Science Source
Human-Induced Changes in the Hydrology of the Western United States
- Observations have shown that the hydrological cycle of the western United States changed significantly over the last half of the 20th century
- Presents a regional, multivariable climate change detection and attribution study, using a high-resolution hydrologic model forced by global climate models, focusing on the changes that have already affected this primarily arid region with a large and growing population
- Results show that up to 60% of the climate-related trends of river flow, winter air temperature, and snow pack between 1950 and 1999 are human-induced
- These results are robust to perturbation of study variates and methods
- Concludes that the results portend, in conjunction with previous work, a coming crisis in water supply for the western United States
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