High Resolution Current and Future Climate SnowModel Simulations in the Upper Colorado River Basin

This data release contains SnowModel snow evolution simulation output on a 100-meter (m) geospatial grid for a 311 kilometer (km) × 300 km model domain in Colorado, United States, encompassing the Colorado and Gunnison River Basin headwaters in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model convection-permitting and orography-resolving (4-km grid spacing) regional climate simulations provided the atmospheric forcing conditions to drive SnowModel in both a current and future climate scenario. A pair of continuous 13-water-year (2001-13) WRF model simulations was utilized: (1) a current climate control (CTL) simulation forced using ERA-Interim reanalysis, and (2) a future climate simulation using the pseudo-global-warming (PGW) method that uses the ERA-Interim reanalysis for the same period as (1) and adds an ensemble mean climate delta from 100 years in the future for the most extreme Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario. The six SnowModel simulated outputs provided separately as child items in this data release include (1) air temperature (tair), (2) precipitation (prec), (3) precipitation amount falling as snow (spre), (4) snow water equivalent (swed), (5) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow interface from snowmelt (smlt), and (6) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow or soil-air interface either from snowmelt or rainfall (roff). The simulations used to produce these outputs were conducted on a 100-m geospatial grid. Land cover information (file vege.asc) for the simulation was provided by the 2010 North American Land Change Monitoring System and elevation information (file topo.asc) was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey National Elevation Dataset.

Data and Resources

Field Value
accessLevel public
bureauCode {010:12}
catalog_@context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
catalog_@id https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
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identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-620be002d34ec05caca6142e
metadata_type geospatial
modified 2023-01-03T00:00:00Z
old-spatial -109.1900, 37.7770, -105.5240, 40.5450
publisher U.S. Geological Survey
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 594bf0f61be16f88194f6ef3c132f0f9a4121f1198c57465a37cdc375f3fcb75
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-109.1900, 37.7770], [-109.1900, 40.5450], [ -105.5240, 40.5450], [ -105.5240, 37.7770], [-109.1900, 37.7770]]]}
theme {geospatial}
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • AmeriGEO
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • CKAN
  • GEO
  • GEOSS
  • National
  • North America
  • United States
  • climatology
  • climatologymeteorologyatmosphere
  • colorado
  • hydrology
  • rocky-mountains
  • runoff
  • snow
  • snowmelt
  • snowpack
  • upper-colorado-river-basin
  • usgs-620be002d34ec05caca6142e
  • water-budget
  • water-resources
isopen False
license_id notspecified
license_title License not specified
maintainer Graham A Sexstone
maintainer_email sexstone@usgs.gov
metadata_created 2025-09-24T11:28:26.992179
metadata_modified 2025-09-24T11:28:26.992190
notes This data release contains SnowModel snow evolution simulation output on a 100-meter (m) geospatial grid for a 311 kilometer (km) × 300 km model domain in Colorado, United States, encompassing the Colorado and Gunnison River Basin headwaters in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model convection-permitting and orography-resolving (4-km grid spacing) regional climate simulations provided the atmospheric forcing conditions to drive SnowModel in both a current and future climate scenario. A pair of continuous 13-water-year (2001-13) WRF model simulations was utilized: (1) a current climate control (CTL) simulation forced using ERA-Interim reanalysis, and (2) a future climate simulation using the pseudo-global-warming (PGW) method that uses the ERA-Interim reanalysis for the same period as (1) and adds an ensemble mean climate delta from 100 years in the future for the most extreme Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario. The six SnowModel simulated outputs provided separately as child items in this data release include (1) air temperature (tair), (2) precipitation (prec), (3) precipitation amount falling as snow (spre), (4) snow water equivalent (swed), (5) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow interface from snowmelt (smlt), and (6) liquid water supplied to the soil-snow or soil-air interface either from snowmelt or rainfall (roff). The simulations used to produce these outputs were conducted on a 100-m geospatial grid. Land cover information (file vege.asc) for the simulation was provided by the 2010 North American Land Change Monitoring System and elevation information (file topo.asc) was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey National Elevation Dataset.
num_resources 2
num_tags 21
title High Resolution Current and Future Climate SnowModel Simulations in the Upper Colorado River Basin