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WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, VOL. 42, W05415, doi:10.1029/2005WR004455, 2006

Updated streamflow reconstructions for the Upper Colorado River Basin

Connie A. Woodhouse

National Climatic Data Center, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado, USA


Stephen T. Gray

Desert Laboratory, U.S. Geological Survey, Tucson, Arizona, USA


David M. Meko

Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA


Abstract

Updated proxy reconstructions of water year (October–September) streamflow for four key gauges in the Upper Colorado River Basin were generated using an expanded tree ring network and longer calibration records than in previous efforts. Reconstructed gauges include the Green River at Green River, Utah; Colorado near Cisco, Utah; San Juan near Bluff, Utah; and Colorado at Lees Ferry, Arizona. The reconstructions explain 72–81% of the variance in the gauge records, and results are robust across several reconstruction approaches. Time series plots as well as results of cross-spectral analysis indicate strong spatial coherence in runoff variations across the subbasins. The Lees Ferry reconstruction suggests a higher long-term mean than previous reconstructions but strongly supports earlier findings that Colorado River allocations were based on one of the wettest periods in the past 5 centuries and that droughts more severe than any 20th to 21st century event occurred in the past.

Received 21 July 2005; accepted 19 January 2006; published 11 May 2006.

Keywords: dendrochronology; paleoclimatology; streamflow.

Index Terms: 1860 Hydrology: Streamflow; 4920 Paleoceanography: Dendrochronology; 1812 Hydrology: Drought; 3344 Atmospheric Processes: Paleoclimatology (0473, 4900).

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Citation: Woodhouse, C. A., S. T. Gray, and D. M. Meko (2006), Updated streamflow reconstructions for the Upper Colorado River Basin, Water Resour. Res., 42, W05415, doi:10.1029/2005WR004455.