Alan Hamlet, member of Climate Impacts Group at University of Washington, on “Flow regime change forecast for Nisqually/Deschutes Rivers & Chambers Creek”

Showed graphs with historic climate change and projected change.

Two different scenarios based on different reductions in greenhouse gas emissions show vastly different results, but only after a couple of decades. 

Columbia Basin Climate Change Scenarios Project goals and objectives: provide a wide range of products to address multiple stakeholder needs, increase spatial and temporal resolution, provide a large ensemble of climate scenarios to assess uncertains, and address hydrologic extremes

Studied changes to runoff and frequency extreme events for the Nisqually watershed.  Also the increase of sediment discharge at teh Nisqually headwaters in Mt. Rainier Nationa Park due to glacier melting.

Question for future research:  How will sea level rise  and sediment change affect Nisqually delta?