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This story originally Appear in Highland News And is Climate Service Desk cooperate.
In the Central Rocky Mountains, it was an unusually warm and dry year. Denver broke its latest record for the first measurable winter snowfall.Colorado ski resort postponed to open due to temperature Too high to produce fake snow. and There was no snow in Salt Lake City throughout November. This is the second time since 1976.
According to a paper published in 2040, although these snow-free scenes are still an exception, they will become more common as early as 2040. Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. Researchers predict based on years of snow observation results that if global greenhouse gas emissions are not rapidly reduced, within 35 to 60 years, the western mountainous area will have almost no snow for many years at a time. This may affect everything from wildfires to drinking water.
The purpose of this research is twofold. First, the researchers want to highlight the extent of snow loss over the past few decades and the next few decades. “In a hypothetical future, this is not a problem,” said Erica Siirila-Woodburn, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and one of the study’s lead authors. Since the 1950s, the snow cover in the western mountainous areas has been reduced by 20%, and may be reduced by another 50% by the end of this century. Siirila-Woodburn said that another key goal is to provide water managers and decision makers who need accurate information with more accurate and usable information to understand how much time they have to prepare for future snowfall.
To this end, the researchers created a model to classify the degree of snowfall in the four mountainous areas. For example, in April 2015, the peak snow cover in the Sierra Nevada was only 5% of the normal value, and researchers described it as an “extreme” event. Although extreme events will continue to occur at a higher frequency, “occasional low to no snow” events will also begin to become common, that is, at least half of the mountain basins have experienced low or no snow for five consecutive years. It may happen as early as 2047 in the Sierra Nevada. Continuous snowfall, defined as at least half of the area experiencing low or no snow for 10 consecutive years, may begin in California in the late 2050s, in the Pacific Northwest in the early 2060s, and in Upper Colorado in the late 2060s. The 2070s.
The impact will extend far beyond the closed ski resort. The study pointed out that declining snow cover has caused another growing problem in the West: extreme wildfires. The absence of snow after wildfires may make it more difficult for forests to recover. “In terms of promoting or facilitating revegetation in the area, the snow after the fire is important,” said Anne Norlin, a snow hydrologist and professor at the University of Nevada at Reno. Researched the connection Between snowfall and wildfire forest restoration. (Nolin is not involved in this paper.) As more precipitation falls in the form of rain rather than snow, this may permanently change the types of vegetation and soil structure that re-growth, leading to problems such as erosion. “All of this will have a knock-on effect,” Nolin said.
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