities related to water and associated aspects
of carbon and the greenhouse gases as they interact with global systems. The
Program is part of the USGS Global Change Research Program (Geochange)
which, in turn, is an element of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP).
Global Change Hydrology has two broad components: 1) investigations of hydroclimatic variability, and 2) studies of the
biogeochemistry of greenhouse gases. The former are coordinated by the Office of Surface Water and are described herein.
The latter are coordinated by the Office of Hydrologic Research, and
additional information on those can be obtained at NRP, at WEBB, and at
carbon cycle.
Both components are national in scope and maintain strong programmatic linkages to scientists and projects supported by NSF, NOAA, and NASA.
The hydroclimatic research components of the Program focus on characterizing,
and developing predictive methods related to, the hydroclimatology of North
America. This includes identification of seasonal variations in regional streamflow in relation to atmospheric circulation (for regional streamflow prediction and
flood/drought hazard assessment); the linkage between atmospheric circulation
and snowpack accumulation (for forecasting spring and summer water supply in
the western United States and for flood forecasting) as well as glacier mass balance; and the physical and chemical variability in riverine and estuarine environments in relation to large-scale atmospheric and oceanic conditions(to discriminate natural from human-induced effects on such systems). It also includes documenting the long-term behavior of hydrologic systems in response to past climatic variations and changes (from decades to hundreds of thousands of years) as well as more recent (decadal) hydrologic trends. Finally, the Program maintains an active effort to develop improved representations of terrestrial hydrologic processes in general
circulation and regional climate models. In broad terms, these activities are aimed at
improving statistical and deterministic methods for predicting hydrologic hazards and related
environmental conditions on monthly to interannual time scales.
Harry Lins
Office of Surface Water, USGS
March 1998
Research Activities
- Hydrology in General Circulation and Regional Climatic Models
- Continental hydrology and global climate
- Regional climate model hydrology
- Hydroclimatic variability
- Observed streamflow trends
- Hydroclimatic Processes and Hazards
- Hydroclimatology of Streams and Estuaries
- Response of fluvial systems
- Biotic response
- Glacier, snow and ice processes
- Glacier mass balance and snowpack
- Paleohydrologic conditions
- Continental paleoclimates
- Paleoflood hydrology
Data Sets
HCDN Hydro-Climatic Data Network
GREDS
GEWEX Continental-scale International Project Reference Data Set
Benchmark Glacier Data
Devils Hole Core DH-11
Fact Sheets
OFR93-642 Drought
FS-062-95
Northern California Storms and Floods of January 1995
SF-Bay
Seasonal/Yearly Salinity Variations in San Francisco Bay
Devils Hole Primer
Links to Other USGS Global Change Sites
- WEBB
Water, Energy, and Biogeochemical Budgets Program
- Small
Watershed Investigations in the USGS (Hirsch, 1998)
- Water,
Energy, and Bigrochemical Budgets Research (Lins, 1994)
- Geochange USGS Global Change Research Program
Publications
Selected Publications of the Global Change
Hydrology (Hydroclimatology) Program, 1988 - Present
Selected New Publications of the Global Change
Hydrology (Hydroclimatology) Program, 1994 - 1998
Selected New Publications of the Global Change
Hydrology (Hydroclimatology) Program, 1999
Bibliography
Water and Climate Bibliography (Pacific Institute)
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