Spatial and temporal variations of Russian winter snow accumulation

Conference · Sat Nov 01 04:00:00 UTC 1997

OSTI ID:535524

Ye, Hengchun ^[1]; Cho, Han-Ru ^[2]

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1. Emporia State Univ., KS (United States)
2. Univ. of Toronto (Canada)

The goal of this study is to evaluate the temporal and spatial variabilities of the Russian winter snow depth and detect any significant change trend. The mean monthly snow depth data from Russian weather stations were compiled and quality checked. Principal Components Analysis was applied to the snow depth data for the time period of 1936 to 1983. Winter snow depth was found to have increased during the 48-year period in most of the higher latitudes. Snow depth decreases occurred in most of the lower latitudes, and snow accumulation showed large interdecadal fluctuations in western Central Siberia. The surface areas and magnitudes of the winter snow increases were larger than those of the decreases; therefore, the overall winter snow accumulation increased in the study area. The spatial patterns of snow accumulation changes may be related to the combined results of temperature and precipitation changes and the complicated topography of the region. 12 refs., 4 figs.

• OSTI ID: 535524
• Report Number(s): CONF-970207--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ANNUAL VARIATIONS
CLIMATIC CHANGE
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
SNOW
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION