HR: 0830h
AN: C41B-0961    [PDF]
TI: Topographically Based Estimates of Historical and Future Snow Accumulations for Watersheds in Western North America
AU: Lapp, S L
EM: lappsl@uleth.ca
AF: University of Lethbridge, 4401 University Drive West, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4 Canada
AU: * Byrne, J M
EM: byrne@uleth.ca
AF: University of Lethbridge, 4401 University Drive West, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4 Canada
AB: Under forecast climate warming, alpine snowpacks may vary substantially due to regional warming that will likely decrease the accumulation of snow in the watershed. Snowmelt contributes more effectively to runoff than rainfall. Conversion of winter snowfall to rainfall will likely result in declining runoff. We used historical and future temperature and precipitation scenarios (Lapp et al, 2002) along with digital elevation models to estimate changes in snow spatial and temporal distributions over several key watersheds in the study region. The analysis is ongoing but initial results indicate increases in winter precipitation may counteract the impacts of warmer winters on spring snow water equivalent (SWE) in some years in some basins in the study region. However, basin SWE declines dramatically in areas where warming combines with declining winter precipitation.
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (3309)
DE: 1863 Snow and ice (1827)
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting