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Rain‐on‐snow events impact soil temperatures and affect ungulate survival
Author(s) -
Putkonen J.,
Roe G.
Publication year - 2003
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 - 10.1029/2002gl016326
Subject(s) - snowpack , snow , environmental science , climatology , ungulate , climate change , latitude , atmospheric sciences , physical geography , ecology , geology , oceanography , habitat , geography , meteorology , biology , geodesy
Field data from Spitsbergen and numerical modeling reveal that rain‐on‐snow (ROS) events can substantially increase sub‐snowpack soil temperatures. However, ROS events have not previously been accounted for in high latitude soil thermal analyses. Furthermore such events can result in widespread die‐offs of ungulates due to soil surface icing. The occurrence of Spitsbergen ROS events is controlled by the North Atlantic Oscillation. Globally, atmospheric reanalysis data show that significant ROS events occur predominantly over northern maritime climates, covering 8.4 × 10 6 km 2 . Under a standard climate change scenario, a global climate model predicts a 40% increase in the ROS area by 2080–2089.