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Climate change impact on the roles of temperature and precipitation in western U.S. snowpack variability
Author(s) -
Scalzitti Jason,
Strong Courtenay,
Kochanski Adam
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2016gl068798
Subject(s) - snowpack , precipitation , climatology , environmental science , climate change , snow , downscaling , global warming , atmospheric sciences , range (aeronautics) , mean radiant temperature , geology , meteorology , geography , oceanography , materials science , composite material
We employ dynamical downscaling and pseudo global warming methodologies to evaluate climate change impact on the roles of temperature and precipitation in spring snowpack ( S ) variability across the western United States (U.S.). The negative correlation between S and temperature weakens linearly with elevation, whereas the correlation between S and precipitation increases asymptotically with elevation. The curvilinear relationship in the latter case was not visible in prior studies because of the observation networks' limited range. In our historical validation, there is a range of threshold elevations (1580–2181 m) across six mountainous regions, above which precipitation is the main driver of snowpack variability and below which temperature is the main driver. Under a moderate end‐of‐century climate change scenario, these thresholds increase by 191 to 432 m. These rising thresholds indicate increasing spatial and elevational vulnerability of western U.S. spring snowpack along with associated impacts to hydrologic and ecologic systems.