Implications of Runoff Data from CMIP5 Multimodel Output to Simulate Continental-Scale Streamflow for the Mississippi River Basin

General Circulation Models (GCMs) provide useful information to quantify climate change impacts on water regimes and future climate conditions. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) used GCMs for further investigations of climate change and its impacts. Coupling of GCMs, Land Surface Models (LSMs), and hydrologic models increases the long-term prediction capability of streamflow simulations for planning and decision making purposes. Here we present the implications of CMIP5 multimodel ensemble output data for the entire Mississippi River Basin. An ensemble of varying climate simulations was executed using the Routing Application Parallel Discharge (RAPID) river routing model. The runoff data were obtained from the VIC land surface model based on the CMIP5 ensemble outputs for 15 GCMs. Using the NHDPlus version 2, the river network with more than 1.2 million river reaches was built for the entire Mississippi River Basin. The recurrence interval analysis was conducted for 15 models based on the daily simulation from 1950-2099. Changes in future streamflow projections, driven by climate change, were also investigated at specific river gauges in the Mississippi River Basin.