The Historical Snow Survey of Great Britain: Digitised Data for Scotland

Spencer, Michael; Essery, Richard; Chambers, Lynne; Hogg, Shona

doi:10.1080/14702541.2014.900184

Cited by 11 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…As an additional assessment of the performance of the snow module, data for November 1965 (Booth, 1966) have been digitised and mapped to station locations. Additional data for Scotland are now available digitally (Spencer et al 2014), but have not been used here.…”

Section: Evaluation Against Snow Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

An assessment of the possible impacts of climate change on snow and peak river flows across Britain

et al. 2016

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The NERC and CEH trademarks and logos ('the Trademarks') are registered trademarks of NERC in the UK and other countries, and may not be used without the prior written consent of the Trademark owner. 1An assessment of the possible impacts of climate change on snow and peak river flows across Britain AbstractA temperature-based snow module has been coupled with a grid-based distributed hydrological model, to improve simulations of river flows in upland areas of Britain subject to snowfall and snowmelt. The coupled model has been driven with data from an 11-member perturbedparameter climate model ensemble, for two time-slices (1960-1990 and 2069-2099), to investigate the potential impacts of climate change. The analysis indicates large reductions in the ensemble mean of the number of lying snow days across the country. This in turn affects the seasonality of peak river flows in some parts of the country; for northerly regions, annual maxima tend to occur earlier in the water year in future. For more southerly regions the changes are less straightforward, and likely driven by changes in rainfall patterns rather than snow. The modelled percentage changes in peak flows illustrate high spatial variability in hydrological response to projected climate change, and large differences between ensemble members. When changes in projected future peak flows are compared to an estimate of current natural variability, more changes fall outside the range of natural variability in southern Britain than in the north.

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Section: Evaluation Against Snow Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

An assessment of the possible impacts of climate change on snow and peak river flows across Britain

et al. 2016

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“…estate workers, forestry, water utilities etc.) and included both snow cover presence at the base station and of the typical snowline (to the nearest 150m elevation: see Figure ) on the adjacent mountains (Spencer et al ., ). An annual SSGB report was produced by UKMO between 1954 and 1992, providing a general synthesis (available from UKMO, ).…”

Section: Snow‐cover Observations and Modelsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Snow cover variability in Great Britain during a changing climate

Brown

2020

Weather

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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.

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“…They were asked to note, at ~9am each day, whether snow was falling at the location, the depth of any lying snow at the location, and the elevations of surrounding hills at which snow cover was over 50%. The paper records from the SSGB covering Scotland for 1945/46 to 2006/07 have recently been digitised (Spencer et al 2014), providing an alternative dataset for lying snow that provides better coverage of higher elevations than does the Met Office point data. A comparison of the SSGB data for one site with the corresponding Met Office gridded data suggests that the Met Office data underestimates days of lying snow at higher altitudes (Spencer et al 2014).…”

Section: Snow Recordingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The paper records from the SSGB covering Scotland for 1945/46 to 2006/07 have recently been digitised (Spencer et al 2014), providing an alternative dataset for lying snow that provides better coverage of higher elevations than does the Met Office point data. A comparison of the SSGB data for one site with the corresponding Met Office gridded data suggests that the Met Office data underestimates days of lying snow at higher altitudes (Spencer et al 2014). However, the SSGB dataset itself has issues with missing data (from obscured views, absence of the observer or lost records) and sometimes what should be missing values can be confused with absence of snow.…”

Section: Snow Recordingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Britain, snow is most often seen as the larger aggregate snowflakes (Lachlan-Cope 1999). When snow reaches the ground it can melt relatively quickly or can remain for periods ranging from days to months, although most of Britain does not usually experience very sustained periods of lying snow (Dunn et al 2001, Soulsby et al 2002a, Johnson and Thompson 2002, Spencer et al 2014. The presence of snow cover can be important, for example by providing habitats for terrestrial flora and fauna, protecting over-wintering crops and vegetation from frost, and for winter sports and tourism (Trivedi et al 2007, Harrison et al 2001.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A review of snow in Britain

Kay

2016

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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Climate change is likely to have a significant effect on snow globally, with most effect where current winter temperatures are close to 0°C, including parts of upland Britain. There is evidence of decreasing trends in observations of snowfall and lying snow in Britain, and climate projections suggest a continuation of this trend. Although river flows in Britain are generally dominated by rainfall rather than snowmelt, some upland catchments have a significant snowmelt contribution. There is evidence of changes in observed and projected river flows in some catchments in Britain, linked to changes in snow, but it can be difficult to distinguish the effects of snow changes from those of other concurrent changes (climatic and non-climatic). Flow regime changes in catchments with widespread and prolonged winter snow cover usually involve increases in winter flow and decreases in spring flow, but the effect on catchments with more transient snow cover is less clear, as is the effect on high flows and water quality. Snow can also affect a number of other factors of socioeconomic or environmental importance (e.g. transport and farming). There is some evidence that disruption due to snow may be less frequent in future, but disruption from other types of weather event may increase. The impacts of snow tend to be worse in areas where events occur less frequently, due to unpreparedness, so there is a need to guard against complacency when it comes to future snow events in Britain, which can still be expected despite a likely reduction in frequency. Further modelling of the potential impacts of climate change, including modelling the influence of snow changes as well as other climatic and non-climatic changes, would aid adaptation and encourage mitigation. KeywordsSnowfall, snowmelt, trends, river flows, transport disruption, climate change I IntroductionThe sensitivity of snow and ice to temperature change means that they may provide one of the most obvious signals for climate change (Vaughan et al. 2013). Global warming is already influencing snow and ice processes, with reductions in annual average snow cover extent and earlier snowmelt observed in regions across the northern hemisphere (Stewart 2009, Derksen andBrown 2012). However, the effect of changes in temperature on snowfall and snowmelt (and subsequently on river flows) may be complicated by coincident changes in precipitation, to the extent that impacts may be masked until thresholds are crossed (Stewart 2009). The effects are thus likely to vary by location, for example depending on altitude (Skaugen et al. 2012, Trivedi et al. 2007, Harrison et al. 2001) and atmospheric circulation patterns (Irannezhad et al. 2016, Stewart 2009. Studies suggest that the areas most affected have been those where current winter temperatures are close to 0°C, with less impact in colder or warmer regions (Stewart 2009, Hamlet andLettenmaier 2007). In 2 parts of Britain, particularly Scotland, the climate is in this transitional zone where only a small temperature increase c...

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The Historical Snow Survey of Great Britain: Digitised Data for Scotland

Cited by 11 publications

References 16 publications

An assessment of the possible impacts of climate change on snow and peak river flows across Britain

An assessment of the possible impacts of climate change on snow and peak river flows across Britain

Snow cover variability in Great Britain during a changing climate

A review of snow in Britain

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