New study identifies mountain snowpack most “at-risk” from climate change

As the planet warms, scientists expect that mountain snowpack should melt progressively earlier in the year. However, observations in the U.S. show that as temperatures have risen, snowpack melt is relatively unaffected in some regions while others can experience snowpack melt a month earlier in the year.

This discrepancy in the timing of snowpack disappearance—the date in the spring when all the winter snow has melted—is the focus of new research by CPO-funded scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.

In a new study published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, Scripps Oceanography climate scientists Amato Evan and Ian Eisenman identify regional variations in snowpack melt as temperatures increase, and they present a theory that explains which mountain snowpacks worldwide are most “at-risk” from climate change. The study was funded by NOAA‘s Climate Program Office (CPO) Climate Observations and Monitoring (COM) program.

Looking at nearly four decades of observations in the Western U.S., the researchers found that as temperatures rise, the timing of snowpack disappearance is changing most rapidly in coastal regions and the south, with smaller changes in the northern interior of the country. This means that snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas, the Cascades, and the mountains of southern Arizona is much more vulnerable to rising temperatures than snowpack found in places like the Rockies or the mountains of Utah.

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