Anthropogenic climate change versus internal climate variability: impacts on snow cover in the Swiss Alps
<p>Snow is a sensitive component of the climate system. In many parts of the world, water stored as snow is a vital resource for agriculture, tourism and the energy sector. As uncertainties in climate change assessments are still relatively large, it is important to investigate the interdepend...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2020-09-01
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| Series: | The Cryosphere |
| Online Access: | https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/2909/2020/tc-14-2909-2020.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>Snow is a sensitive component of the climate system. In many parts of the
world, water stored as snow is a vital resource for agriculture, tourism and
the energy sector. As uncertainties in climate change assessments are still
relatively large, it is important to investigate the interdependencies
between internal climate variability and anthropogenic climate change and
their impacts on snow cover. We use regional climate model data from a new
single-model large ensemble with 50 members (ClimEX LE) as a driver for the
physically based snow model SNOWPACK at eight locations across the Swiss
Alps. We estimate the contribution of internal climate variability to
uncertainties in future snow trends by applying a Mann–Kendall test for
consecutive future periods of different lengths (between 30 and 100 years)
until the end of the 21st century. Under RCP8.5, we find probabilities
between 10 % and 60 % that there will be no significant negative trend
in future mean snow depths over a period of 50 years. While it is important
to understand the contribution of internal climate variability to
uncertainties in future snow trends, it is likely that the variability of
snow depth itself changes with anthropogenic forcing. We find that relative
to the mean, interannual variability of snow increases in the future. A
decrease in future mean snow depths, superimposed by increases in
interannual variability, will exacerbate the already existing uncertainties
that snow-dependent economies will have to face in the future.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1994-0416 1994-0424 |