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MOUNTAIN HYDROLOGY

A warning of earlier snowmelt

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 380–381 (2021)Cite this article

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Mountain snowpack in western North America is decreasing, and these trends are often reported using amount of maximum annual snowpack. An alternative metric — integrated snowmelt during the accumulation season — finds snowmelt decreases are three times more widespread, suggesting even stronger snow decline.

Snowpack in mountain regions is considered a natural reservoir and supplies over half of streamflow during the warm season in the western USA1. However, mountain snow can be highly vulnerable to the warming climate. Major declines in snowpack have been observed in snow-monitoring sites across the western US since the 1950s2, raising concerns about the balance between shrinking water resources and increasing demands. This well-known issue is commonly estimated using snow water equivalent (SWE), defined as the amount of liquid water released from snowmelt. Writing in Nature Climate Change, Keith Musselman and co-authors3 report that an alternative metric — melting during the accumulation season — is more severely affected by warming, indicating that snow decline over the western US might be more substantial than is currently understood.

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Fig. 1: Coconino National Forest, Arizona, USA, in February 2021.

References

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  1. School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Mu Xiao

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  1. Mu Xiao
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Correspondence to Mu Xiao.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Xiao, M. A warning of earlier snowmelt. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 380–381 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01024-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01024-7

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