Trends and Implications of Stream Temperature for Energy and Fish Production

Abstract:

Stream temperature plays an important role in closing the energy balance at local, regional and global scales, and has significant impacts on fishery and energy production. It is therefore a critical parameter in the water-food-energy nexus. The stream temperature is affected by both climatic conditions and human activities such as reservoir and power plant operations. This study adopts a physically based stream temperature model within the Community Earth System Model (CESM) framework. The Model for Scale Adaptive River Transport (MOSART) has been developed to represent riverine water dynamics and incorporated into CESM by coupling with the Community Land Model (CLM). Here we build upon CLM-MOSART to represent the riverine transport of heat along with water flux and the energy exchanges between river water and the atmosphere. The impacts of reservoir and power plant operations are also explicitly incorporated with this stream temperature model. Scenarios of climate change effects as well as climate change combined with human activities are simulated. Trend in stream temperature, especially summer stream, will be systematically analyzed. Discussions of how future stream temperature affects energy production and food security will be presented.