climate change New study finds the United States could lose so much snow cover that it could be catastrophic water Access and destroy industries that rely on winter.
Snowpack (snow that stores water and releases it as it melts in the spring and summer) is an essential water source for many regional systems and fuels snow-based economies such as skiing. Until now, researchers have Loss of snow cover is well documented in certain areas human climate change.
It is now „almost certain“ that anthropogenic climate change is affecting the world. Significant loss of snowpack A peer-reviewed study by Alexander Gottlieb and Justin Mankin found that in the northeastern and southwestern United States.
Gottlieb said: independent person They accomplished this by analyzing several datasets on snowpack melting with some degree of uncertainty and identifying where the datasets all agreed.
„If everything is pointing in the same direction, and no matter which data set we look at, we get a clear signal of human-induced climate change in the snowball trends, then we have „You can have more and more confidence that something is a real signal, and not just an artifact of an individual data set,“ Gottlieb said.
Their study also raises the alarm about the potentially devastating effects of declining snowpack across the country.
Where is the decline in snow cover the worst?
The average winter temperatures in these regions are warm enough that a warming climate will have a disproportionate effect on snow in the northeastern and southwestern United States, and even small changes can cause significant snowmelt.
„As temperatures get closer to the freezing point, snow becomes very sensitive to small temperature changes,“ Gottlieb said. “Many river basins in the southwestern and northeastern United States are located in this temperature range, and average winter temperatures are incredibly sensitive.”
Gottlieb said he expects the loss of snow to accelerate as the planet continues to warm, as these regions have so far already proven to be sensitive to rising temperatures.
From 1981 to 2020, snowpack losses were worst in the Northeast and Southwest U.S.
(Justin Mankin, Alexander Gottlieb/Dartmouth)
Why is decreasing snow cover important?
Reduced snowpack means less snowmelt flows into water supplies, with dire consequences for areas where snowmelt is a critical component of water infrastructure.
Snowmelt is essential to water infrastructure in the Southwest, where the melting snowpack is the highest in the United States.
„[Snowmelt water]provides a bridge between winter precipitation supply and people's demand for that water, which actually increases during the warmer months,“ he said.
California's water system The state is particularly dependent on snowmelt as its primary water source. But if the climate continues to warm and snowpack continues to decline, the state could face a water crisis.
„Trains left the station for areas such as the Southwest and Northeast United States,“ Gottlieb said. Said. „By the end of the 21st century, we expect these regions to be largely free of snow by the end of March. We're on that path, but we haven't adapted particularly well when it comes to water scarcity.“
Stable precipitation in the Northeast makes water infrastructure less dependent on snowmelt, but this trend could impact local industries such as skiing and forestry that rely on consistent snowfall and subzero temperatures. There is.
„Our entire economy is built on the expectation of a steady snowpack, and this continued economic downturn will cause significant disruption,“ Gottlieb said.
The ski economy is already being affected by anthropogenic climate change beyond the United States.
The study also shows that central and eastern Europe has experienced a significant decrease in snow cover, a trend that has gone unnoticed in winter-dependent industries.Last year, dozens of Entire ski areas and resorts across Europe were forced to close Due to record-breaking temperatures in January, independent person Previously reported.
The study authors also confirmed that central and eastern Europe is experiencing a significant loss of snowpack due to anthropogenic climate change.
(Justin Mankin, Alexander Gottlieb/Dartmouth)
what do we do?
Gottlieb said one of the first steps is for scientists and policymakers to document and understand the specific impacts of the human-induced climate crisis.
„I think we're systematically underestimating the real costs of climate change, not just from a snow perspective, but overall,“ Gottlieb says.
By 2023, Hottest year on world record „by a wide margin;Acting to mitigate the human-driven climate crisis will not only save California's water system and Europe's ski resorts; A chain of extreme weather events with serious and even fatal consequences To millions of people around the world.
That's why continued discussion on this topic, and human-driven climate change in general, is essential to mitigating these impacts, Gottlieb said.
„Documenting the impacts of specific changes that we see, whether it's snow or something else, and really quantifying what those impacts are and the costs that they bring to us. „That's extremely important because I think it highlights how great the cost of inaction is. Climate change is serious,“ Gottlieb said.