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• Future change in global extreme meteorological droughts. • Two climate model large ensembles were used to assess the change of frequency. • Changes in meteorological droughts are mostly correlated to mean precipitation. • Projected increases in frequency are much more severe for short-term droughts. • Total area affected by a worsening of droughts gets larger with the return periods. Several studies have looked at the evolution of droughts in a changing climate in various locations and have typically found that droughts are expected to become more severe in the future. However, relatively little work has been done on extreme droughts. This study focuses on the evolution of extreme meteorological droughts over near (2036–2065) and far (2071–2100) future time periods. Monthly precipitation from two large multi-member climate model ensembles: the Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM2) 50-member ensemble and the Community Earth System Model (CESM1) 40-member ensemble, was used to calculate the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) to quantify and explore the evolution of future meteorological droughts. The use of these large ensembles allows for the calculation of the 20- and 100-year droughts return period and offers a unique perspective into those rare events. Both climate models project increases in extreme meteorological drought frequency over many of the world's regions. The spatial patterns of regions with worsening droughts generally match those of projected change in mean annual precipitation, although the former is more extensive, indicating that changes in internal variability will increase drought frequency even in some regions projected to see increased mean annual precipitation. The projected increase in meteorological drought frequency is more significant for short-term JJA droughts, and for the larger return periods. Large increases in frequency are observed in many regions, all the way up to 20 times for the historical100-year JJA drought indicating a return period shift from 100 to 5 year. Considering the significant predicted increases in temperature, it follows that future changes for both agricultural (soil water deficit) and hydrological droughts (low stream levels), which result from the interaction between precipitation deficit and temperature (as well as other variables), will be even more severe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weighting climate models is controversial in climate change impact studies using an ensemble of climate simulations from different climate models. In climate science, there is a general consensus that all climate models should be considered as having equal performance or in other words that all projections are equiprobable. On the other hand, in the impacts and adaptation community, many believe that climate models should be weighted based on their ability to better represent various metrics over a reference period. The debate appears to be partly philosophical in nature as few studies have investigated the impact of using weights in projecting future climate changes. The present study focuses on the impact of assigning weights to climate models for hydrological climate change studies. Five methods are used to determine weights on an ensemble of 28 global climate models (GCMs) adapted from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) database. Using a hydrological model, streamflows are computed over a reference (1961–1990) and future (2061–2090) periods, with and without post-processing climate model outputs. The impacts of using different weighting schemes for GCM simulations are then analyzed in terms of ensemble mean and uncertainty. The results show that weighting GCMs has a limited impact on both projected future climate in term of precipitation and temperature changes and hydrology in terms of nine different streamflow criteria. These results apply to both raw and post-processed GCM model outputs, thus supporting the view that climate models should be considered equiprobable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Future change in extreme droughts over 5797 North American watersheds was studied. • Two climate model large ensembles were used to assess the change of frequency. • Changes in meteorological droughts are mostly correlated to mean precipitation. • Large increases in the frequency of hydrological droughts are observed over NA. • Projected changes in future extreme droughts get worse for longer return periods. This paper describes projected frequency changes in extreme summer meteorological and hydrological droughts over North American catchments. It uses two large ensemble climate models (50-member CanESM2 and 40-member CESM1) under the RCP 8.5 scenario to robustly assess frequency changes up to the 100-year drought, relative to the 1980–2009 reference period. Meteorological droughts, linked solely to precipitation deficit, are represented by the 1-month Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), whereas hydrological droughts are characterized by the 1-month Streamflow Drought Index (SDI), based on hydrological simulation using a lumped hydrological model. Results show widely different patterns for future changes in extreme meteorological versus hydrological droughts. Future meteorological droughts show patterns of increasing and decreasing frequency that roughly match future expected changes of mean summer precipitation, although some regions are nonetheless projected to see more frequent extreme meteorological droughts despite increases in mean summer precipitation. The frequency changes for the 100-year meteorological droughts can be quite severe, with up to a 20-fold increase observed over some watersheds. On the other hand, hydrological droughts, which combine the effect of precipitation and temperature changes, show a mostly uniform pattern of large to very large increases in drought frequency. This shows that the projected temperature increase is a main driver of future extreme hydrological droughts, enough to overcome the projected increase in mean summer precipitation for many North American catchments. Projected changes in both meteorological and hydrological droughts get consistently worse for the longer considered return periods. In other words, frequency changes for the 100-year droughts are more significant than those expected for the 2- and 20-year droughts. This gradual worsening toward larger extremes has potentially large societal and economic impacts. The large projected increases in the frequency of extreme hydrological drought frequency (up to 27 times) are likely to severely stress water management systems across North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Flood volume evolution under climate change is evaluated on 1403 catchments. • Multiple climate models, hydrological models and bias correction methods are used. • Uncertainty analysis showed climate and hydrological models as key contributors. • Approximately 80% of basins will see increased extreme flood volumes in the future. • Changes seem to follow a pattern that can help predict flood volume evolution. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events, such as droughts and floods. Assessing the impacts of climate change on flood volumes is crucial to provide better management of flooding disasters given the devastating consequences they can cause. Using flood volume instead of flood peak is critical because the latter focuses on the highest possible discharge observed during a flood event, while flood volume also considers flow duration, which is an important factor in terms of the hazard caused to the surrounding environment. This study aims to evaluate the overall impact of climate change on floods caused by long-duration flows exceeding synthetic flooding thresholds. These flows are used to compute flood storage with various flow thresholds increasing from the 50th to 95th percentile of annual maximum observed discharge over a large sample of 1403 North American catchments. This study also aims to evaluate the contribution of each uncertainty source of the ensemble approach (climate models, bias-correction methods, and hydrological models) on future flood volumes. The results show that flood volumes are expected to decrease in western mountainous areas, the Great Lakes region, and the Maritimes, while increases are expected over most of eastern North America. The study finds that climate models contribute the most to the variance of flood volume uncertainty, followed by hydrological models. Overall, this study provides projected flood volume changes for North American catchments from a comprehensive ensemble that includes eleven climate models driven by two RCP scenarios and four hydrological models of varying complexity. This leads to a large-sample assessment of future flood volumes that could be useful to policymakers for making better-informed decisions in flood risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Projected climate change effects on snow hydrology are investigated for the 2041–2060 horizon following the SRES A2 emissions scenario over three snowmelt-dominated catchments in Quebec, Canada. A 16-member ensemble of eight snow models (SM) simulations, based on the high-resolution Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM-15 km) simulations driven by two realizations of the Canadian Global Climate Model (CGCM3), is established per catchment. This study aims to compare a range of SMs in their ability at simulating snow processes under current climate, and to evaluate how they affect the assessment of the climate change-induced snow impacts at the catchment scale. The variability of snowpack response caused by the use of different models within two different SM approaches (degree-day (DD) versus mixed degree-day/energy balance (DD/EB)) is also evaluated, as well as the uncertainty of natural climate variability. The simulations cover 1961–1990 in the present period and 2041–2060 in the future period. There is a general convergence in the ensemble spread of the climate change signals on snow water equivalent at the catchment scale, with an earlier peak and a decreased magnitude in all basins. The results of four snow indicators show that most of the uncertainty arises from natural climate variability (inter-member variability of the CRCM) followed by the snow model. Both the DD and DD/EB models provide comparable assessments of the impacts of climate change on snow hydrology at the catchment scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]