Climate change will push snow higher in California's Sierra Nevada by the second half of the century, bringing more winter rain and faster mountain runoff.
This winter’s major storms laid down one of the largest snowpacks recorded in California’s Sierra Nevada, along with an unusual amount of snow at low mountain elevations.
“Snowlines are rising,” said Alexander Gershunov, a research meteorologist who co-authored the study with other scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They said the average amount of snow from November through March in the northern Sierra could decrease by more than 70% by the second half of the century, while decreases of about 40% are likely in the higher mountains of the central Sierra and southern Sierra.
“It becomes more challenging to balance the need for flood control that reservoirs provide as well as water retention,” Gershunov said. “We have to learn how to generate water resources from floodwater.”
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Observed and projected changes in snow accumulation and snowline in California’s snowy mountains - Climate DynamicsThe Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascades—California’s snowy mountains—are primary freshwater sources and natural reservoirs for the states of California and Nevada. These mountains receive precipitation overwhelmingly from wintertime storms including atmospheric rivers (ARs), much of it falling as snow at the higher elevations. Using a seven-decade record of daily observed temperature and precipitation as well as a snow reanalysis and downscaled climate projections, we documented historical and future changes in snow accumulation and snowlines. In four key subregions of California’s snowy mountains, we quantified the progressing contribution of ARs and non-AR storms to the evolving and projected snow accumulation and snowlines (elevation of the snow-to-rain transition), exploring their climatology, variability and trends. Historically, snow makes up roughly a third of the precipitation affecting California’s mountains. While ARs make up only a quarter of all precipitating days and, due to their relative warmth, produce snowlines higher than do other storms, they contribute over 40% of the total seasonal snow. Under projected unabated warming, snow accumulation would decline to less than half of historical by the late twenty-first century, with the greatest snow loss at mid elevations (from 1500 to 3300 m by the mountain sub-regions) during fall and spring. Central and Southern Sierra Nevada peaks above 3400 m might see occasionally extreme snow accumulations in January–February resulting entirely from wetter ARs. AR-related snowlines are projected to increase by more than 700 m, compared to about 500 m for other storms. We discuss likely impacts of the changing climate for water resources as well as for winter recreation.
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