the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
The UKSCAPE-G2G river flow and soil moisture datasets: Grid-to-Grid model estimates for the UK for historical and potential future climates
Victoria A. Bell
Helen N. Davies
Rosanna A. Lane
Alison C. Rudd
Abstract. Appropriate adaptation planning is contingent upon information about the potential future impacts of climate change, and hydrological impact assessments are of particular importance. The UKSCAPE-G2G datasets were produced, as part of the NERC UK-SCAPE programme, to contribute to this information requirement. They use the Grid-to-Grid (G2G) national-scale hydrological model configured for both Great Britain and Northern Ireland (and the parts of the Republic of Ireland that drain to rivers in NI). Six separate datasets are provided, for two sets of driving data — one observation-based (1980–2011) and one climate projection-based (1980–2080) — for both river flows and soil moisture on 1 km x 1 km grids across GB and NI. The river flow datasets include grids of monthly mean flow, annual maxima of daily mean flow, and annual minima of 7-day mean flow (m3s-1). The soil moisture datasets are grids of monthly mean soil moisture content (m water / m soil), which should be interpreted as depth-integrated values for the whole soil column. The climate projection-based datasets are produced using data from the 12-member 12km regional climate model ensemble of the latest UK climate projections (UKCP18), which uses RCP8.5 emissions. The production of the datasets is described, along with details of the file format, and how the data should be used. Example maps are provided, as well as simple UK-wide analyses of the various outputs. These suggest potential future decreases in summer flows, annual minimum 7-day flows, and summer/autumn soil moisture, along with possible future increases in winter flows and annual maximum flows. References are given for published papers providing more detailed spatial analyses, and some further potential uses of the data are suggested.
Alison L. Kay et al.
Status: open (until 15 Apr 2023)
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RC1: 'Comment on essd-2022-439', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 Mar 2023
reply
This data paper serves as a nice bringing together of a variety of existing, but closely related datasets around the G2G national modelling. I find that having all of these details together in one place will be useful for a wide variety of UK-based research and modelling. I have tested all data links for the datasets presented and they currently work (2023-03-10). I have found the paper to be well written with only some minor comments below.
I would note that I have selected good rather than excellent for originality and uniqueness because this paper is bringing together existing data rather than presenting new data. Though as above, I think this is still useful to bring these datasets under the same lens.
Minor comments:
I haven't reviewed an ESS data paper before, but it seems odd to me to have what appears to be acknowledgements as the first paragraph of an introduction. Maybe for this paper format it is fine.L98 - The authors may wish to note that the HadUK data used provides all the necessary variables to calculate PE if users require a higher resolution representation of PE. I understand that the intention of this data paper is to draw reader's attention to the soil moisture and flow datasets produced, but I think this addition would be useful.
L109 - I am missing some mention about why the convection permitting simulations weren't used. It seems this would overcome some of the steps needed in S2.3 and be more accurate in general. At least readers should be made aware of its existence.
Figure 2 - the only lake cells I can identify are the 2 Northern Irish lakes. Are we supposed to be able to spot more? If so they will need more highlighting - or more explicit linking to the text about how the lakes are mainly significant in NI. Otherwise I'm not quite sure the point of Fig 2.
L238 - I think this paragraph can be written more clearly. Maybe it should start with "For the historical portion of the RCM PPE projections,.. "? But if so, it seems to overlap with the use of 'baseline periods' in the following paragraph (startin L251). I'm still a bit confused by it.
L267 - If my passing understanding of w@h and UKCP18 is correct (which it may not be), these two datasets can result in different (significantly different?) distributions of (e.g.,) precipitation, particularly at extremes. If this is true, it should be mentioned here. If there is no study that has made this comparison, then that is important information too.
Section 3.3 - It seems that the AMIN/AMAX soil moisture figure is missing here. It may not be such a conventionally studied metric but I feel is important to highlight the extremes.
L416 - The authors may find it helpful to cite Schwalm et al. (2020) for this statement and thus support their choice of rcp8.5. Also if I remember rightly there is only RCP8.5 for the UKCP18 regional projections anyway, which may also be worth mentioning and further justifies the use of this RCP.
Editorial:
L40 & L215 - hyperlinks don't seem to work
L324 - 'highly statistically significant increase' -> 'statistically significant increase'References:
Schwalm, Christopher R., Spencer Glendon, and Philip B. Duffy. "RCP8. 5 tracks cumulative CO2 emissions." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117.33 (2020): 19656-19657.Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-439-RC1
Alison L. Kay et al.
Data sets
Grid-to-Grid model estimates of river flow for Great Britain driven by observed data (1980 to 2011). Kay, A. L., Rudd, A. C., Davies, H. N., Lane, R. A., Bell, V. A. https://doi.org/10.5285/2f835517-253e-4697-b774-ab6ff2c0d3da
Grid-to-Grid model estimates of river flow for Northern Ireland driven by observed data (1980 to 2011). Kay, A. L., Rudd, A. C., Davies, H. N., Lane, R. A., Bell, V. A. https://doi.org/10.5285/f5fc1041-e284-4763-b8b7-8643c319b2d0
Grid-to-Grid model estimates of soil moisture for Great Britain and Northern Ireland driven by observed data (1980 to 2011). Kay, A. L., Rudd, A. C., Davies, H. N., Lane, R. A., Bell, V. A. https://doi.org/10.5285/c9a85f7c-45e2-4201-af82-4c833b3f2c5f
Grid-to-Grid model estimates of river flow for Great Britain driven by UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) Regional (12km) data (1980 to 2080) v2. Kay, A. L., Rudd, A. C., Davies, H. N., Lane, R. A., Bell, V. A. https://doi.org/10.5285/18be3704-0a6d-4917-aa2e-bf38927321c5
Grid-to-Grid model estimates of river flow for Northern Ireland driven by UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) Regional (12km) data (1980 to 2080) v2. Kay, A. L., Rudd, A. C., Davies, H. N., Lane, R. A., Bell, V. A. https://doi.org/10.5285/76057b0a-b18f-496f-891c-d5b22bd0b291
Grid-to-Grid model estimates of soil moisture for Great Britain and Northern Ireland driven by UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) Regional (12km) data (1980 to 2080). Kay, A. L., Rudd, A. C., Davies, H. N., Lane, R. A., Bell, V. A. https://doi.org/10.5285/f7142ced-f6ff-486b-af33-44fb8f763cde
Alison L. Kay et al.
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