Will climate change mean fewer big snowstorms like the blizzards occurring on both coasts and across the country this week?
You might be surprised. Researchers studying how the warming climate is changing snowfall and snowpack are drawing new conclusions about the future of snow, and it’s a mixed bag. Some researchers find overall snowfall declining in many areas, leaving less snow packed into mountain ranges in the spring, while others say the warmer winters won’t prevent some of the more intense snow storms − at least not yet.
A new study by two Dartmouth College researchers looked at the decline of spring snowpack in major river basins in the Northern Hemisphere. They concluded the losses may be already be greater than anyone has realized, in part because it’s such a challenging thing to measure. Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, linked human-caused warming to declines in snowpack in at least 31 river basins in the hemisphere since 1981.
The researchers say their findings present “the most compelling evidence so far” that human greenhouse gas emissions have affected snowpack and crucial water resources in the southwestern and northeastern United States, as well as in Central and Eastern Europe.
The study is “a conservative estimate of the impacts of global warming on snow to date,” said senior author Justin Mankin, an associate professor of geography at the college. “If anything, I would expect that the impacts are considerably larger for many places. We are systematically underestimating the impact of global warming, in particular its impact on snow.”
