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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-5132</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Circulation-driven streamflow variability in Great Britain and its representation by UKCP18 climate models</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Carruthers</surname>
<given-names>James G.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3746-0851</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Murgatroyd</surname>
<given-names>Anna</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7362-0273</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fowler</surname>
<given-names>Hayley J.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8848-3606</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>School of Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>21</day>
<month>09</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>24</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 James G. Carruthers et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5132/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5132/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5132/egusphere-2026-5132.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-5132/egusphere-2026-5132.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Interannual to decadal seasonal streamflow variability has major implications for flood risk, drought management, water resources and hydropower production across Great Britain. A substantial component of this variability is linked to large-scale atmospheric circulation, particularly over the North Atlantic, but its contribution to seasonal streamflow variability remains insufficiently quantified. Here, we use a dynamical adjustment framework based on multiple linear regression to quantify the contribution of synoptic-scale weather regimes to seasonal Standardised Streamflow Index (SSI) variability across Great Britain. The method is applied to reconstructed SSI series for 167 non-overlapping catchments, which are aggregated to the UKCP18 river regions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The strongest dynamical contribution occurs in winter, especially across western and northern Great Britain, where weather-regime-driven SSI explains around 70% of interannual winter SSI variance in several regions. The dynamically driven contribution to SSI also explains a substantial fraction of spring and autumn variability, but the relationship is weaker in summer, consistent with the reduced influence of synoptic-scale circulation on warm-season rainfall. In one third of GB regions, including the Clyde, Solway, and North-West England, dynamically driven SSI captures much of the observed interannual and decadal variability, including several historically wet and dry winters. This strong circulation&amp;ndash;streamflow relationship provides useful information for seasonal forecasting, climate-model evaluations and historical reconstruction.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Applying the same framework to weather-regime sequences from the UKCP18 global climate models ensemble shows that the ensemble systematically under-represents interannual variance in winter dynamically driven SSI, with an ensemble-mean bias of approximately -20% relative to observations and substantial spatial and inter-member variation. These results show that atmospheric circulation biases can propagate into climate-model-driven assessments of seasonal streamflow variability, with implications for hydrological projections, model evaluation, and process-informed bias correction.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="24"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>UK Research and Innovation</funding-source>
<award-id>NE/Y006496/1</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Royal Society</funding-source>
<award-id>EXTREME-FUTURES</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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