Climate Change Effects on Optimal High-Elevation Hydropower Generation in Sierra Nevada, California

AbstractIn this review, we aimed to synthesize the current knowledge on the observed and projected effects of climate change on the ecosystems of Korea (i.e., the Republic of Korea (ROK) or South Korea), as well as the main causes of vulnerability and options for adaptation in these ecosystems based on a range of ecological and biogeographical data. To this end, we compiled a set of peer-reviewed papers published since 2014. We found that publication of climate-related studies on plants has decreased in the field of plant phenology and physiology, whereas such publication has rapidly increased in plant and animal community ecology, reflecting the range shifts and abundance change that are occurring under climate change. Plant phenology studies showed that climate change has increased growing seasons by advancing the timing of flowering and budburst while delaying the timing of leafing out. Community ecology studies indicated that the future ranges of cold-adapted plants and animals could shrink or shift toward northern and high-elevation areas, whereas the ranges of warm-adapted organisms could expand and/or shift toward the areas that the aforementioned cold-adapted biota previously occupied. This review provides useful information and new insights that will improve understanding of climate change effects on the ecosystems of Korea. Moreover, it will serve as a reference for policy-makers seeking to establish future sectoral adaptation options for protection against climate change.

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Holocene vegetation and climate change recorded in alpine bog sediments from the Borreguiles de la Virgen, Sierra Nevada, southern Spain

Quaternary Research ◽

10.1016/j.yqres.2011.09.006 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 77 (1) ◽

pp. 44-53 ◽

Cited By ~ 58

Author(s):

Gonzalo Jiménez-Moreno ◽

R. Scott Anderson

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Magnetic Susceptibility ◽

High Resolution ◽

Sierra Nevada ◽

High Elevation ◽

High Impact ◽

Southern Spain ◽

Pollen Record ◽

Arboreal Pollen ◽

Vegetation And Climate

High-resolution pollen and magnetic susceptibility (MS) analyses have been carried out on a sediment core taken from a high-elevation alpine bog area located in Sierra Nevada, southern Spain. The earliest part of the record, from 8200 to about 7000 cal yr BP, is characterized by the highest abundance of arboreal pollen andPediastrum, indicating the warmest and wettest conditions in the area at that time. The pollen record shows a progressive aridification since 7000 cal yr BP that occurred in two steps, first shown by a decrease inPinus, replaced by Poaceae from 7000 to 4600 cal yr BP and then by Cyperaceae,Artemisiaand Amaranthaceae from 4600 to 1200 cal yr BP.Pediastrumalso decreased progressively and totally disappeared at ca. 3000 yr ago. The progressive aridification is punctuated by periodically enhanced drought at ca. 6500, 5200 and 4000 cal yr BP that coincide in timing and duration with well-known dry events in the Mediterranean and other areas. Since 1200 cal yr BP, several changes are observed in the vegetation that probably indicate the high-impact of humans in the Sierra Nevada, with pasturing leading to nutrient enrichment and eutrophication of the bog,Pinusreforestation andOleacultivation at lower elevations.

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Fluctuations in annual climatic extremes are associated with reproductive variation in resident mountain chickadees

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.171604 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (5) ◽

pp. 171604 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Dovid Y. Kozlovsky ◽

Carrie L. Branch ◽

Angela M. Pitera ◽

Vladimir V. Pravosudov

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Reproductive Success ◽

Sierra Nevada ◽

Global Climate ◽

Full Range ◽

Elevation Gradient ◽

High Elevation ◽

Climatic Extremes ◽

Extreme Climate ◽

Mountain Chickadees

Mounting evidence suggests that we are experiencing rapidly accelerating global climate change. Understanding how climate change may affect life is critical to identifying species and populations that are vulnerable. Most current research focuses on investigating how organisms may respond to gradual warming, but another effect of climate change is extreme annual variation in precipitation associated with alternations between drought and unusually heavy precipitation, like that exhibited in the western regions of North America. Understanding climate change effects on animal reproductive behaviour is especially important, because it directly impacts population persistence. Here, we present data on reproduction in nest-box breeding, resident mountain chickadees inhabiting high and low elevations in the Sierra Nevada across 5 years. These 5 years of data represent the full range of climatic variation from the largest drought in five centuries to one of the heaviest snow years on record. There were significant differences in most reproductive characteristics associated with variation in climate. Both climate extremes were negatively associated with reproductive success at high and low elevations, but low-elevation chickadees had worse reproductive success in the largest drought year while high-elevation chickadees had worse reproductive success in the heaviest snow year. Considering that the frequency of extreme climate swings between drought and snow is predicted to increase, such swings may have negative effects on chickadee populations across the entire elevation gradient, as climatic extremes should favour different adaptations. Alternatively, it is possible that climate fluctuations might favour preserving genetic variation allowing for higher resilience. It is too early to make specific predictions regarding how increased frequency of extreme climate fluctuation may impact chickadees; however, our data suggest that even the most common species may be susceptible.

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Site fidelity of the declining amphibian Rana sierrae (Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog)

Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences ◽

10.1139/f09-172 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 67 (2) ◽

pp. 243-255 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Kathleen R. Matthews ◽

Haiganoush K. Preisler

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Potential Function ◽

Sierra Nevada ◽

National Park ◽

Site Fidelity ◽

High Elevation ◽

Water Bodies ◽

Mark Recapture ◽

Declining Species ◽

Main Activity

From 1997 to 2006, we used mark–recapture models to estimate the site fidelity of 1250 Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frogs ( Rana sierrae ) in Kings Canyon National Park, California, USA, during their three main activity periods of overwintering, breeding, and feeding. To quantify site fidelity, the tendency to return to and reuse previously occupied habitats, we used multistrata models (with water bodies as the strata) and potential function analyses. The probability of returning to previously used water bodies during all activity periods was typically greater than 80% and always greater than the probability of moving to other water bodies. Site fidelity models (with lake-specific movement transitions) were favored over those models that held movement transitions equal between lakes. Potential function analyses demonstrated that frogs were most strongly attracted to their original capture lakes rather than moving to the nearest available breeding or overwintering lake. Under current disturbances in high-elevation Sierra Nevada lakes (exotic trout, climate change), site fidelity is problematic because frogs return to lakes subject to drying or those with fish rather than dispersing to other lakes. Future recovery of declining species will need to focus efforts towards restoring habitats when animals maintain strong site fidelity even when their habitats deteriorate.

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Elevational dependence of climate change impacts on water resources in an Alpine catchment

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-10-3743-2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 3743-3794 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

S. Fatichi ◽

S. Rimkus ◽

P. Burlando ◽

R. Bordoy ◽

P. Molnar

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Water Resources ◽

Anthropogenic Impacts ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

High Elevation ◽

Daily Maximum ◽

Significant Implication ◽

Ice Melt ◽

Climate Change Effects ◽

River Diversions

Abstract. An increasing interest is directed toward understanding impacts of climate change on water related sectors in a particularly vulnerable area such as the Alpine region. We present a distributed hydrological analysis at scale significant for water management for pristine, present-days, and projected future climate conditions. We used the upper Rhone basin (Switzerland) as a test case for understanding anthropogenic impacts on water resources and flood risk in the Alpine area. The upper Rhone basin includes reservoirs, river diversions and irrigated areas offering the opportunity to study the interaction between climate change effects and hydraulic infrastructures. We downscale climate model realizations using a methodology that partially account for the uncertainty in climate change projections explicitly simulating stochastic variability of precipitation and air temperature. We show how climate change effects on streamflow propagate from high elevation headwater catchments to the river in the major valley. Changes in the natural hydrological regime imposed by the existing hydraulic infrastructure are likely larger than climate change signals expected by the middle of the 21th century in most of the river network. Despite a strong uncertainty induced by stochastic climate variability, we identified an elevational dependence of climate change impacts on streamflow with a severe reduction due to the missing contribution of water from ice melt at high-elevation and a dampened effect downstream. The presence of reservoirs and river diversions tends to decrease the uncertainty in future streamflow predictions that are conversely very large for highly glacierized catchments. Despite uncertainty, reduced ice cover and ice melt are likely to have significant implication for aquatic biodiversity and hydropower production. The impacts can emerge without any additional climate warming. A decrease of August-September discharge and an increase of hourly-daily maximum flows appear as the most robust projected changes for the different parts of the catchment. However, it is unlikely that major changes in total runoff for the entire upper Rhone basin will occur in the next decades.

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Potential impacts on hydrology and hydropower production under climate warming of the Sierra Nevada

Journal of Water and Climate Change ◽

10.2166/wcc.2011.054 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 29-43 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Vishal K. Mehta ◽

David E. Rheinheimer ◽

David Yates ◽

David R. Purkey ◽

Joshua H. Viers ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Sierra Nevada ◽

Climate Warming ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Climate Change ◽

River Basin Management ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Hydropower Generation ◽

Hydropower Production ◽

Regulatory Commission

Watersheds of the Cosumnes, American, Bear and Yuba (CABY) Rivers in the Sierra Nevada, California, are managed with a complex network of reservoirs, dams, hydropower plants and water conveyances. While water transfers are based on priorities among competing demands, hydropower generation is licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and regulated by federal and state laws and multi-party agreements. This paper presents an integrated river basin management (IRBM) model for the CABY region, built to evaluate management and regional climate change scenarios using the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) system. We simulated potential impacts of climate warming on hydrology and hydropower production by imposing a fixed increase of temperature (+2, 4 and 6°C) over weekly historical (1981–2000) climate, with all other climate variables unchanged. Results demonstrate that climate warming will reduce hydropower generation if operational rules remain unchanged, making the case for climate change induced hydrological change as a foreseeable future condition to be included in the FERC licensing process. IRBM tools such as the CABY model presented here are useful in deliberating the same.

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Vulnerability to climate change for two endemic high‐elevation, low‐dispersive Annitella species (Trichoptera) in Sierra Nevada, the southernmost high mountain in Europe

Insect Conservation and Diversity ◽

10.1111/icad.12387 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 283-295

Author(s):

Cesc Múrria ◽

Marta Sáinz‐Bariáin ◽

Alfried P. Vogler ◽

Aida Viza ◽

Marcos González ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Sierra Nevada ◽

High Elevation ◽

High Mountain ◽

Vulnerability To Climate Change

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Revisiting climate change effects on winter chill in mountain oases of northern Oman

Climatic Change ◽

10.1007/s10584-020-02862-8 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 162 (3) ◽

pp. 1399-1417

Author(s):

Andreas Buerkert ◽

Eduardo Fernandez ◽

Beke Tietjen ◽

Eike Luedeling

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Fruit Trees ◽

High Elevation ◽

Weather Data ◽

Climate Change Effects ◽

Winter Chill ◽

Deciduous Fruit ◽

Projected Changes ◽

Chilling Hours ◽

Chill Portions

Abstract For centuries, traditional high-altitude oases in Oman have depended on the cultivation of deciduous fruit trees. This study explores the effects of climate change on winter chill (estimated as Chilling Hours—CH and Chill Portions—CP), a prerequisite to overcoming dormancy and initiating flowering, in three Omani oases. The results are compared with findings from an earlier study which reported a decrease in the numbers of CH in high-elevation oases by an average of 1.2–9.5 CH year−1 between 1983 and 2008. Location-specific weather data were obtained by merging 15 years of in situ recordings with 28 years of observations from an official weather station near the top of the investigated watershed. Between 1991 and 2018, scenarios of the past few decades show chill reductions by 75, 35 and 18% when estimated in CP at the oases of Masayrat ar Ruwajah (1030 m a.s.l.), Qasha’ (1640 m a.s.l.), and Al ‘Ayn (1900 m a.s.l.), respectively. Over the course of the twenty-first century, the lowest-elevation oasis at Masayrat ar Ruwajah is projected to lose virtually all winter chill, whereas, despite significant chill losses, conditions are expected to remain viable for some of the currently grown species in the higher-elevation oases. These projected changes will compromise the cultivation of temperate fruit trees in the near future, affecting the sustainability of Omani oases. Our methods support results from earlier work performed at these locations and provide an updated procedure for assessing climate change effects on temperature-dependent systems.

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