Changes in Andes  snow cover from MODIS data, 2000–2016

Saavedra, Freddy; Kampf, Stephanie K.; Fassnacht, S. R.; Sibold, Jason S.

doi:10.5194/tc-12-1027-2018

Cited by 79 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 84 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The MERRA-2 data set has 576 points in the longitudinal direction and 361 points in the latitudinal direction, corresponding to a resolution of 0.625°× 0.5° (Bosilovich et al, 2016). The MERRA-2 data set has been validated (Reichle et al, 2017) and extensively used for the climatic and hydrological research (Cortés et al, 2016;Lim et al, 2016;Saavedra et al, 2018). In this study, we used two land surface variables (total snow storage land [kg/m 2 ] and snowmelt flux land [kg·m À2 ·s À1 ]) of MERRA-2.…”

Section: Data Sets and Methodsologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Slower Snowmelt in Spring Along With Climate Warming Across the Northern Hemisphere

Che

et al. 2018

Geophysical Research Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate warming is altering historical patterns of snow accumulation and ablation, hence threatening natural water resources. We evaluated the impact of climate warming on snowmelt rates using the GlobSnow v2.0 and the second Modern‐Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications data sets over the Northern Hemisphere (NH) during the past 38 years (1980–2017). Higher ablation rates were found in the locations with deeper snow water equivalent (SWE) because high snow melt rates occurred in late spring and early summer in deep snowpack regions. In addition, due to the reduction of SWE in deep snowpack regions, moderate and high snow ablation rates showed a decreasing trend. Therefore, slower snowmelt rates were found over the entire NH in a warmer climate in general. Based on projections of SWE in Representative Concentration Pathways 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 climate scenarios, slower snowmelt rates in the NH may continue to happen in the future.

show abstract

Section: Data Sets and Methodsologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Slower Snowmelt in Spring Along With Climate Warming Across the Northern Hemisphere

Che

et al. 2018

Geophysical Research Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…An increasing number of studies recommended that wet-bulb temperature (T w ) should be a better discriminator for the rain-snow partitioning (Behrangi et al, 2018;Ding et al, 2014;Harder & Pomeroy, 2014;Marks et al, 2013;Olsen, 2003;Sims & Liu, 2015;Yamazaki, 2001;Zhang et al, 2011) rather than other variables such as dew point temperature (Behrangi et al, 2018;Marks et al, 2013) or surface air pressure (Dai, 2008). T w is closer to the surface temperature of a falling hydrometeor than T a , representing the cooling effects due to surface evaporation at a constant pressure (Rogers & Yau, 1989) and thus may improve the prediction skill in distinguishing the precipitation phase (Behrangi et al, 2018;Ding et al, 2014). Behrangi et al (2018) suggest that using T w results in the highest prediction skill in the partitioning of precipitation across regions among precipitation partitioning methods that use a single atmospheric variable over global snow-covered regions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Wet‐Bulb Temperature‐Based Rain‐Snow Partitioning Scheme Improves Snowpack Prediction Over the Drier Western United States

Wang

Broxton

Fang

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Accumulation of snowfall during winter and snowmelt in the subsequent spring or earlier summer provides a dominant water source in alpine regions. Most land surface and hydrological models use near-surface air temperature (T a ) thresholds to partition precipitation into snow and rain, underestimating snowfall over drier regions. We developed a snow-rain partitioning scheme using the wet-bulb temperature (T w ), which is closer to the surface temperature of a falling hydrometeor than T a . T w becomes more depressed in drier environments as derived from T w depression equation using T a and surface air humidity, resulting in a greater fraction of snowfall. We implemented this new T w scheme in the Noah-MP land surface model and evaluated the model against a high-quality ground-based snow product over the contiguous United States. The results suggest that the new T w scheme substantially improves the model skill in simulating snow depth and snow water equivalent over most snow-covered grids, especially the higher and drier continental mountain ranges in the Western United States, while it retains the modeling accuracy over the more humid Eastern United States.Plain Language Summary The partitioning between rainfall and snowfall is important for understanding the impacts of climate change and water resource availability. Most land surface and hydrological models use surface air temperature to partition precipitation into rain and snow and thus underestimate snowfall and snow mass accumulated on the ground in the drier Western United States. A falling hydrometeor evaporates or sublimates at its surface depending on the humidity of the surrounding air and cools off, resulting in a surface temperature that is cooler than the air temperature. The depressed surface temperature is close to the wet-bulb temperature. We developed a scheme using the wet-bulb temperature and tested it with a physically based snow model over the contiguous United States. The testing results strongly support the use of wet-bulb temperature, which enhances snowfall and the snow mass on the ground more significantly over the higher and drier mountains in the Western United States, while it retains the modeling accuracy in the more humid Eastern United States.

show abstract

“…For this topic, a study by Hammond, Saavedra, and Kampf (2018) on global snow zones suggested that temperature has greater influence on snow in lower elevation areas whereas precipitation is more important in high elevations, with mid-elevations displaying a mixture of precipitation and temperature importance. A possible reason was illustrated by Saavedra, Kampf, Fassnacht, and Sibold (2018) by analysing the relative importance of precipitation and temperature to snowpack with different latitude and elevation in Andes, indicating that precipitation may be more important in dry regions whereas temperature may be more important in warm regions. *The two authors contributed equally to this study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The vertical influence of temperature and precipitation on snow cover variability in the Central Tianshan Mountains, Northwest China

Zhang

et al. 2019

Hydrological Processes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Seasonal snow cover in mountainous regions will affect local climate and hydrology. In this study, we assessed the role of altitude in determining the relative importance of temperature and precipitation in snow cover variability in the Central Tianshan Mountains. The results show that: (a) in the study area, temperature has a greater influence on snow cover than precipitation during most of the time period studied and in most altitudes. (b) In the high elevation area, there is a threshold altitude of 3,900 ± 400 m, below which temperature is negatively correlated whereas precipitation is positively correlated to snow cover, and above which the situation is the opposite. Besides, this threshold altitude decreases from snow accumulated period to snow stable period and then increases from snowmelt period to snow‐free period. (c) Below 2,000 m, there is another threshold altitude of 1,400 ± 100 m during the snow stable period, below (above) which precipitation (temperature) is the main driver of snow cover.

show abstract

Changes in Andes snow cover from MODIS data, 2000–2016

Cited by 79 publications

References 84 publications

Slower Snowmelt in Spring Along With Climate Warming Across the Northern Hemisphere

Slower Snowmelt in Spring Along With Climate Warming Across the Northern Hemisphere

A Wet‐Bulb Temperature‐Based Rain‐Snow Partitioning Scheme Improves Snowpack Prediction Over the Drier Western United States

The vertical influence of temperature and precipitation on snow cover variability in the Central Tianshan Mountains, Northwest China

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About