Illustration
Overview
Water availability in many regions depends on precipitation patterns, snow accumulation and melt, and the timing of runoff. We investigate how climate variability and change affect these interconnected processes and shape regional water resources.
Research directions
Representative findings
WAC-hydro classifies daily weather into 12 types based on precipitation and temperature, connecting large-scale climate variability to snowpack, runoff, and floods in the Pacific Northwest. The framework identifies weather patterns that elevate flood risk through heavy rainfall, snowmelt, or both.
Warmer coastal ocean temperatures bring wetter, warmer winters to the U.S. West Coast, reducing snowpack in the northern Cascades while increasing it in the southern Sierra Nevada. Changes in atmospheric rivers and precipitation interact with elevation to produce these contrasting responses.
A new precipitation-and-snow (PAS) framework identifies five event types, revealing that 50–90% of rainfall events involve snowpack changes across the western U.S. Snow accumulation is widespread, while melting is more common in coastal mountains, where relatively rare atmospheric rivers can drive substantial snowmelt during heavy...
Atmospheric rivers reshape western U.S. watershed hydrology by bringing heavy precipitation, reducing evaporation, and accelerating snowmelt through warmer temperatures and increased radiative heating. In some watersheds, they double runoff and account for 30–60% of annual streamflow variations, amplifying seasonal contrasts in regional water availability.
See Featured in AGU EOS by Minghua Zhang, DOE highlight, PNNL highlight
Publications
AI agent for hydrologic modeling: definition, development, and application
Understanding the influence of urban form on the spatial pattern of precipitation
Weather Systems Connecting Modes of Climate Variabilities to Regional Hydroclimate Extremes
Moisture Sources of Precipitation in the Great Lakes Region: Climatology and Recent Changes
