Abstract. East of the Continental Divide in the cold interior of Western Canada, the Mackenzie and Nelson River basins have some of the world's most extreme and variable climates, and the warming climate is changing the landscape, vegetation, cryosphere, and hydrology. Available data consist of streamflow records from a large number (395) of natural (unmanaged) gauged basins, where flow may be perennial or temporary, collected either year-round or during only the warm season, for a different series of years between 1910 and 2012. An annual warm-season time window where observations were available across all stations was used to classify (1) streamflow regime and (2) seasonal trend patterns. Streamflow trends were compared to changes in satellite Normalized Difference Indices. Clustering using dynamic time warping, which overcomes differences in streamflow timing due to latitude or elevation, identified 12 regime types. Streamflow regime types exhibit a strong connection to location; there is a strong distinction between mountains and plains and associated with ecozones. Clustering of seasonal trends resulted in six trend patterns that also follow a distinct spatial organization. The trend patterns include one with decreasing streamflow, four with different patterns of increasing streamflow, and one without structure. The spatial patterns of trends in mean, minimum, and maximum of Normalized Difference Indices of water and snow (NDWI and NDSI) were similar to each other but different from Normalized Difference Index of vegetation (NDVI) trends. Regime types, trend patterns, and satellite indices trends each showed spatially coherent patterns separating the Canadian Rockies and other mountain ranges in the west from the poorly defined drainage basins in the east and north. Three specific areas of change were identified: (i) in the mountains and cold taiga-covered subarctic, streamflow and greenness were increasing while wetness and snowcover were decreasing, (ii) in the forested Boreal Plains, particularly in the mountainous west, streamflows and greenness were decreasing but wetness and snowcover were not changing, and (iii) in the semi-arid to sub-humid agricultural Prairies, three patterns of increasing streamflow and an increase in the wetness index were observed. The largest changes in streamflow occurred in the eastern Canadian Prairies.

Abstract. For many ungauged mountain regions, global datasets of different meteorological and land surface parameters are the only data sources available. However, their applicability in modelling high-alpine regions has been insufficiently investigated so far. Therefore, we tested a suite of globally available datasets by applying the physically based Cold Regions Hydrological Model (CRHM) for a 10-year (September 2000–August 2010) period in the gauged high-alpine Research Catchment Zugspitze (RCZ), which is 12 km2 and located in the European Alps. Besides meteorological data, snow depth is measured at two stations. We ran CRHM with a reference run with in situ-measured meteorological data and a 2.5 m high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) for the parameterization of the surface characteristics. Regarding different meteorological setups, we used 10 different globally available datasets (including versions of ERA, GLDAS, CFSR, CHIRPS) and additionally one transferred dataset from a similar station in the vicinity. Regarding the different DEMs, we used ALOS (Advanced Land Observing Satellite) and SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) (both 30 m) as well as GTOPO30 (1 km). The following two main goals were investigated: (a) the reliability of simulations of snow depth, specific snow hydrological parameters and runoff with global meteorological products and (b) the influence of different global DEMs on snow hydrological simulations in such a topographically complex terrain. The range between all setups in mean decadal temperature is high at 3.5 ∘C and for the mean decadal precipitation sum at 1510 mm, which subsequently leads to large offsets in the snow hydrological results. Only three meteorological setups, the reference, the transferred in situ dataset and the CHIRPS dataset, substituting precipitation only, showed agreeable results when comparing modelled to measured snow depth. Nevertheless, those setups showed obvious differences in the catchment's runoff regime and in snow depth, snow cover, ablation period, the date, and quantity of maximum snow water equivalent in the entire catchment and in specific parts. All other globally available meteorological datasets performed worse. In contrast, all globally available DEM setups reproduced snow depth, the snow hydrological parameters and runoff quite well. Differences occurred mainly due to differences in radiation model input due to different spatial realizations. Even though SRTM and ALOS have the same spatial resolution, they showed considerable differences due to their different product origins. Despite the fact that the very coarse GTOPO30 DEM performed relatively well on the catchment mean, we advise against using this product in such heterogeneous high-alpine terrain since small-scale topographic characteristics cannot be captured. While global meteorological data are not suitable for sound snow hydrological modelling in the RCZ, the choice of the DEM with resolutions in the decametre level is less critical. Nevertheless, global meteorological data can be a valuable source to substitute single missing variables. For the future, however, we expect an increasing role of global data in modelling ungauged high-alpine basins due to further product improvements, spatial refinements and further steps regarding assimilation with remote sensing data.