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Title: Incorporating Snow Albedo Feedback into Downscaled Temperature and Snow Cover Projections for California’s Sierra Nevada

Journal Article · · Journal of Climate
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [2]
  1. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City, MO (United States)
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California’s Sierra Nevada is a high-elevation mountain range with significant seasonal snow cover. Under anthropogenic climate change, amplification of the warming is expected to occur at elevations near snow margins due to snow albedo feedback. However, climate change projections for the Sierra Nevada made by global climate models (GCMs) and statistical downscaling methods miss this key process. Dynamical downscaling simulates the additional warming due to snow albedo feedback. Ideally, dynamical downscaling would be applied to a large ensemble of 30 or more GCMs to project ensemble-mean outcomes and intermodel spread, but this is far too computationally expensive. To approximate the results that would occur if the entire GCM ensemble were dynamically downscaled, a hybrid dynamical–statistical downscaling approach is used. First, dynamical downscaling is used to reconstruct the historical climate of the 1981–2000 period and then to project the future climate of the 2081–2100 period based on climate changes from five GCMs. Next, a statistical model is built to emulate the dynamically downscaled warming and snow cover changes for any GCM. This statistical model is used to produce warming and snow cover loss projections for all available CMIP5 GCMs. These projections incorporate snow albedo feedback, so they capture the local warming enhancement (up to 3°C) from snow cover loss that other statistical methods miss. Capturing these details may be important for accurately projecting impacts on surface hydrology, water resources, and ecosystems

Research Organization:
Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0014061
OSTI ID:
1537008
Journal Information:
Journal of Climate, Vol. 30, Issue 4; ISSN 0894-8755
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 47 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (7)

Brief Communication: Early season snowpack loss and implications for oversnow vehicle recreation travel planning journal January 2019
Snow and Climate: Feedbacks, Drivers, and Indices of Change journal August 2019
Variation in groundwater recharge and surface-water quality due to climatic extremes in semi-arid mountainous watersheds journal April 2019
Coupling dynamical and statistical downscaling for high-resolution rainfall forecasting: case study of the Red River Delta, Vietnam journal May 2018
Determining the dry boundary of the LST/FVC space for soil moisture monitoring: a semi-empirical method journal January 2020
Understanding End‐of‐Century Snowpack Changes Over California's Sierra Nevada journal January 2019
Brief Communication: Early season snowpack loss and implications for over-snow vehicle recreation travel planning journal September 2018

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