Modeling the way that snow distribution depends on terrain, elevation and vegetation will improve Earth-system models
(sciencedaily.com) - Comprehensive data from several seasons of field research in the Alaskan Arctic will address uncertainties in Earth-system and climate-change models about snow cover across the region and its impacts on water and the environment.
"Snow cover and its distribution affects not only the Arctic but global energy balances, and thus how it is changing is critically important for understanding how future global climate will shift," said Katrina Bennett, lead author of the paper in The Cryosphere. Bennett is principal investigator at Los Alamos National Laboratory for the Department of Energy's Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment Arctic project. "Our statistical model fills in the gap in understanding the spatial distribution of snow."
The research found that spatial distribution depends most heavily on vegetation, elevation and landscape features, such as stream banks and benches -- areas of topographic variability where shrubs grow and snow accumulates.
