Human-induced changes in the hydrology of the Western United States

Barnett, Tim P., Pierce, David W., Hidalgo, Hugo G., Bonfils, Celine, Santer, Benjamin D., Das, Tapash, Bala, Govindasamy, Wood, Andrew W., Nozawa, Toru, Mirin, Arthur A., Cayan, Daniel R. and Dettinger, Michael D. (2008) Human-induced changes in the hydrology of the Western United States. Science, 319 (5866). pp. 1080-1083. ISSN 0036-8075

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Abstract

Observations have shown that the hydrological cycle of the western United States changed significantly over the last half of the 20th century. We present 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. The 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. They portend, in conjunction with previous work, a coming crisis in water supply for the western United States.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	general ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1000
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	18 Mar 2026 16:30
Last Modified:	18 Mar 2026 16:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102459
DOI:	10.1126/science.1152538

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