Using climate model output to assess the impacts of climate change on water resources.

摘要

The use of general circulation models (GCMs) to provide climate data for regional assessments of the impacts of changing climate on water resources stretches the limits of what the models were designed for. Problems that must be addressed include disagreement on a regional scale among GCMs and between the modeled and observed climate; coarse spatial resolution of the models; and simplistic representation of surface hydrology. It is important that continued progress be made in developing the methodology for using GCM output in climate-impact assessments. 18 refs.