Snow cover variability in Great Britain during a changing climate

Abstract

Recent research on snow cover patterns over recent decades is reviewed for GB. Interpretation for upland areas is complicated by data availability issues. Nevertheless, two distinct features can be highlighted. Firstly, a general relationship of average yearly snow cover duration with mean temperature. This relationship is apparently non‐linear indicating that snow cover duration is especially sensitive to a defined mean temperature range. Secondly, that snow cover can be rather variable from year to year, or over multi‐year phases. This variability has been related to the frequency of synoptic‐scale atmospheric circulation patterns including the North Atlantic Oscillation. These two features are used to contextualise recent and likely future trends in snow cover. It is suggested that there may be different patterns of variability in some mountain areas compared to the adjacent lowlands. This is associated with combined effects of temperature and precipitation during exposure to different air masses. Suggestions are made for improving snow cover observations to further investigate these issues.

‘Days with snow’: an appraisal of snowfall records made by Climatological Observers Link members

“…In rather colder ‘westerly’ winters these influences can manifest themselves in the western Highlands of Scotland having very large snow accumulations – a notable example was 1950–1951, as evoked by Bonacina (1957). A similar contrast occurred in the less cold ‘westerly’ winters of 1966–1967 (Brown, 2020) and 2013–2014 (Cameron et al ., 2015).…”

“…As Brown (2020) noted, changing synoptic conditions will lead to regional variations from this broad pattern. In blocked winters having a greater influence of arctic or polar continental air (such as 1947 and 1963), the increase in snowfall is considerable over lowland England and is less evident towards the north and northwest of the UK due to lower precipitation in these regions.…”

“…If a manual site becomes solely automated, these records will be discontinued; present weather and snow depth sensors will not exactly replace the observations made by human observers. The voluntary COL observing network provides a continuing source of human observations of 'days with' data, including snowfall -an example of citizen science (Brown, 2020). In early 2020, around 175 COL sites provided data on days with sleet and snow falling and days with lying snow.…”

“…The voluntary COL observing network provides a continuing source of human observations of ‘days with’ data, including snowfall – an example of citizen science (Brown, 2020). In early 2020, around 175 COL sites provided data on days with sleet and snow falling and days with lying snow.…”

Climatic Characteristics of Heavy Snowfall and the Water Vapor Transport Characteristics in Typical Snowfall Events in Hunan Province of China

“…Recently, scholars have conducted snowstorm-related studies and achieved meaningful conclusions [7][8][9][10][11]. Most of the studies on the climatic characteristics of snowfall and snowstorm events in China focused on northern China [12][13][14][15][16]. It is pointed out that the snowfall intensity in the northern Tibetan Plateau varies under the infuence of diferent weather systems [17].…”