Snow and albedo climate change impacts across the United States Northern Great Plains
Date
2015
Authors
Fassnacht, S. R., author
Cherry, M. L., author
Venable, N. B. H., author
Copernicus, publisher
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Abstract
In areas with a seasonal snowpack, a warmer climate would cause less snowfall, a shallower snowpack and a change in the timing of snowmelt. Trends in temperature, precipitation (total and as snow), days with precipitation and snow, and winter albedo were investigated over the 60 year period from 1951 to 2010 for 20 meteorological stations across the Northern Great Plains. This is an area where snow accumulation is shallow but persistent for most of the winter (November through March). The most consistent trends were minimum temperature and days with precipitation, which both increased at a majority of the stations. The modeled winter albedo decreased at more stations than where it increased. There were substantial spatial variability in the climate trends. For most variables, the period of record used influenced the magnitude and sign of the significant trends.
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Subject
temperature changes
climate
snowfall
snowpack
snow water equivalent
precipitation