Collaborative Resaerch: P2C2--Multi-Site Paleo-Reconstruction of Missouri River Streamflows from Tree Ring Data

Lead PI: Dr. Edward R. Cook

Unit Affiliation: Biology and Paleo Environment, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO)

July 2014 - June 2019
Inactive
North America
Project Type: Research

DESCRIPTION: Modern records of gaged flow for major rivers are limited to the last 120 years, at most. These records, which reflect average annual flows as well as periods of drought, have been used to allocate water resources and plan for future uses. Tree-ring based reconstructions of streamflow have been used to extend records back in time. The most well-known of these, for the Colorado River, showed that the period of flow used to allocate the basin's water supplies in the 1920s was one of the wettest period of flow in the past five centuries. Reconstructions of flow for other basins, such as the Sacramento River, have shown that drought much longer than any in the gage records have occurred over past centuries.

OUTCOMES: Ho, M., Lall, U., Cook, E. R.. "Reconstructing streamflow from a paleo-drought record: A case study for the Missouri River Basin," Water Resources Research, v.52, 2016, p. 5195. doi:10.1002/2015WR018444

Ho, M., Lall, U., Sun, X., Cook, E. R.. "Multiscale temporal variability and regional patterns in 555 years of conterminous U.S. streamflow," Water Resources Research, v.53, 2017, p. 3047. doi:10.1002/2016WR019632

Wise, E.K., C.A. Woodhouse, G. McCabe, G. Pederson, J. St-Jacques. "Hydroclimatology of the Missouri River Basin," Journal of Hydrometeorology, v.19, 2018, p. 161. doi:10.1175/JHM-D-17-0155.1

Ho, Michelle, U. Lall, E.R. Cook. "How wet and dry spells evolve across the conterminous United States based on 555 years of paleoclimate data," Journal of Climate, v.31, 2018, p. 6633. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0182.1