An experimental streamflow reconstruction for the River Murray, Australia, 1783-1988

AJE Gallant; J Gergis

Journal article

An experimental streamflow reconstruction for the River Murray, Australia, 1783-1988

AJE Gallant, J Gergis

Water Resources Research | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2011

DOI: 10.1029/2010WR009832

Abstract

We present an experimental reconstruction of River Murray streamflow to assess present-day variations in the context of the past two centuries. Nine annually resolved paleoclimate proxy records from the Australasian region are used to develop a reconstruction of streamflow from 1783 to 1988. An ensemble of reconstructions is presented, providing probabilistic estimates of River Murray flows for each year back in time. The best-estimate reconstruction captures approximately 23% (50%) of annual (decadal) naturalized streamflow variability. High and low streamflow phases and their association with decadal climate variability in the Pacific are discussed. Reconstructed River Murray streamflow sh..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Joelle Gergis Author

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council (ARC)

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

A.J.E.G. is supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Federation Fellowship (FF0668679), and J.G. is funded by an ARC Linkage Project (LP0990151). The authors would like to thank Kathy Allen for the celery top pine tree ring chronology, Roseanne D'Arrigo for the Indonesian teak tree ring chronology, Louise Cullen and Pauline Grierson for the Western Australian Callitris tree ring chronology, Anthony Scott from the MDBA for providing Murray system streamflow data, Don Garden from the University of Melbourne for his advice on historical land use changes through the River Murray region, and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.