Historical Snow Cover Variability in the Great Plains Region of the Usa: 1910 Through to 1993

Abstract

The duration of seasonal (September–May) snow cover over the central and northern Great Plains region of the USA has varied considerably during this past century. Annual and decadal fluctuations are embedded in a statistically significant trend toward greater seasonal snow cover, from 29 days in the early part of the century to 38 days in recent decades. The variability of snow cover duration also increased throughout the century, exhibiting the largest changes in a north‐west‐trending zone bisecting the region. Seasonal snowfall, temperature, and precipitation show fluctuations similar to those of snow cover; however, only snowfall has increased significantly since 1910. A post‐1970 shift toward longer autumn (September–November) snow cover duration and shorter spring (March–May) duration has been accompanied by decreases in autumn maximum and minimum temperatures and increases in spring minimum temperatures. The reliance on snow cover for hydrological and agricultural purposes in this part of the country, the sensitivity of the boundary layer climate to snow cover conditions in the Plains, and the projections by global climate models for this region to become warmer and dryer as a result of increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, necessitate increased study and hence a better understanding of the variability of snow cover over the Plains.

Toward improved identification of hydrological models: A diagnostic evaluation of the “abcd” monthly water balance model for the conterminous United States

“…For this region, Hughes and Robinson [1996] report high interannual variation of precipitation and snow. It is also well known to have a high percentage of irrigated cropland and bare ground land cover, and the presence of potholes in the northern prairies [Euliss et al, 1999].…”

Trend Identification in Twentieth-Century U.S. Snowfall: The Challenges

“…Rapid melt of snowpack is a major cause of floods in the northern United States. Recent studies have examined historical variability in snow cover (Hughes and Robinson 1996;Frei et al 1999). However, studies of trends in other aspects of snow climatology, such as snowfall and snow depth, have generally examined records from the latter half of the twentieth century because digital data prior to that point has heretofore been sparse.…”

Fractional snow cover estimation in complex alpine-forested environments using an artificial neural network

“…For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, monitoring of SCA and Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) was based on sparse ground and field measurements (Brown & Goodison, 1996;Hughes & Robinson, 1996). During the last decades of the 20th century, active and passive satellite imagery enhanced and broadened monitoring of SCA and SWE on global and continental scales (Cline, Bales, & Dozier, 1998;Frei et al, 2012;Hall, Riggs, & Salomonson, 1995;Hall et al, 2004).…”