Daily Streamflow Trends in Western vs. Eastern Norway and their
Attribution to Hydro-Meteorological drivers
Abstract
Climate change in terms of regional warming and modifications in
precipitation regimes has large impacts on streamflow in regions where
both rainfall and snowmelt are important runoff generating processes
like in Norway. Hydrological impacts of recent changes in climate are
usually investigated by trend analyses applied on annual, seasonal, or
monthly time series. However, neither of them can detect sub-seasonal
changes and their underlying causes. Based on high-resolution trend
analyses (i.e., applying the Mann-Kendall test on 10-day-moving-averaged
daily time series), this study investigated sub-seasonal changes in
daily streamflow, rainfall, and snowmelt in 61 and 51 catchments in
Western vs. Eastern Norway (Vestlandet vs. Østlandet), respectively,
over the period 1983-2012. The relative contribution of rainfall vs.
snowmelt to daily streamflow and the changes therein have also been
estimated to identify the changing relevance of these driving processes
over the same period. Detected changes in daily streamflow were finally
attributed to changes in the most important hydro-meteorological drivers
using multiple-regression models with increasing complexity. Results
reveal a coherent picture of earlier spring flow timing in both regions
due to earlier snowmelt. Other streamflow trend patterns differ between
both regions: Østlandet shows increased summer streamflow in catchments
up to ~1100 m a.s.l. and slightly increased winter
streamflow in about 50 % of the catchments, while trend patterns in
Vestlandet are less coherent. The importance of rainfall for streamflow
contribution has increased in both regions, and the trend attribution
reveals that changes in rainfall and snowmelt can explain streamflow
changes to some degree in periods and regions where they are dominant
(snowmelt: spring and Østlandet; rainfall: autumn and Vestlandet).
However, detected streamflow changes can be best explained by adding
temperature as an additional predictor which indicates the relevance of
additional driving processes for streamflow changes like increased
glacier melt and evapotranspiration.