Articles | Volume 11, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-1625-2017
© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-1625-2017
© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Research article
| 
10 Jul 2017
Research article |
| 10 Jul 2017
Snow water equivalent in the Alps as seen by gridded data sets, CMIP5 and CORDEX climate models
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council of Italy, Corso Fiume 4, Turin, Italy
Jost von Hardenberg
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council of Italy, Corso Fiume 4, Turin, Italy
Elisa Palazzi
Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council of Italy, Corso Fiume 4, Turin, Italy
Antonello Provenzale
Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources, National Research Council of Italy, Via Moruzzi 1, Pisa, Italy
Related authors
Silvia Terzago, Giulio Bongiovanni, and Jost von Hardenberg
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 519–542, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-519-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-519-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Reliable seasonal forecasts of the abundance of mountain snowpack over the winter/spring ahead provide valuable information for water management, hydropower production and ski tourism. We present a climate service prototype to generate multi-model ensemble seasonal forecasts of mountain snow depth, based on Copernicus seasonal forecast system meteorological data used to force the SNOWPACK model. The prototype shows skill at predicting snow depth below and above normal and extremely dry seasons.
Núria Pérez-Zanón, Louis-Philippe Caron, Silvia Terzago, Bert Van Schaeybroeck, Llorenç Lledó, Nicolau Manubens, Emmanuel Roulin, M. Carmen Alvarez-Castro, Lauriane Batté, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Susana Corti, Carlos Delgado-Torres, Marta Domínguez, Federico Fabiano, Ignazio Giuntoli, Jost von Hardenberg, Eroteida Sánchez-García, Verónica Torralba, and Deborah Verfaillie
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6115–6142, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6115-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6115-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
CSTools (short for Climate Service Tools) is an R package that contains process-based methods for climate forecast calibration, bias correction, statistical and stochastic downscaling, optimal forecast combination, and multivariate verification, as well as basic and advanced tools to obtain tailored products. In addition to describing the structure and methods in the package, we also present three use cases to illustrate the seasonal climate forecast post-processing for specific purposes.
Michael Matiu, Alice Crespi, Giacomo Bertoldi, Carlo Maria Carmagnola, Christoph Marty, Samuel Morin, Wolfgang Schöner, Daniele Cat Berro, Gabriele Chiogna, Ludovica De Gregorio, Sven Kotlarski, Bruno Majone, Gernot Resch, Silvia Terzago, Mauro Valt, Walter Beozzo, Paola Cianfarra, Isabelle Gouttevin, Giorgia Marcolini, Claudia Notarnicola, Marcello Petitta, Simon C. Scherrer, Ulrich Strasser, Michael Winkler, Marc Zebisch, Andrea Cicogna, Roberto Cremonini, Andrea Debernardi, Mattia Faletto, Mauro Gaddo, Lorenzo Giovannini, Luca Mercalli, Jean-Michel Soubeyroux, Andrea Sušnik, Alberto Trenti, Stefano Urbani, and Viktor Weilguni
The Cryosphere, 15, 1343–1382, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1343-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1343-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The first Alpine-wide assessment of station snow depth has been enabled by a collaborative effort of the research community which involves more than 30 partners, 6 countries, and more than 2000 stations. It shows how snow in the European Alps matches the climatic zones and gives a robust estimate of observed changes: stronger decreases in the snow season at low elevations and in spring at all elevations, however, with considerable regional differences.
Silvia Terzago, Valentina Andreoli, Gabriele Arduini, Gianpaolo Balsamo, Lorenzo Campo, Claudio Cassardo, Edoardo Cremonese, Daniele Dolia, Simone Gabellani, Jost von Hardenberg, Umberto Morra di Cella, Elisa Palazzi, Gaia Piazzi, Paolo Pogliotti, and Antonello Provenzale
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4061–4090, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4061-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4061-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
In mountain areas high-quality meteorological data to drive snow models are rarely available, so coarse-resolution data from spatial interpolation of the available in situ measurements or reanalyses are typically employed. We perform 12 experiments using six snow models with different degrees of complexity to show the impact of the accuracy of the forcing on snow depth and snow water equivalent simulations at the Alpine site of Torgnon, discussing the results in relation to the model complexity.
Silvia Terzago, Elisa Palazzi, and Jost von Hardenberg
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 2825–2840, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-2825-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-2825-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
This study proposes a modification to a stochastic downscaling method for precipitation, RainFARM, to improve the representation of the statistics of the daily precipitation at fine scales (1 km) in mountain areas. This method has been demonstrated in the Alps and it has been found to reconstruct small-scale precipitation distribution. It can be employed in a number of applications, including the analysis of extreme events and their statistics and hydrometeorological hazards.
Martin Beniston, Daniel Farinotti, Markus Stoffel, Liss M. Andreassen, Erika Coppola, Nicolas Eckert, Adriano Fantini, Florie Giacona, Christian Hauck, Matthias Huss, Hendrik Huwald, Michael Lehning, Juan-Ignacio López-Moreno, Jan Magnusson, Christoph Marty, Enrique Morán-Tejéda, Samuel Morin, Mohamed Naaim, Antonello Provenzale, Antoine Rabatel, Delphine Six, Johann Stötter, Ulrich Strasser, Silvia Terzago, and Christian Vincent
The Cryosphere, 12, 759–794, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-759-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-759-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
This paper makes a rather exhaustive overview of current knowledge of past, current, and future aspects of cryospheric issues in continental Europe and makes a number of reflections of areas of uncertainty requiring more attention in both scientific and policy terms. The review paper is completed by a bibliography containing 350 recent references that will certainly be of value to scholars engaged in the fields of glacier, snow, and permafrost research.
Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes, Jenni Kontkanen, Irina Sandu, Mario Acosta, Mohammed Hussam Al Turjmam, Ivan Alsina-Ferrer, Miguel Andrés-Martínez, Leo Arriola, Marvin Axness, Marc Batlle Martín, Peter Bauer, Tobias Becker, Daniel Beltrán, Sebastian Beyer, Hendryk Bockelmann, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Sebastien Cabaniols, Silvia Caprioli, Miguel Castrillo, Aparna Chandrasekar, Suvarchal Cheedela, Victor Correal, Emanuele Danovaro, Paolo Davini, Jussi Enkovaara, Claudia Frauen, Barbara Früh, Aina Gaya Àvila, Paolo Ghinassi, Rohit Ghosh, Supriyo Ghosh, Iker González, Katherine Grayson, Matthew Griffith, Ioan Hadade, Christopher Haine, Carl Hartick, Utz-Uwe Haus, Shane Hearne, Heikki Järvinen, Bernat Jiménez, Amal John, Marlin Juchem, Thomas Jung, Jessica Kegel, Matthias Kelbling, Kai Keller, Bruno Kinoshita, Theresa Kiszler, Daniel Klocke, Lukas Kluft, Nikolay Koldunov, Tobias Kölling, Joonas Kolstela, Luis Kornblueh, Sergey Kosukhin, Aleksander Lacima-Nadolnik, Jeisson Javier Leal Rojas, Jonni Lehtiranta, Tuomas Lunttila, Anna Luoma, Pekka Manninen, Alexey Medvedev, Sebastian Milinski, Ali Omar Abdelazim Mohammed, Sebastian Müller, Devaraju Naryanappa, Natalia Nazarova, Sami Niemelä, Bimochan Niraula, Henrik Nortamo, Aleksi Nummelin, Matteo Nurisso, Pablo Ortega, Stella Paronuzzi, Xabier Pedruzo Bagazgoitia, Charles Pelletier, Carlos Peña, Suraj Polade, Himansu Pradhan, Rommel Quintanilla, Tiago Quintino, Thomas Rackow, Jouni Räisänen, Maqsood Mubarak Rajput, René Redler, Balthasar Reuter, Nuno Rocha Monteiro, Francesc Roura-Adserias, Silva Ruppert, Susan Sayed, Reiner Schnur, Tanvi Sharma, Dmitry Sidorenko, Outi Sievi-Korte, Albert Soret, Christian Steger, Bjorn Stevens, Jan Streffing, Jaleena Sunny, Luiggi Tenorio, Stephan Thober, Ulf Tigerstedt, Oriol Tinto, Juha Tonttila, Heikki Tuomenvirta, Lauri Tuppi, Ginka Van Thielen, Emanuele Vitali, Jost von Hardenberg, Ingo Wagner, Nils Wedi, Jan Wehner, Sven Willner, Xavier Yepes-Arbós, Florian Ziemen, and Janos Zimmermann
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2198, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2198, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).
Short summary
Short summary
The Climate Change Adaptation Digital Twin (Climate DT) pioneers the operationalisation of climate projections. The system produces global simulations with local granularity for adaptation decision-making. Applications are embedded to generate tailored indicators. A unified workflow orchestrates all components in several supercomputers. Data management ensures consistency and streaming enables real-time use. It is a complementary innovation to initiatives like CMIP, CORDEX, and climate services.
Kieran M. R. Hunt, Jean-Philippe Baudouin, Andrew G. Turner, A. P. Dimri, Ghulam Jeelani, Pooja, Rajib Chattopadhyay, Forest Cannon, T. Arulalan, M. S. Shekhar, T. P. Sabin, and Eliza Palazzi
Weather Clim. Dynam., 6, 43–112, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-6-43-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-6-43-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Western disturbances (WDs) are storms that predominantly affect north India and Pakistan during the winter months, where they play an important role in regional water security, but can also bring a range of natural hazards. In this review, we summarise recent literature across a range of topics: their structure and lifecycle, precipitation and impacts, interactions with large-scale weather patterns, representation in models, how well they are forecast, and their response to changes in climate.
Matteo Pesce, Alberto Viglione, Jost von Hardenberg, Larisa Tarasova, Stefano Basso, Ralf Merz, Juraj Parajka, and Rui Tong
Proc. IAHS, 385, 65–69, https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-385-65-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-385-65-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The manuscript describes an application of PArameter Set Shuffling (PASS) approach in the Alpine region. A machine learning decision-tree algorithm is applied for the regional calibration of a conceptual semi-distributed hydrological model. Regional model efficiencies don't decrease significantly when moving in space from catchments used for the regional calibration (training) to catchments used for the procedure validation (test) and, in time, from the calibration to the verification period.
Saverio Vicario, Marta Magnani, Maria Adamo, Gianna Vivaldo, Chiara Richiardi, Mariasilvia Giamberini, and Antonello Provenzale
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2824, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2824, 2024
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
The high altitude Alpine grassland in Gran Paradiso National Park is a productive ecosystem key in the conservation of Alpine Ibex, in the preservation the practice transhumance relevant for alpine economy. The article develop an empirical model to robustly estimate primary productivity. In the analysis, the ratio of chlorophyll over total leaf pigments stand as a powerful addition, once climate model estimate of soil moisture fail to correctly follow real trends in the alpine valley of Nivolet.
Stefano Della Fera, Federico Fabiano, Piera Raspollini, Marco Ridolfi, Ugo Cortesi, Flavio Barbara, and Jost von Hardenberg
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 1379–1394, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-1379-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-1379-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The long-term comparison between observed and simulated outgoing longwave radiances represents a strict test to evaluate climate model performance. In this work, 9 years of synthetic spectrally resolved radiances, simulated online on the basis of the atmospheric fields predicted by the EC-Earth global climate model (v3.3.3) in clear-sky conditions, are compared to IASI spectral radiance climatology in order to detect model biases in temperature and humidity at different atmospheric levels.
Silvia Terzago, Giulio Bongiovanni, and Jost von Hardenberg
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 519–542, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-519-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-519-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Reliable seasonal forecasts of the abundance of mountain snowpack over the winter/spring ahead provide valuable information for water management, hydropower production and ski tourism. We present a climate service prototype to generate multi-model ensemble seasonal forecasts of mountain snow depth, based on Copernicus seasonal forecast system meteorological data used to force the SNOWPACK model. The prototype shows skill at predicting snow depth below and above normal and extremely dry seasons.
Núria Pérez-Zanón, Louis-Philippe Caron, Silvia Terzago, Bert Van Schaeybroeck, Llorenç Lledó, Nicolau Manubens, Emmanuel Roulin, M. Carmen Alvarez-Castro, Lauriane Batté, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Susana Corti, Carlos Delgado-Torres, Marta Domínguez, Federico Fabiano, Ignazio Giuntoli, Jost von Hardenberg, Eroteida Sánchez-García, Verónica Torralba, and Deborah Verfaillie
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6115–6142, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6115-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6115-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
CSTools (short for Climate Service Tools) is an R package that contains process-based methods for climate forecast calibration, bias correction, statistical and stochastic downscaling, optimal forecast combination, and multivariate verification, as well as basic and advanced tools to obtain tailored products. In addition to describing the structure and methods in the package, we also present three use cases to illustrate the seasonal climate forecast post-processing for specific purposes.
Ralf Döscher, Mario Acosta, Andrea Alessandri, Peter Anthoni, Thomas Arsouze, Tommi Bergman, Raffaele Bernardello, Souhail Boussetta, Louis-Philippe Caron, Glenn Carver, Miguel Castrillo, Franco Catalano, Ivana Cvijanovic, Paolo Davini, Evelien Dekker, Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes, David Docquier, Pablo Echevarria, Uwe Fladrich, Ramon Fuentes-Franco, Matthias Gröger, Jost v. Hardenberg, Jenny Hieronymus, M. Pasha Karami, Jukka-Pekka Keskinen, Torben Koenigk, Risto Makkonen, François Massonnet, Martin Ménégoz, Paul A. Miller, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Lars Nieradzik, Twan van Noije, Paul Nolan, Declan O'Donnell, Pirkka Ollinaho, Gijs van den Oord, Pablo Ortega, Oriol Tintó Prims, Arthur Ramos, Thomas Reerink, Clement Rousset, Yohan Ruprich-Robert, Philippe Le Sager, Torben Schmith, Roland Schrödner, Federico Serva, Valentina Sicardi, Marianne Sloth Madsen, Benjamin Smith, Tian Tian, Etienne Tourigny, Petteri Uotila, Martin Vancoppenolle, Shiyu Wang, David Wårlind, Ulrika Willén, Klaus Wyser, Shuting Yang, Xavier Yepes-Arbós, and Qiong Zhang
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2973–3020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2973-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2973-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The Earth system model EC-Earth3 is documented here. Key performance metrics show physical behavior and biases well within the frame known from recent models. With improved physical and dynamic features, new ESM components, community tools, and largely improved physical performance compared to the CMIP5 version, EC-Earth3 represents a clear step forward for the only European community ESM. We demonstrate here that EC-Earth3 is suited for a range of tasks in CMIP6 and beyond.
Elisa Brussolo, Elisa Palazzi, Jost von Hardenberg, Giulio Masetti, Gianna Vivaldo, Maurizio Previati, Davide Canone, Davide Gisolo, Ivan Bevilacqua, Antonello Provenzale, and Stefano Ferraris
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 407–427, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-407-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-407-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
In this study, we evaluate the past, present and future quantity of groundwater potentially available for drinking purposes in the metropolitan area of Turin, north-western Italy. In order to effectively manage water resources, a knowledge of the water cycle components is necessary, including precipitation, evapotranspiration and subsurface reservoirs. All these components have been carefully evaluated in this paper, using observational datasets and modelling approaches.
Twan van Noije, Tommi Bergman, Philippe Le Sager, Declan O'Donnell, Risto Makkonen, María Gonçalves-Ageitos, Ralf Döscher, Uwe Fladrich, Jost von Hardenberg, Jukka-Pekka Keskinen, Hannele Korhonen, Anton Laakso, Stelios Myriokefalitakis, Pirkka Ollinaho, Carlos Pérez García-Pando, Thomas Reerink, Roland Schrödner, Klaus Wyser, and Shuting Yang
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 5637–5668, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5637-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-5637-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This paper documents the global climate model EC-Earth3-AerChem, one of the members of the EC-Earth3 family of models participating in CMIP6. We give an overview of the model and describe in detail how it differs from its predecessor and the other EC-Earth3 configurations. The model's performance is characterized using coupled simulations conducted for CMIP6. The model has an effective equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3.9 °C and a transient climate response of 2.1 °C.
Katja Weigel, Lisa Bock, Bettina K. Gier, Axel Lauer, Mattia Righi, Manuel Schlund, Kemisola Adeniyi, Bouwe Andela, Enrico Arnone, Peter Berg, Louis-Philippe Caron, Irene Cionni, Susanna Corti, Niels Drost, Alasdair Hunter, Llorenç Lledó, Christian Wilhelm Mohr, Aytaç Paçal, Núria Pérez-Zanón, Valeriu Predoi, Marit Sandstad, Jana Sillmann, Andreas Sterl, Javier Vegas-Regidor, Jost von Hardenberg, and Veronika Eyring
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 3159–3184, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-3159-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-3159-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This work presents new diagnostics for the Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool) v2.0 on the hydrological cycle, extreme events, impact assessment, regional evaluations, and ensemble member selection. The ESMValTool v2.0 diagnostics are developed by a large community of scientists aiming to facilitate the evaluation and comparison of Earth system models (ESMs) with a focus on the ESMs participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP).
Michael Matiu, Alice Crespi, Giacomo Bertoldi, Carlo Maria Carmagnola, Christoph Marty, Samuel Morin, Wolfgang Schöner, Daniele Cat Berro, Gabriele Chiogna, Ludovica De Gregorio, Sven Kotlarski, Bruno Majone, Gernot Resch, Silvia Terzago, Mauro Valt, Walter Beozzo, Paola Cianfarra, Isabelle Gouttevin, Giorgia Marcolini, Claudia Notarnicola, Marcello Petitta, Simon C. Scherrer, Ulrich Strasser, Michael Winkler, Marc Zebisch, Andrea Cicogna, Roberto Cremonini, Andrea Debernardi, Mattia Faletto, Mauro Gaddo, Lorenzo Giovannini, Luca Mercalli, Jean-Michel Soubeyroux, Andrea Sušnik, Alberto Trenti, Stefano Urbani, and Viktor Weilguni
The Cryosphere, 15, 1343–1382, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1343-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1343-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The first Alpine-wide assessment of station snow depth has been enabled by a collaborative effort of the research community which involves more than 30 partners, 6 countries, and more than 2000 stations. It shows how snow in the European Alps matches the climatic zones and gives a robust estimate of observed changes: stronger decreases in the snow season at low elevations and in spring at all elevations, however, with considerable regional differences.
Michela Angeloni, Elisa Palazzi, and Jost von Hardenberg
Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2020-245, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2020-245, 2020
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
Short summary
We compare the Planet Simulator, an Earth-system Model of Intermediate Complexity, using a 3D dynamical ocean, with two configurations using a simpler mixed-layer ocean. A tuning of oceanic parameters allows a reasonable mean climate in all cases. Model equilibrium climate sensitivity in abrupt CO2 concentration change experiments is found to be significantly affected by the sea-ice feedbacks and by the parameterization of meridional oceanic heat transport in the mixed-layer configurations.
Silvia Terzago, Valentina Andreoli, Gabriele Arduini, Gianpaolo Balsamo, Lorenzo Campo, Claudio Cassardo, Edoardo Cremonese, Daniele Dolia, Simone Gabellani, Jost von Hardenberg, Umberto Morra di Cella, Elisa Palazzi, Gaia Piazzi, Paolo Pogliotti, and Antonello Provenzale
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4061–4090, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4061-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4061-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
In mountain areas high-quality meteorological data to drive snow models are rarely available, so coarse-resolution data from spatial interpolation of the available in situ measurements or reanalyses are typically employed. We perform 12 experiments using six snow models with different degrees of complexity to show the impact of the accuracy of the forcing on snow depth and snow water equivalent simulations at the Alpine site of Torgnon, discussing the results in relation to the model complexity.
Rein Haarsma, Mario Acosta, Rena Bakhshi, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Louis-Philippe Caron, Miguel Castrillo, Susanna Corti, Paolo Davini, Eleftheria Exarchou, Federico Fabiano, Uwe Fladrich, Ramon Fuentes Franco, Javier García-Serrano, Jost von Hardenberg, Torben Koenigk, Xavier Levine, Virna Loana Meccia, Twan van Noije, Gijs van den Oord, Froila M. Palmeiro, Mario Rodrigo, Yohan Ruprich-Robert, Philippe Le Sager, Etienne Tourigny, Shiyu Wang, Michiel van Weele, and Klaus Wyser
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 3507–3527, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3507-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3507-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
HighResMIP is an international coordinated CMIP6 effort to investigate the improvement in climate modeling caused by an increase in horizontal resolution. This paper describes EC-Earth3P-(HR), which has been developed for HighResMIP. First analyses reveal that increasing resolution does improve certain aspects of the simulated climate but that many other biases still continue, possibly related to phenomena that are still not yet resolved and need to be parameterized.
Klaus Wyser, Twan van Noije, Shuting Yang, Jost von Hardenberg, Declan O'Donnell, and Ralf Döscher
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 3465–3474, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3465-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3465-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The EC-Earth model used for CMIP6 is found to have a higher equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) than its predecessor used for CMIP5. In a series of sensitivity experiments, we investigate which model updates since CMIP5 have contributed to the increase in ECS. The main reason for the higher sensitivity in the EC-Earth model is the improved representation of the aerosol–radiation and aerosol–cloud interactions.
Veronika Eyring, Lisa Bock, Axel Lauer, Mattia Righi, Manuel Schlund, Bouwe Andela, Enrico Arnone, Omar Bellprat, Björn Brötz, Louis-Philippe Caron, Nuno Carvalhais, Irene Cionni, Nicola Cortesi, Bas Crezee, Edouard L. Davin, Paolo Davini, Kevin Debeire, Lee de Mora, Clara Deser, David Docquier, Paul Earnshaw, Carsten Ehbrecht, Bettina K. Gier, Nube Gonzalez-Reviriego, Paul Goodman, Stefan Hagemann, Steven Hardiman, Birgit Hassler, Alasdair Hunter, Christopher Kadow, Stephan Kindermann, Sujan Koirala, Nikolay Koldunov, Quentin Lejeune, Valerio Lembo, Tomas Lovato, Valerio Lucarini, François Massonnet, Benjamin Müller, Amarjiit Pandde, Núria Pérez-Zanón, Adam Phillips, Valeriu Predoi, Joellen Russell, Alistair Sellar, Federico Serva, Tobias Stacke, Ranjini Swaminathan, Verónica Torralba, Javier Vegas-Regidor, Jost von Hardenberg, Katja Weigel, and Klaus Zimmermann
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 3383–3438, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3383-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3383-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool) is a community diagnostics and performance metrics tool designed to improve comprehensive and routine evaluation of earth system models (ESMs) participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). It has undergone rapid development since the first release in 2016 and is now a well-tested tool that provides end-to-end provenance tracking to ensure reproducibility.
Winfried Hoke, Tina Swierczynski, Peter Braesicke, Karin Lochte, Len Shaffrey, Martin Drews, Hilppa Gregow, Ralf Ludwig, Jan Even Øie Nilsen, Elisa Palazzi, Gianmaria Sannino, Lars Henrik Smedsrud, and ECRA network
Adv. Geosci., 46, 1–10, https://doi.org/10.5194/adgeo-46-1-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/adgeo-46-1-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
The European Climate Research Alliance is a bottom-up association of European research institutions helping to facilitate the development of climate change research, combining the capacities of national research institutions and inducing closer ties between existing national research initiatives, projects and infrastructures. This article briefly introduces the network's structure and organisation, as well as project management issues and prospects.
Silvia Terzago, Elisa Palazzi, and Jost von Hardenberg
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 2825–2840, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-2825-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-2825-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
This study proposes a modification to a stochastic downscaling method for precipitation, RainFARM, to improve the representation of the statistics of the daily precipitation at fine scales (1 km) in mountain areas. This method has been demonstrated in the Alps and it has been found to reconstruct small-scale precipitation distribution. It can be employed in a number of applications, including the analysis of extreme events and their statistics and hydrometeorological hazards.
Martin Beniston, Daniel Farinotti, Markus Stoffel, Liss M. Andreassen, Erika Coppola, Nicolas Eckert, Adriano Fantini, Florie Giacona, Christian Hauck, Matthias Huss, Hendrik Huwald, Michael Lehning, Juan-Ignacio López-Moreno, Jan Magnusson, Christoph Marty, Enrique Morán-Tejéda, Samuel Morin, Mohamed Naaim, Antonello Provenzale, Antoine Rabatel, Delphine Six, Johann Stötter, Ulrich Strasser, Silvia Terzago, and Christian Vincent
The Cryosphere, 12, 759–794, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-759-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-759-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
This paper makes a rather exhaustive overview of current knowledge of past, current, and future aspects of cryospheric issues in continental Europe and makes a number of reflections of areas of uncertainty requiring more attention in both scientific and policy terms. The review paper is completed by a bibliography containing 350 recent references that will certainly be of value to scholars engaged in the fields of glacier, snow, and permafrost research.
Giovanni Leonelli, Anna Coppola, Maria Cristina Salvatore, Carlo Baroni, Giovanna Battipaglia, Tiziana Gentilesca, Francesco Ripullone, Marco Borghetti, Emanuele Conte, Roberto Tognetti, Marco Marchetti, Fabio Lombardi, Michele Brunetti, Maurizio Maugeri, Manuela Pelfini, Paolo Cherubini, Antonello Provenzale, and Valter Maggi
Clim. Past, 13, 1451–1471, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-13-1451-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-13-1451-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
We analyze a tree-ring network from several sites distributed along the Italian Peninsula with the aims of detecting common climate drivers of tree growth and of reconstructing the past climate. We detect the main climatic drivers modulating tree-ring width (RW) and tree-ring maximum latewood density (MXD) and we reconstruct late summer temperatures since the early 1700s using a MXD chronology: this reconstruction is representative of a wide area around the Italian Peninsula.
Paolo Davini, Jost von Hardenberg, Susanna Corti, Hannah M. Christensen, Stephan Juricke, Aneesh Subramanian, Peter A. G. Watson, Antje Weisheimer, and Tim N. Palmer
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 1383–1402, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1383-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1383-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
The Climate SPHINX project is a large set of more than 120 climate simulations run with the EC-Earth global climate. It explores the sensitivity of present-day and future climate to the model horizontal resolution (from 150 km up to 16 km) and to the introduction of two stochastic physics parameterisations. Results shows that the the stochastic schemes can represent a cheaper alternative to a resolution increase, especially for the representation of the tropical climate variability.
Reindert J. Haarsma, Malcolm J. Roberts, Pier Luigi Vidale, Catherine A. Senior, Alessio Bellucci, Qing Bao, Ping Chang, Susanna Corti, Neven S. Fučkar, Virginie Guemas, Jost von Hardenberg, Wilco Hazeleger, Chihiro Kodama, Torben Koenigk, L. Ruby Leung, Jian Lu, Jing-Jia Luo, Jiafu Mao, Matthew S. Mizielinski, Ryo Mizuta, Paulo Nobre, Masaki Satoh, Enrico Scoccimarro, Tido Semmler, Justin Small, and Jin-Song von Storch
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 4185–4208, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-4185-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-4185-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
Recent progress in computing power has enabled climate models to simulate more processes in detail and on a smaller scale. Here we present a common protocol for these high-resolution runs that will foster the analysis and understanding of the impact of model resolution on the simulated climate. These runs will also serve as a more reliable source for assessing climate risks that are associated with small-scale weather phenomena such as tropical cyclones.
D. Peano, M. Chiarle, and J. von Hardenberg
The Cryosphere Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/tcd-8-1479-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/tcd-8-1479-2014, 2014
Revised manuscript not accepted
Related subject area
Seasonal Snow
A random-forest-derived 35-year snow phenology record reveals climate trends in the Yukon River Basin
Insights into microphysical and optical properties of typical mineral dust within urban snowpack via wet and dry deposition in Changchun, northeastern China
Dynamic identification of snow phenology in the Northern Hemisphere
Trends in the annual snow melt-out day over the French Alps and Pyrenees from 38 years of high-resolution satellite data (1986–2023)
Sublimation measurements of tundra and taiga snowpack in Alaska
SPASS – new gridded climatological snow datasets for Switzerland: Potential and limitations
An examination of changes in autumn Eurasian snow cover and its relationship with the winter Arctic Oscillation using 20th Century Reanalysis version 3
Historical snow measurements in the central and southern Apennine Mountains: climatology, variability, and trend
Influence of Snow Spatial Variability on Cosmic Ray Neutron SWE
Benchmarking of snow water equivalent (SWE) products based on outcomes of the SnowPEx+ Intercomparison Project
Snow depth sensitivity to mean temperature, precipitation, and elevation in the Austrian and Swiss Alps
Use of multiple reference data sources to cross-validate gridded snow water equivalent products over North America
Leveraging Citizen Science, LiDAR, and Machine Learning for Snow Depth Estimation in Complex Terrain Environments
Characterization of non-Gaussianity in the snow distributions of various landscapes
A simple snow temperature index model exposes discrepancies between reanalysis snow water equivalent products
A Prototype Passive Microwave Retrieval Algorithm for Tundra Snow Density
Which global reanalysis dataset has better representativeness in snow cover on the Tibetan Plateau?
From snow accumulation to snow depth distributions by quantifying meteoric ice fractions in the Weddell Sea
Snow depth in high-resolution regional climate model simulations over southern Germany – suitable for extremes and impact-related research?
Snow water equivalent retrieval over Idaho – Part 2: Using L-band UAVSAR repeat-pass interferometry
Variability and drivers of winter near-surface temperatures over boreal and tundra landscapes
Spatiotemporal snow water storage uncertainty in the midlatitude American Cordillera
Evaluation of snow cover properties in ERA5 and ERA5-Land with several satellite-based datasets in the Northern Hemisphere in spring 1982–2018
Multi-decadal analysis of past winter temperature, precipitation and snow cover data in the European Alps from reanalyses, climate models and observational datasets
Spatially continuous snow depth mapping by aeroplane photogrammetry for annual peak of winter from 2017 to 2021 in open areas
Change in the potential snowfall phenology: past, present, and future in the Chinese Tianshan mountainous region, Central Asia
The benefits of homogenising snow depth series – Impacts on decadal trends and extremes for Switzerland
Assessing the seasonal evolution of snow depth spatial variability and scaling in complex mountain terrain
Impact of measured and simulated tundra snowpack properties on heat transfer
Homogeneity assessment of Swiss snow depth series: comparison of break detection capabilities of (semi-)automatic homogenization methods
Propagating information from snow observations with CrocO ensemble data assimilation system: a 10-years case study over a snow depth observation network
Evaluation of Northern Hemisphere snow water equivalent in CMIP6 models during 1982–2014
Past changes in natural and managed snow reliability of French Alps ski resorts from 1961 to 2019
Multilayer observation and estimation of the snowpack cold content in a humid boreal coniferous forest of eastern Canada
Spatiotemporal distribution of seasonal snow water equivalent in High Mountain Asia from an 18-year Landsat–MODIS era snow reanalysis dataset
Recent changes in pan-Arctic sea ice, lake ice, and snow-on/off timing
Local-scale variability of seasonal mean and extreme values of in situ snow depth and snowfall measurements
Observed snow depth trends in the European Alps: 1971 to 2019
Snow Ensemble Uncertainty Project (SEUP): quantification of snow water equivalent uncertainty across North America via ensemble land surface modeling
Quantification of the radiative impact of light-absorbing particles during two contrasted snow seasons at Col du Lautaret (2058 m a.s.l., French Alps)
Local-scale variability of snow density on Arctic sea ice
Snow depth estimation and historical data reconstruction over China based on a random forest machine learning approach
Evaluation of long-term Northern Hemisphere snow water equivalent products
Towards a webcam-based snow cover monitoring network: methodology and evaluation
Simulated single-layer forest canopies delay Northern Hemisphere snowmelt
Spatiotemporal variability and decadal trends of snowmelt processes on Antarctic sea ice observed by satellite scatterometers
Converting snow depth to snow water equivalent using climatological variables
Avalanches and micrometeorology driving mass and energy balance of the lowest perennial ice field of the Alps: a case study
The optical characteristics and sources of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) in seasonal snow of northwestern China
Brief Communication: Early season snowpack loss and implications for oversnow vehicle recreation travel planning
Caleb G. Pan, Kristofer Lasko, Sean P. Griffin, John S. Kimball, Jinyang Du, Tate G. Meehan, and Peter B. Kirchner
The Cryosphere, 19, 2797–2819, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2797-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2797-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This study examines 35 years of snow cover changes in Alaska’s Yukon River Basin using machine learning to track snowmelt timing and disappearance. Results show snow is melting earlier and disappearing faster due to rising temperatures, highlighting the effects of climate change on water resources, ecosystems, and communities. The findings improve understanding of snow dynamics and provide critical insights for addressing climate-driven challenges in the region.
Tenglong Shi, Jiayao Wang, Daizhou Zhang, Jiecan Cui, Zihang Wang, Yue Zhou, Wei Pu, Yang Bai, Zhigang Han, Meng Liu, Yanbiao Liu, Hongbin Xie, Minghui Yang, Ying Li, Meng Gao, and Xin Wang
The Cryosphere, 19, 2821–2835, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2821-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2821-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This study examines the properties of dust in snow in Changchun, China, using advanced technology to analyze its size, shape, and light absorption. We found that dust composition affects how much heat is absorbed by snow, with certain minerals, such as hematite, making snowmelt faster. Our research highlights the importance of creating clear standards for classifying dust, which could improve climate models and field observations. This work helps better understand dust's role in climate change.
Le Wang, Xin Miao, Xinyun Hu, Yizhuo Li, Bo Qiu, Jun Ge, and Weidong Guo
The Cryosphere, 19, 2733–2750, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2733-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2733-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Snow phenology is a crucial indicator for assessing seasonal changes in snow. In this work, we find that snow phenology is significantly impacted by the datasets and methods used, and current methods often overlook the spatial and temporal variability in snow across the Northern Hemisphere. To address this, we develop a dynamic-threshold method, which contributes to better representing the seasonal changes in snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere, especially on the Tibetan Plateau.
Zacharie Barrou Dumont, Simon Gascoin, Jordi Inglada, Andreas Dietz, Jonas Köhler, Matthieu Lafaysse, Diego Monteiro, Carlo Carmagnola, Arthur Bayle, Jean-Pierre Dedieu, Olivier Hagolle, and Philippe Choler
The Cryosphere, 19, 2407–2429, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2407-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-2407-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We generated annual maps of snow melt-out days at 20 m resolution over a period of 38 years from 10 different satellites. This study fills a knowledge gap regarding the evolution of mountain snow in Europe by covering a much longer period and characterizing trends at much higher resolutions than previous studies. We found a trend for earlier melt-out with average reductions of 5.51 d per decade over the French Alps and 4.04 d per decade over the Pyrenees for the period 1986–2023.
Kelsey A. Stockert, Eugénie S. Euskirchen, and Svetlana L. Stuefer
The Cryosphere, 19, 1739–1755, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1739-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1739-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Sublimation is the hidden portion of the water cycle where snow changes phase directly to water vapor, skipping the liquid state. Though sublimation is difficult to measure, especially in remote regions such as Arctic and subarctic Alaska where this study took place, our measurements confirm that sublimation is a substantial component of the annual water cycle. Results from this research contribute to knowledge of how site conditions affect sublimation rates and the winter hydrologic cycle.
Christoph Marty, Adrien Michel, Tobias Jonas, Cynthia Steijn, Regula Muelchi, and Sven Kotlarski
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-413, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-413, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This work presents the first long-term (since 1962), daily, 1 km gridded dataset of snow depth and water storage for Switzerland. Its quality was assessed by comparing yearly, monthly, and weekly values to a higher-quality model and in-situ measurements. Results show good overall performance, though some limitations exist at low elevations and short timescales. Despite this, the dataset effectively captures trends, offering valuable insights for climate monitoring and elevation-based changes.
Gareth J. Marshall
The Cryosphere, 19, 663–683, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-663-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-663-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Eurasian autumn snow cover (SC) can influence Northern Hemisphere weather in the following winter by affecting the Arctic Oscillation (AO) mode of atmospheric variability. Using data back to 1836, we show that there have been significant decreases in October and November SC. For the first time, we describe a robust relationship between September SC in northeastern Eurasia and the AO. In addition, the longer dataset reveals the temporal variability in previously identified SC–AO relationships.
Vincenzo Capozzi, Francesco Serrapica, Armando Rocco, Clizia Annella, and Giorgio Budillon
The Cryosphere, 19, 565–595, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-565-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-565-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This “journey through time” discovers historical information about snow precipitation in the Italian Apennines. In this area, in the second half of the past century, a gradual decline in snow persistence on the ground, as well as in the frequency of occurrence of snowfall events, has been observed, especially in sites located above 1000 m above sea level. The old data rescued in this study strongly enhance our knowledge about past snowfall variability and climate in the Mediterranean area.
Haejo Kim, Eric Sproles, and Samuel E. Tuttle
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-31, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-31, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Monitoring of a shallow and highly variable snowpack’s water content has been shown to be reliable with Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensing (CRNS). After hundreds of simulations, we show a CRNS instrument is best placed near areas of low snow that are nearby regions of high for an accurate estimate of the prairie snowpack’s water content. The snow water equivalent from a CRNS was 2 to 5 times more likely to be representative of the prairie snow, compared to traditional snow monitoring methods.
Lawrence Mudryk, Colleen Mortimer, Chris Derksen, Aleksandra Elias Chereque, and Paul Kushner
The Cryosphere, 19, 201–218, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-201-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-201-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We evaluate and rank 23 different datasets on their ability to accurately estimate historical snow amounts. The evaluation uses new a set of surface snow measurements with improved spatial coverage, enabling evaluation across both mountainous and nonmountainous regions. Performance measures vary tremendously across the products: while most perform reasonably in nonmountainous regions, accurate representation of snow amounts in mountainous regions and of historical trends is much more variable.
Matthew Switanek, Gernot Resch, Andreas Gobiet, Daniel Günther, Christoph Marty, and Wolfgang Schöner
The Cryosphere, 18, 6005–6026, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-6005-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-6005-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Snow depth plays an important role in water resources, mountain tourism, and hazard management across the European Alps. Our study uses station-based historical observations to quantify how changes in temperature and precipitation affect average seasonal snow depth. We find that the relationship between these variables has been surprisingly robust over the last 120 years. This allows us to more accurately estimate how future climate will affect seasonal snow depth in different elevation zones.
Colleen Mortimer, Lawrence Mudryk, Eunsang Cho, Chris Derksen, Mike Brady, and Carrie Vuyovich
The Cryosphere, 18, 5619–5639, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-5619-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-5619-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Ground measurements of snow water equivalent (SWE) are vital for understanding the accuracy of large-scale estimates from satellites and climate models. We compare two types of measurements – snow courses and airborne gamma SWE estimates – and analyze how measurement type impacts the accuracy assessment of gridded SWE products. We use this analysis to produce a combined reference SWE dataset for North America, applicable for future gridded SWE product evaluations and other applications.
Dane Liljestrand, Ryan Johnson, Bethany Neilson, Patrick Strong, and Elizabeth Cotter
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3545, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3545, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This work introduces a model specifically designed for high-resolution snow depth estimation, leveraging citizen-science snow observations and snow-off LiDAR terrain features to provide an accessible and cost-effective method for snowpack modeling in regions lacking high-quality data products or collection networks. This work demonstrates that reliable basin-scale snow depth estimates can be achieved in difficult environments with very few observations and low institutional costs.
Noriaki Ohara, Andrew D. Parsekian, Benjamin M. Jones, Rodrigo C. Rangel, Kenneth M. Hinkel, and Rui A. P. Perdigão
The Cryosphere, 18, 5139–5152, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-5139-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-5139-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Snow distribution characterization is essential for accurate snow water estimation for water resource prediction from existing in situ observations and remote-sensing data at a finite spatial resolution. Four different observed snow distribution datasets were analyzed for Gaussianity. We found that non-Gaussianity of snow distribution is a signature of the wind redistribution effect. Generally, seasonal snowpack can be approximated well by a Gaussian distribution for a fully snow-covered area.
Aleksandra Elias Chereque, Paul J. Kushner, Lawrence Mudryk, Chris Derksen, and Colleen Mortimer
The Cryosphere, 18, 4955–4969, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-4955-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-4955-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We look at three commonly used snow depth datasets that are produced through a combination of snow modelling and historical measurements (reanalysis). When compared with each other, these datasets have differences that arise for various reasons. We show that a simple snow model can be used to examine these inconsistencies and highlight issues. This method indicates that one of the complex datasets should be excluded from further studies.
Jeffrey J. Welch and Richard E. J. Kelly
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2928, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2928, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Snow density plays an important role in natural and human systems but current methods for estimating snow density are limited, especially in the Arctic. This work presents a new method using satellite data to estimate snow density in remote areas. An experiment was conducted in the Canadian Arctic to evaluate this method and it appears to replicate density estimates from manual sampling well. With more work this method could be applied to estimate snow density across large areas of the Arctic.
Shirui Yan, Yang Chen, Yaliang Hou, Kexin Liu, Xuejing Li, Yuxuan Xing, Dongyou Wu, Jiecan Cui, Yue Zhou, Wei Pu, and Xin Wang
The Cryosphere, 18, 4089–4109, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-4089-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-4089-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) plays a role in climate and hydrological systems, yet there are uncertainties in snow cover fraction (SCF) estimations within reanalysis datasets. This study utilized the Snow Property Inversion from Remote Sensing (SPIReS) SCF data to assess the accuracy of eight widely used reanalysis SCF datasets over the TP. Factors contributing to uncertainties were analyzed, and a combined averaging method was employed to provide optimized SCF simulations.
Stefanie Arndt, Nina Maaß, Leonard Rossmann, and Marcel Nicolaus
The Cryosphere, 18, 2001–2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2001-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2001-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Antarctic sea ice maintains year-round snow cover, crucial for its energy and mass budgets. Despite its significance, snow depth remains poorly understood. Over the last decades, Snow Buoys have been deployed extensively on the sea ice to measure snow accumulation but not actual depth due to snow transformation into meteoric ice. Therefore, in this study we utilize sea ice and snow models to estimate meteoric ice fractions in order to calculate actual snow depth in the Weddell Sea.
Benjamin Poschlod and Anne Sophie Daloz
The Cryosphere, 18, 1959–1981, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1959-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1959-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Information about snow depth is important within climate research but also many other sectors, such as tourism, mobility, civil engineering, and ecology. Climate models often feature a spatial resolution which is too coarse to investigate snow depth. Here, we analyse high-resolution simulations and identify added value compared to a coarser-resolution state-of-the-art product. Also, daily snow depth extremes are well reproduced by two models.
Zachary Hoppinen, Shadi Oveisgharan, Hans-Peter Marshall, Ross Mower, Kelly Elder, and Carrie Vuyovich
The Cryosphere, 18, 575–592, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-575-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-575-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We used changes in radar echo travel time from multiple airborne flights to estimate changes in snow depths across Idaho for two winters. We compared our radar-derived retrievals to snow pits, weather stations, and a 100 m resolution numerical snow model. We had a strong Pearson correlation and root mean squared error of 10 cm relative to in situ measurements. Our retrievals also correlated well with our model, especially in regions of dry snow and low tree coverage.
Vilna Tyystjärvi, Pekka Niittynen, Julia Kemppinen, Miska Luoto, Tuuli Rissanen, and Juha Aalto
The Cryosphere, 18, 403–423, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-403-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-403-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
At high latitudes, winter ground surface temperatures are strongly controlled by seasonal snow cover and its spatial variation. Here, we measured surface temperatures and snow cover duration in 441 study sites in tundra and boreal regions. Our results show large variations in how much surface temperatures in winter vary depending on the landscape and its impact on snow cover. These results emphasise the importance of understanding microclimates and their drivers under changing winter conditions.
Yiwen Fang, Yufei Liu, Dongyue Li, Haorui Sun, and Steven A. Margulis
The Cryosphere, 17, 5175–5195, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5175-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5175-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Using newly developed snow reanalysis datasets as references, snow water storage is at high uncertainty among commonly used global products in the Andes and low-resolution products in the western United States, where snow is the key element of water resources. In addition to precipitation, elevation differences and model mechanism variances drive snow uncertainty. This work provides insights for research applying these products and generating future products in areas with limited in situ data.
Kerttu Kouki, Kari Luojus, and Aku Riihelä
The Cryosphere, 17, 5007–5026, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5007-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5007-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We evaluated snow cover properties in state-of-the-art reanalyses (ERA5 and ERA5-Land) with satellite-based datasets. Both ERA5 and ERA5-Land overestimate snow mass, whereas albedo estimates are more consistent between the datasets. Snow cover extent (SCE) is accurately described in ERA5-Land, while ERA5 shows larger SCE than the satellite-based datasets. The trends in snow mass, SCE, and albedo are mostly negative in 1982–2018, and the negative trends become more apparent when spring advances.
Diego Monteiro and Samuel Morin
The Cryosphere, 17, 3617–3660, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-3617-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-3617-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Beyond directly using in situ observations, often sparsely available in mountain regions, climate model simulations and so-called reanalyses are increasingly used for climate change impact studies. Here we evaluate such datasets in the European Alps from 1950 to 2020, with a focus on snow cover information and its main drivers: air temperature and precipitation. In terms of variability and trends, we identify several limitations and provide recommendations for future use of these datasets.
Leon J. Bührle, Mauro Marty, Lucie A. Eberhard, Andreas Stoffel, Elisabeth D. Hafner, and Yves Bühler
The Cryosphere, 17, 3383–3408, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-3383-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-3383-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Information on the snow depth distribution is crucial for numerous applications in high-mountain regions. However, only specific measurements can accurately map the present variability of snow depths within complex terrain. In this study, we show the reliable processing of images from aeroplane to large (> 100 km2) detailed and accurate snow depth maps around Davos (CH). We use these maps to describe the existing snow depth distribution, other special features and potential applications.
Xuemei Li, Xinyu Liu, Kaixin Zhao, Xu Zhang, and Lanhai Li
The Cryosphere, 17, 2437–2453, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-2437-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-2437-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Quantifying change in the potential snowfall phenology (PSP) is an important area of research for understanding regional climate change past, present, and future. However, few studies have focused on the PSP and its change in alpine mountainous regions. We proposed three innovative indicators to characterize the PSP and its spatial–temporal variation. Our study provides a novel approach to understanding PSP in alpine mountainous regions and can be easily extended to other snow-dominated regions.
Moritz Buchmann, Gernot Resch, Michael Begert, Stefan Brönnimann, Barbara Chimani, Wolfgang Schöner, and Christoph Marty
The Cryosphere, 17, 653–671, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-653-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-653-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Our current knowledge of spatial and temporal snow depth trends is based almost exclusively on time series of non-homogenised observational data. However, like other long-term series from observations, they are susceptible to inhomogeneities that can affect the trends and even change the sign. To assess the relevance of homogenisation for daily snow depths, we investigated its impact on trends and changes in extreme values of snow indices between 1961 and 2021 in the Swiss observation network.
Zachary S. Miller, Erich H. Peitzsch, Eric A. Sproles, Karl W. Birkeland, and Ross T. Palomaki
The Cryosphere, 16, 4907–4930, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4907-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4907-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Snow depth varies across steep, complex mountain landscapes due to interactions between dynamic natural processes. Our study of a winter time series of high-resolution snow depth maps found that spatial resolutions greater than 0.5 m do not capture the complete patterns of snow depth spatial variability at a couloir study site in the Bridger Range of Montana, USA. The results of this research have the potential to reduce uncertainty associated with snowpack and snow water resource analysis.
Victoria R. Dutch, Nick Rutter, Leanne Wake, Melody Sandells, Chris Derksen, Branden Walker, Gabriel Hould Gosselin, Oliver Sonnentag, Richard Essery, Richard Kelly, Phillip Marsh, Joshua King, and Julia Boike
The Cryosphere, 16, 4201–4222, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4201-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4201-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Measurements of the properties of the snow and soil were compared to simulations of the Community Land Model to see how well the model represents snow insulation. Simulations underestimated snow thermal conductivity and wintertime soil temperatures. We test two approaches to reduce the transfer of heat through the snowpack and bring simulated soil temperatures closer to measurements, with an alternative parameterisation of snow thermal conductivity being more appropriate.
Moritz Buchmann, John Coll, Johannes Aschauer, Michael Begert, Stefan Brönnimann, Barbara Chimani, Gernot Resch, Wolfgang Schöner, and Christoph Marty
The Cryosphere, 16, 2147–2161, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2147-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2147-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Knowledge about inhomogeneities in a data set is important for any subsequent climatological analysis. We ran three well-established homogenization methods and compared the identified break points. By only treating breaks as valid when detected by at least two out of three methods, we enhanced the robustness of our results. We found 45 breaks within 42 of 184 investigated series; of these 70 % could be explained by events recorded in the station history.
Bertrand Cluzet, Matthieu Lafaysse, César Deschamps-Berger, Matthieu Vernay, and Marie Dumont
The Cryosphere, 16, 1281–1298, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1281-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1281-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The mountainous snow cover is highly variable at all temporal and spatial scales. Snow cover models suffer from large errors, while snowpack observations are sparse. Data assimilation combines them into a better estimate of the snow cover. A major challenge is to propagate information from observed into unobserved areas. This paper presents a spatialized version of the particle filter, in which information from in situ snow depth observations is successfully used to constrain nearby simulations.
Kerttu Kouki, Petri Räisänen, Kari Luojus, Anna Luomaranta, and Aku Riihelä
The Cryosphere, 16, 1007–1030, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1007-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-1007-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We analyze state-of-the-art climate models’ ability to describe snow mass and whether biases in modeled temperature or precipitation can explain the discrepancies in snow mass. In winter, biases in precipitation are the main factor affecting snow mass, while in spring, biases in temperature becomes more important, which is an expected result. However, temperature or precipitation cannot explain all snow mass discrepancies. Other factors, such as models’ structural errors, are also significant.
Lucas Berard-Chenu, Hugues François, Emmanuelle George, and Samuel Morin
The Cryosphere, 16, 863–881, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-863-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-863-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This study investigates the past snow reliability (1961–2019) of 16 ski resorts in the French Alps using state-of-the-art snowpack modelling. We used snowmaking investment figures to infer the evolution of snowmaking coverage at the individual ski resort level. Snowmaking improved snow reliability for the core of the winter season for the highest-elevation ski resorts. However it did not counterbalance the decreasing trend in snow cover reliability for lower-elevation ski resorts and in spring.
Achut Parajuli, Daniel F. Nadeau, François Anctil, and Marco Alves
The Cryosphere, 15, 5371–5386, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5371-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5371-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Cold content is the energy required to attain an isothermal (0 °C) state and resulting in the snow surface melt. This study focuses on determining the multi-layer cold content (30 min time steps) relying on field measurements, snow temperature profile, and empirical formulation in four distinct forest sites of Montmorency Forest, eastern Canada. We present novel research where the effect of forest structure, local topography, and meteorological conditions on cold content variability is explored.
Yufei Liu, Yiwen Fang, and Steven A. Margulis
The Cryosphere, 15, 5261–5280, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5261-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-5261-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We examined the spatiotemporal distribution of stored water in the seasonal snowpack over High Mountain Asia, based on a new snow reanalysis dataset. The dataset was derived utilizing satellite-observed snow information, which spans across 18 water years, at a high spatial (~ 500 m) and temporal (daily) resolution. Snow mass and snow storage distribution over space and time are analyzed in this paper, which brings new insights into understanding the snowpack variability over this region.
Alicia A. Dauginis and Laura C. Brown
The Cryosphere, 15, 4781–4805, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4781-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4781-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This work examines changes in the timing (on/off dates) of Arctic snow, lake ice, and sea ice to investigate how they have responded to recent climate change and determine if they are responding similarly. We looked at pan-Arctic trends since 1997 and regional trends since 2004 using (mainly) satellite data. Strong regional variability was shown in the snow and ice trends, which highlights the need for a detailed understanding of the regional response to ongoing changes in the Arctic climate.
Moritz Buchmann, Michael Begert, Stefan Brönnimann, and Christoph Marty
The Cryosphere, 15, 4625–4636, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4625-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4625-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We investigated the impacts of local-scale variations by analysing snow climate indicators derived from parallel snow measurements. We found the largest relative inter-pair differences for all indicators in spring and the smallest in winter. The findings serve as an important basis for our understanding of uncertainties of commonly used snow indicators and provide, in combination with break-detection methods, the groundwork in view of any homogenization efforts regarding snow time series.
Michael Matiu, Alice Crespi, Giacomo Bertoldi, Carlo Maria Carmagnola, Christoph Marty, Samuel Morin, Wolfgang Schöner, Daniele Cat Berro, Gabriele Chiogna, Ludovica De Gregorio, Sven Kotlarski, Bruno Majone, Gernot Resch, Silvia Terzago, Mauro Valt, Walter Beozzo, Paola Cianfarra, Isabelle Gouttevin, Giorgia Marcolini, Claudia Notarnicola, Marcello Petitta, Simon C. Scherrer, Ulrich Strasser, Michael Winkler, Marc Zebisch, Andrea Cicogna, Roberto Cremonini, Andrea Debernardi, Mattia Faletto, Mauro Gaddo, Lorenzo Giovannini, Luca Mercalli, Jean-Michel Soubeyroux, Andrea Sušnik, Alberto Trenti, Stefano Urbani, and Viktor Weilguni
The Cryosphere, 15, 1343–1382, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1343-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1343-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The first Alpine-wide assessment of station snow depth has been enabled by a collaborative effort of the research community which involves more than 30 partners, 6 countries, and more than 2000 stations. It shows how snow in the European Alps matches the climatic zones and gives a robust estimate of observed changes: stronger decreases in the snow season at low elevations and in spring at all elevations, however, with considerable regional differences.
Rhae Sung Kim, Sujay Kumar, Carrie Vuyovich, Paul Houser, Jessica Lundquist, Lawrence Mudryk, Michael Durand, Ana Barros, Edward J. Kim, Barton A. Forman, Ethan D. Gutmann, Melissa L. Wrzesien, Camille Garnaud, Melody Sandells, Hans-Peter Marshall, Nicoleta Cristea, Justin M. Pflug, Jeremy Johnston, Yueqian Cao, David Mocko, and Shugong Wang
The Cryosphere, 15, 771–791, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-771-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-771-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
High SWE uncertainty is observed in mountainous and forested regions, highlighting the need for high-resolution snow observations in these regions. Substantial uncertainty in snow water storage in Tundra regions and the dominance of water storage in these regions points to the need for high-accuracy snow estimation. Finally, snow measurements during the melt season are most needed at high latitudes, whereas observations at near peak snow accumulations are most beneficial over the midlatitudes.
François Tuzet, Marie Dumont, Ghislain Picard, Maxim Lamare, Didier Voisin, Pierre Nabat, Mathieu Lafaysse, Fanny Larue, Jesus Revuelto, and Laurent Arnaud
The Cryosphere, 14, 4553–4579, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4553-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4553-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This study presents a field dataset collected over 30 d from two snow seasons at a Col du Lautaret site (French Alps). The dataset compares different measurements or estimates of light-absorbing particle (LAP) concentrations in snow, highlighting a gap in the current understanding of the measurement of these quantities. An ensemble snowpack model is then evaluated for this dataset estimating that LAPs shorten each snow season by around 10 d despite contrasting meteorological conditions.
Joshua King, Stephen Howell, Mike Brady, Peter Toose, Chris Derksen, Christian Haas, and Justin Beckers
The Cryosphere, 14, 4323–4339, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4323-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4323-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Physical measurements of snow on sea ice are sparse, making it difficulty to evaluate satellite estimates or model representations. Here, we introduce new measurements of snow properties on sea ice to better understand variability at distances less than 200 m. Our work shows that similarities in the snow structure are found at longer distances on younger ice than older ice.
Jianwei Yang, Lingmei Jiang, Kari Luojus, Jinmei Pan, Juha Lemmetyinen, Matias Takala, and Shengli Wu
The Cryosphere, 14, 1763–1778, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1763-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1763-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
There are many challenges for accurate snow depth estimation using passive microwave data. Machine learning (ML) techniques are deemed to be powerful tools for establishing nonlinear relations between independent variables and a given target variable. In this study, we investigate the potential capability of the random forest (RF) model on snow depth estimation at temporal and spatial scales. The result indicates that the fitted RF algorithms perform better on temporal than spatial scales.
Colleen Mortimer, Lawrence Mudryk, Chris Derksen, Kari Luojus, Ross Brown, Richard Kelly, and Marco Tedesco
The Cryosphere, 14, 1579–1594, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1579-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1579-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Existing stand-alone passive microwave SWE products have markedly different climatological SWE patterns compared to reanalysis-based datasets. The AMSR-E SWE has low spatial and temporal correlations with the four reanalysis-based products evaluated and GlobSnow and perform poorly in comparisons with snow transect data from Finland, Russia, and Canada. There is better agreement with in situ data when multiple SWE products, excluding the stand-alone passive microwave SWE products, are combined.
Céline Portenier, Fabia Hüsler, Stefan Härer, and Stefan Wunderle
The Cryosphere, 14, 1409–1423, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1409-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1409-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
We present a method to derive snow cover maps from freely available webcam images in the Swiss Alps. With marginal manual user input, we can transform a webcam image into a georeferenced map and therewith perform snow cover analyses with a high spatiotemporal resolution over a large area. Our evaluation has shown that webcams could not only serve as a reference for improved validation of satellite-based approaches, but also complement satellite-based snow cover retrieval.
Markus Todt, Nick Rutter, Christopher G. Fletcher, and Leanne M. Wake
The Cryosphere, 13, 3077–3091, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-3077-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-3077-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Vegetation is often represented by a single layer in global land models. Studies have found deficient simulation of thermal radiation beneath forest canopies when represented by single-layer vegetation. This study corrects thermal radiation in forests for a global land model using single-layer vegetation in order to assess the effect of deficient thermal radiation on snow cover and snowmelt. Results indicate that single-layer vegetation causes snow in forests to be too cold and melt too late.
Stefanie Arndt and Christian Haas
The Cryosphere, 13, 1943–1958, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1943-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1943-2019, 2019
David F. Hill, Elizabeth A. Burakowski, Ryan L. Crumley, Julia Keon, J. Michelle Hu, Anthony A. Arendt, Katreen Wikstrom Jones, and Gabriel J. Wolken
The Cryosphere, 13, 1767–1784, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1767-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1767-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
We present a new statistical model for converting snow depths to water equivalent. The only variables required are snow depth, day of year, and location. We use the location to look up climatological parameters such as mean winter precipitation and mean temperature difference (difference between hottest month and coldest month). The model is simple by design so that it can be applied to depth measurements anywhere, anytime. The model is shown to perform better than other widely used approaches.
Rebecca Mott, Andreas Wolf, Maximilian Kehl, Harald Kunstmann, Michael Warscher, and Thomas Grünewald
The Cryosphere, 13, 1247–1265, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1247-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-1247-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
The mass balance of very small glaciers is often governed by anomalous snow accumulation, winter precipitation being multiplied by snow redistribution processes, or by suppressed snow ablation driven by micrometeorological effects lowering net radiation and turbulent heat exchange. In this study we discuss the relative contribution of snow accumulation (avalanches) versus micrometeorology (katabatic flow) on the mass balance of the lowest perennial ice field of the Alps, the Ice Chapel.
Yue Zhou, Hui Wen, Jun Liu, Wei Pu, Qingcai Chen, and Xin Wang
The Cryosphere, 13, 157–175, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-157-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-157-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
We first investigated the optical characteristics and potential sources of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) in seasonal snow over northwestern China. The abundance of CDOM showed regional variation. At some sites strongly influenced by local soil, the absorption of CDOM cannot be neglected compared to black carbon. We found two humic-like and one protein-like fluorophores in snow. The major sources of snow CDOM were soil, biomass burning, and anthropogenic pollution.
Benjamin J. Hatchett and Hilary G. Eisen
The Cryosphere, 13, 21–28, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-21-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-21-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
We examine the timing of early season snowpack relevant to oversnow vehicle (OSV) recreation over the past 3 decades in the Lake Tahoe region (USA). Data from two independent data sources suggest that the timing of achieving sufficient snowpack has shifted later by 2 weeks. Increasing rainfall and more dry days play a role in the later onset. Adaptation strategies are provided for winter travel management planning to address negative impacts of loss of early season snowpack for OSV usage.
Cited articles
Armstrong, R., Brodzik, M., Knowles, K., and Savoie, M.: Global Monthly EASE-Grid Snow Water Equivalent Climatology [1979–2005]. Boulder, Colorado USA: NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center, 2005.
Arora, V., Scinocca, J., Boer, G., Christian, J., Denman, K., Flato, G., Kharin, V., Lee, W., and Merryfield, W.: Carbon emission limits required to satisfy future representative concentration pathways of greenhouse gases, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L05805, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010gl046270, 2011.
Auer, I., Böhm, R., Jurkovic, A., Lipa, W., Orlik, A., Potzmann, R., Schöner, W., Ungersböck, M., Matulla, C., Briffa, K., et al.: HISTALP–historical instrumental climatological surface time series of the Greater Alpine Region, Int. J. Climatol., 27, 17–46, 2007.
Balsamo, G., Beljaars, A., Scipal, K., Viterbo, P., van den Hurk, B., Hirschi, M., and Betts, A. K.: A revised hydrology for the ECMWF model: Verification from field site to terrestrial water storage and impact in the Integrated Forecast System, J. Hydrometeor., 10, 623–643, https://doi.org/10.1175/2008jhm1068.1, 2009.
Balsamo, G., Albergel, C., Beljaars, A., Boussetta, S., Brun, E., Cloke, H., Dee, D., Dutra, E., Muñoz-Sabater, J., Pappenberger, F., de Rosnay, P., Stockdale, T., and Vitart, F.: ERA-Interim/Land: a global land surface reanalysis data set, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 19, 14705–14745, https://doi.org/10.5194/hessd-10-14705-2013, 2013.
Balsamo, G., Albergel, C., Beljaars, A., Boussetta, S., Brun, E., Cloke, H., Dee, D., Dutra, E., Muñoz-Sabater, J., Pappenberger, F., de Rosnay, P., Stockdale, T., and Vitart, F.: ERA-Interim/Land: a global land surface reanalysis data set, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 389–407, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-389-2015, 2015.
Barnett, T. P., Adam, J. C., and Lettenmaier, D. P.: Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions, Nature, 438, 303–309, 2005.
Beniston, M.: Climatic change in mountain regions: a review of possible impacts, in: Climate variability and change in high elevation regions: Past, present & future, Springer, 5–31, 2003.
Beniston, M. and Stoffel, M.: Assessing the impacts of climatic change on mountain water resources, Sci. Total Environ., 493, 1129–1137, 2014.
Beniston, M., Uhlmann, B., Goyette, S., and Lopez-Moreno, J. I.: Will snow-abundant winters still exist in the Swiss Alps in an enhanced greenhouse climate?, Int. J. Climatol., 31, 1257–1263, 2011.
Bentsen, M., Bethke, I., Debernard, J. B., Iversen, T., Kirkevåg, A., Seland, Ø., Drange, H., Roelandt, C., Seierstad, I. A., Hoose, C., and Kristjánsson, J. E.: The Norwegian Earth System Model, NorESM1-M – Part 1: Description and basic evaluation of the physical climate, Geosci. Model Dev., 6, 687–720, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-6-687-2013, 2013.
Bi, D., Dix, M., Marsl, S., O'Farrell, S., Rashid, H., Uotila, P., Hirst, A., Kowalczyk, E., Golebiewski, M., Sullivan, A., and Yan, H.: The ACCESS coupled model: Description, control climate and evaluation, Aust. Met. Oceanog. J., 63, 9–32, 2013.
Brown, R., Derksen, C., and Wang, L.: A multi-data set analysis of variability and change in Arctic spring snow cover extent, 1967–2008, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 115, D16111, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JD013975, 2010.
Brun, E., Vionnet, V., Boone, A., Decharme, B., Peings, Y., Valette, R., Karbou, F., and Morin, S.: Simulation of northern eurasian local snow depth, mass, and density using a detailed snowpack model and meteorological reanalyses, J. Hydrometeorol., 14, 203–219, 2013.
CDO: CDO 2015: Climate Data Operators, available at: http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/cdo (last access: December 2016), 2015.
Chimani, B., Böhm, R., Matulla, C., and Ganekind, M.: Development of a longterm dataset of solid/liquid precipitation, Adv. Sci. Res., 6, 39–43, https://doi.org/10.5194/asr-6-39-2011, 2011.
Christensen, O. B., Drews, M., Hesselbjerg Christensen, J., Dethloff, K., Ketelsen, K., Hebestadt, I., and Rinke, A.: The HIRHAM Regional Climate Model. Version 5 (beta), Tech. rep., Danish Climate Centre, Danish Meteorological Institute, 2007.
Clifford, D.: Global estimates of snow water equivalent from passive microwave instruments: history, challenges and future developments, International J. Remote Sens., 31, 3707–3726, 2010.
Collier, M., Jeffrey, S., Rotstayn, L., Wong, K., Dravitzki, S., Moseneder, C., Hamalainen, C., Syktus, J., Suppiah, R., Antony, J., El Zeind, A., and Atif, M.: The CSIRO-Mk3. 6.0 Atmosphere-Ocean GCM: participation in CMIP5 and data publication, in: International Congress on Modelling and Simulation-MODSIM 2011, 2011.
Collins, M., Tett, S., and Cooper, C.: The internal climate variability of HadCM3, a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustments, Clim. Dynam., 17, 61–81, 2001.
Collins, W. J., Bellouin, N., Doutriaux-Boucher, M., Gedney, N., Halloran, P., Hinton, T., Hughes, J., Jones, C. D., Joshi, M., Liddicoat, S., Martin, G., O'Connor, F., Rae, J., Senior, C., Sitch, S., Totterdell, I., Wiltshire, A., and Woodward, S.: Development and evaluation of an Earth-System model – HadGEM2, Geosci. Model Dev., 4, 1051–1075, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-4-1051-2011, 2011.
Compo, G. P., Whitaker, J. S., Sardeshmukh, P. D., Matsui, N., Allan, R. J., Yin, X., Gleason, B. E., Vose, R. S., Rutledge, G., Bessemoulin, P., Brönnimann, S., Brunet, M., Crouthamel, R. I., Grant, A. N., Groisman, P. Y., Jones, P. D., Kruk, M. C., Kruger, A. C., Marshall, G. J., Maugeri, M., Mok, H. Y., Nordli, O., Ross, T. F., Trigo, R. M., Wang, X. L., Woodruff, S. D., and Worley, S. J.: The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 137, 1–28, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.776, 2011.
Davini, P., von Hardenberg, J., Corti, S., Christensen, H. M., Juricke, S., Subramanian, A., Watson, P. A. G., Weisheimer, A., and Palmer, T. N.: Climate SPHINX: evaluating the impact of resolution and stochastic physics parameterisations in the EC-Earth global climate model, Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 1383–1402, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-1383-2017, 2017.
Dee, D. P., Uppala, S. M., Simmons, A. J., Berrisford, P., Poli, P., Kobayashi, S., Andrae, U., Balmaseda, M. A., Balsamo, G., Bauer, P., Bechtold, P., Beljaars, A. C. M., van de Berg, L., Bidlot, J., Bormann, N., Delsol, C., Dragani, R., Fuentes, M., Geer, A. J., Haimberger, L., Healy, S. B., Hersbach, H., Hólm, E. V., Isaksen, L., Kållberg, P., Köhler, M., Matricardi, M., McNally, A. P., Monge-Sanz, B. M., Morcrette, J.-J., Park, B.-K., Peubey, C., de Rosnay, P., Tavolato, C., Thépaut, J.-N., and Vitart, F.: The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 137, 553–597, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.828, 2011.
Delworth, T. L., Broccoli, A. J., Rosati, A., Stouffer, R. J., Balaji, V., Beesley, J. A., Cooke, W. F., Dixon, K. W., Dunne, J., Dunne, K., Durachta, J. W., Findell, K. L., Ginoux, P., Gnanadesikan, A., Gordon, C. T., Griffies, S. M., Gudgel, R., Harrison, M. J., Held, I. M., Hemler, R. S., Horowitz, L. W., Klein, S. A., Knutson, T. R., Kushner, P. J., Langenhorst, A. R., Lee, H.-C., Lin, S.-J., Lu, J., Malyshev, S. L., Milly, P. C. D., Ramaswamy, V., Russell, J., Schwarzkopf, M. D., Shevliakova, E., Sirutis, J. J., Spelman, M. J., Stern, W. F., Winton, M., Wittenberg, A. T., Wyman, B., Zeng, F., and Zhang, R.: GFDL's CM2 global coupled climate models. Part I: Formulation and simulation characteristics, J. Climate, 19, 643–674, 2006.
Diffenbaugh, N. S., Scherer, M., and Ashfaq, M.: Response of snow-dependent hydrologic extremes to continued global warming, Nature Climate Change, 3, 379–384, 2013.
Donner, L. J., Wyman, B. L., Hemler, R. S., Horowitz, L. W., Ming, Y., Zhao, M., Golaz, J.-C., Ginoux, P., Lin, S.-J., Schwarzkopf, M. D., Austin, J., Alaka, G., Cooke, W. F., Delworth, T. L., Freidenreich, S. M., Gordon, C. T., Griffies, S. M., Held, I. M., Hurlin, W. J., Klein, S. A., Knutson, T. R., Langenhorst, A. R., Lee, H.-C., Lin, Y., Magi, B. I., Malyshev, S. L., Milly, P. C. D., Naik, V., Nath, M. J., Pincus, R., Ploshay, J. J., Ramaswamy, V., Seman, C. J., Shevliakova, E., Sirutis, J. J., Stern, W. F., Stouffer, R. J., Wilson, R. J., Winton, M., Wittenberg, A. T., and Zeng, F.: The dynamical core, physical parameterizations, and basic simulation characteristics of the atmospheric component AM3 of the GFDL global coupled model CM3, J. Climate, 24, 3484–3519, 2011.
Dunne, J. P., John, J. G., Adcroft, A. J., Griffies, S. M., Hallberg, R. W., Shevliakova, E., Stouffer, R. J., Cooke, W., Dunne, K. A., Harrison, M. J., Krasting, J. P., Malyshev, S. L., Milly, P. C. D., Phillipps, P. J., Sentman, L. T., Samuels, B. L., Spelman, M. J., Winton, M., Wittenberg, A. T., and Zadeh, N.: GFDL's ESM2 global coupled climate-carbon Earth System Models. Part I: Physical formulation and baseline simulation characteristics, J. Climate, 25, 6646–6665, 2012.
Dutra, E., Balsamo, G., Viterbo, P., Miranda, P. M., Beljaars, A., Schär, C., and Elder, K.: An improved snow scheme for the ECMWF land surface model: description and offline validation, J. Hydrometeor., 11, 899–916, https://doi.org/10.1175/2010jhm1249.1, 2010.
Farda, A., Déué, M., Somot, S., Horányi, A., Spiridonov, V., and Tóth, H.: Model ALADIN as regional climate model for Central and Eastern Europe, Stud. Geophys. Geod., 54, 313–332, 2010.
Gan, T. Y., Barry, R. G., and Gobena, A. K.: Changes in Snowpacks of Canadian Prairies for 1979–2004 Detected from Snow Water Equivalent Data of SMMR and SSM/I Passive Microwave and Related Climatic Factors, Remote Sensing of the Terrestrial Water Cycle, 206, 227–231, 2014.
Gent, P. R., Danabasoglu, G., Donner, L. J., Holland, M. M., Hunke, E. C., Jayne, S. R., Lawrence, D. M., Neale, R. B., Rasch, P. J., Vertenstein, M., Worley, P. H., Yang, Z., and Zhang, M.: The Community Climate System Model Version 4., J. Climate, 24, 4973–4991, https://doi.org/10.1175/2011jcli4083.1, 2011.
Giorgetta, M. A., Jungclaus, J., Reick, C. H., Legutke, S., Bader, J., Böttinger, M., Brovkin, V., Crueger, T., Esch, M., Fieg, K., Glushak, K., Gayler, V., Haak, H., Hollweg, H.-D., Ilyina, T., Kinne, S., Kornblueh, L., Matei, D., Mauritsen, T., Mikolajewicz, U., Mueller, W., Notz, D., Pithan, F., Raddatz, T., Rast, S., Redler, R., Roeckner, E., Schmidt, H., Schnur, R., Segschneider, J., Six, K. D., Stockhause, M., Timmreck, C., Wegner, J., Widmann, H., Wieners, K.-H., Claussen, M., Marotzke, J., and Stevens, B.: Climate and carbon cycle changes from 1850 to 2100 in MPI-ESM simulations for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 5, 572–597, https://doi.org/10.1002/jame.20038, 2013.
Gordon, C., Cooper, C., Senior, C. A., Banks, H., Gregory, J. M., Johns, T. C., Mitchell, J. F., and Wood, R. A.: The simulation of SST, sea ice extents and ocean heat transports in a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustments, Clim. Dynam., 16, 147–168, 2000.
Haarsma, R. J., Roberts, M., Vidale, P. L., Senior, C. A., Bellucci, A., Bao, Q., Chang, P., Corti, S., Fučkar, N. S., Guemas, V., von Hardenberg, J., Hazeleger, W., Kodama, C., Koenigk, T., Leung, L. R., Lu, J., Luo, J.-J., Mao, J., Mizielinski, M. S., Mizuta, R., Nobre, P., Satoh, M., Scoccimarro, E., Semmler, T., Small, J., and von Storch, J.-S.: High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP), Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 2016, 1–35, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2016-66, 2016.
Hagemann, S.: An improved land surface parameter dataset for global and regional climate models, Tech. Rep. 336, Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-002B-539B-6, 2002.
Hall, D. K. and Riggs, G. A.: Accuracy assessment of the MODIS snow products, Hydrol. Process., 21, 1534–1547, 2007.
Hancock, S., Baxter, R., Evans, J., and Huntley, B.: Evaluating global snow water equivalent products for testing land surface models, Remote Sens. Environ., 128, 107–117, 2013.
Hantel, M., Maurer, C., and Mayer, D.: The snowline climate of the Alps 1961–2010, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 110, 517–537, 2012.
Hastings, D. and Dunbar, P.: Global Land One-kilometer Base Elevation (GLOBE) Digital Elevation Model, Documentation, Volume 1.0. Key to Geophysical Records Documentation (KGRD) 34, 1999.
Haylock, M., Hofstra, N., Klein Tank, A., Klok, E., Jones, P., and New, M.: A European daily high-resolution gridded data set of surface temperature and precipitation for 1950–2006, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, https://doi.org/doi:10.1029/2008JD010201, 2008.
Hazeleger, W., Wang, X., Severijns, C., Ştefănescu, S., Bintanja, R., Sterl, A., Wyser, K., Semmler, T., Yang, S., and Van den Hurk, B.: EC-Earth V2. 2: description and validation of a new seamless earth system prediction model, Climate Dyn., 39, 2611–2629, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1228-5, 2012.
Hurrell, J. W., Holland, M., Gent, P., Ghan, S., Kay, J. E., Kushner, P., Lamarque, J.-F., Large, W., Lawrence, D., Lindsay, K., Lipscomb, W. H., Long, M. C., Mahowald, N., Marsh, D. R., Neale, R. B., Rasch, P., Vavrus, S., Vertenstein, M., Bader, D., Collins, W. D., Hack, J. J., Kiehl, J., and Marshall, S.: The Community Earth System Model: A Framework for Collaborative Research, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 94, 1339–1360, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00121.1, 2013.
Imperio, S., Bionda, R., Viterbi, R., and Provenzale, A.: Climate change and human disturbance can lead to local extinction of Alpine rock ptarmigan: New insight from the Western Italian Alps, PloS one, 8, e81598, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0081598, 2013.
IPCC: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Jacob, D. and Podzun, R.: Sensitivity studies with the regional climate model REMO, Meteorol. Atmos. Phys., 63, 119–129, 1997.
Jacob, D., Petersen, J., Eggert, B., Alias, A., Christensen, O. B., Bouwer, L. M., Braun, A., Colette, A., Déqué, M., Georgievski, G., Georgopoulou, E., Gobiet, A., Menut, L., Nikulin, G., Haensler, A., Hempelmann, N., Jones, C., Keuler, K., Kovats, S., Kröner, N., Kotlarski, S. , Kriegsmann, A., Martin, E., van Meijgaard, E., Moseley, C., Pfeifer, S., Preuschmann, S., Radermacher, C., Radtke, K., Rechid, D., Rounsevell, M., Samuelsson, P., Somot, S., Soussana, J. F., Teichmann, C., Valentini, R., Vautard, R., Weber, B., and Yiou, P.: EURO-CORDEX: new high-resolution climate change projections for European impact research, Reg. Environ. Change, 14, 563–578, 2014.
Johns, T., Gregory, J., Ingram, W., Johnson, C., Jones, A., Lowe, J., Mitchell, J., Roberts, D., Sexton, D., Stevenson, D., Tett, S., and Woodage, M.: Anthropogenic climate change for 1860 to 2100 simulated with the HadCM3 model under updated emissions scenarios, Clim. Dynam., 20, 583–612, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-002-0296-y, 2003.
Jones, P. W.: First-and second-order conservative remapping schemes for grids in spherical coordinates, Mon. Weather Rev., 127, 2204–2210, 1999.
Kopp, T. and Kiess, R.: The air force global weather central snow analysis model, in: Conference on weather analysis and forecasting, vol. 15, 220–222, American Meteorological Society, 1996.
Körner, C.: Alpine plant life: functional plant ecology of high mountain ecosystems, Springer Science & Business Media, 2003.
Koster, R. D., Suarez, M. J., Ducharne, A., Stieglitz, M., and Kumar, P.: A Catchment-Based Approach to Modeling Land Surface Processes in a GCM. Part 1; Model Structure, J. Geophys. Res., 105, 24809–24822, 2000.
Kotlarski, S., Keuler, K., Christensen, O. B., Colette, A., Déqué, M., Gobiet, A., Goergen, K., Jacob, D., Lüthi, D., van Meijgaard, E., Nikulin, G., Schär, C., Teichmann, C., Vautard, R., Warrach-Sagi, K., and Wulfmeyer, V.: Regional climate modeling on European scales: a joint standard evaluation of the EURO-CORDEX RCM ensemble, Geosci. Model Dev., 7, 1297–1333, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-7-1297-2014, 2014.
Li, L., Lin, P., Yu, Y., Wang, B., Zhou, T., Liu, L., Liu, J., Bao, Q., Xu, S., Huang, W., Xia, K., Pu, Y., Dong, L., Shen, S., Liu, Y., Hu, N., Liu, M., Sun, W., Shi, X., Zheng, W., Wu, B., Song, M., Liu, H., Zhang, X., Wu, G., Xue, W., Huang, X., Yang, G., Song, Z., and Qiao, F.: The flexible global ocean-atmosphere-land system model, Grid-point Version 2: FGOALS-g2, Adv. Atmos. Sci., 30, 543–560, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-012-2140-6, 2013.
Meng, J., Yang, R., Wei, H., Ek, M., Gayno, G., Xie, P., and Mitchell, K.: The land surface analysis in the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis, J. Hydrometeor., 13, 1621–1630, 2012.
Moss, R. H., Edmonds, J. A., Hibbard, K. A., Manning, M. R., Rose, S. K., van Vuuren, D. P., Carter, T. R., Emori, S., Kainuma, M., Kram, T., Meehl, G. A., Mitchell, J. F. B., Nakicenovic, N., Riahi, K., Smith, S. J., Stouffer, R. J., Thomson, A. M., Weyant, J. P., and Wilbanks, T. J.: The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment, Nature, 463, 747–756, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08823, 2010.
Mudryk, L., Derksen, C., Kushner, P., and Brown, R.: Characterization of Northern Hemisphere snow water equivalent datasets, 1981–2010, J. Climate, 28, 8037–8051, 2015.
Qiao, F., Song, Z., Bao, Y., Song, Y., Shu, Q., Huang, C., and Zhao, W.: Development and evaluation of an Earth System Model with surface gravity waves, J. Geophys. Res.-Oceans, 118, 4514–4524, https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrc.20327, 2013.
Rienecker, M. M., Suarez, M. J., Gelaro, R., Todling, R., Bacmeister, J., Liu, E., Bosilovich, M. G., Schubert, S. D., Takacs, L., Kim, G.-K., Bloom, S., Chen, J., Collins, D., Conaty, A., da Silva, A., Gu, W., Joiner, J., Koster, R. D., Lucchesi, R., Molod, A., Owens, T., Pawson, S., Pegion, P., Redder, C. R., Reichle, R., Robertson, F. R., Ruddick, A. G., Sienkiewicz, M., and Woollen, J.: MERRA: NASA's modern-era retrospective analysis for research and applications, J. Climate, 24, 3624–3648, 2011.
Rixen, C., Teich, M., Lardelli, C., Gallati, D., Pohl, M., Pütz, M., and Bebi, P.: Winter tourism and climate change in the Alps: an assessment of resource consumption, snow reliability, and future snowmaking potential, Mt. Res. Dev., 31, 229–236, 2011.
Rockel, B., Will, A., and Hense, A.: The regional climate model COSMO-CLM (CCLM), Meteorol. Z., 17, 347–348, 2008.
Sabin, T., Krishnan, R., Ghattas, J., Denvil, S., Dufresne, J.-L., Hourdin, F., and Pascal, T.: High resolution simulation of the South Asian monsoon using a variable resolution global climate model, Clim. Dynam., 41, 173–194, 2013.
Saha, S., Moorthi, S., Pan, H.-L., Wu, X., Wang, J., Nadiga, S., Tripp, P., Kistler, R., Woollen, J., Behringer, D., et al.: The NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc, 91, 1015–1057, https://doi.org/10.1175/2010BAMS3001.1, 2010.
Salzmann, N., Huggel, C., Rohrer, M., and Stoffel, M.: Data and knowledge gaps in glacier, snow and related runoff research – A climate change adaptation perspective, J. Hydrol., 518, 225–234, 2014.
Scherrer, S., Ceppi, P., Croci-Maspoli, M., and Appenzeller, C.: Snow-albedo feedback and Swiss spring temperature trends, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 110, 509–516, 2012.
Schmidt, G. A., Ruedy, R., Hansen, J. E., Aleinov, I., Bell, N., Bauer, M., Bauer, S., Cairns, B., Canuto, V., Cheng, Y., Genio, A. D., Faluvegi, G., Friend, A. D., Hall, T. M., Hu, Y., Kelley, M., Kiang, N. Y., Koch, D., Lacis, A. A., Lerner, J., Lo, K. K., Miller, R. L., Nazarenko, L., Oinas, V., Perlwitz, J., Perlwitz, J., Rind, D., Romanou, A., Russell, G. L., Sato, M., Shindell, D. T., Stone, P. H., Sun, S., Tausnev, N., Thresher, D., and Yao, M.-S.: Present-day atmospheric simulations using GISS ModelE: Comparison to in situ, satellite, and reanalysis data, J. Climate, 19, 153–192, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3612.1, 2006.
Scoccimarro, E., Gualdi, S., Bellucci, A., Sanna, A., Giuseppe Fogli, P., Manzini, E., Vichi, M., Oddo, P., and Navarra, A.: Effects of tropical cyclones on ocean heat transport in a high-resolution coupled general circulation model, J. Climate, 24, 4368–4384, https://doi.org/10.1175/2011jcli4104.1, 2011.
Serquet, G., Marty, C., Dulex, J.-P., and Rebetez, M.: Seasonal trends and temperature dependence of the snowfall/precipitation-day ratio in Switzerland, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011GL046976, 2011.
Steger, C., Kotlarski, S., Jonas, T., and Schär, C.: Alpine snow cover in a changing climate: a regional climate model perspective, Clim. Dynam., 41, 735–754, 2013.
Stewart, I. T.: Changes in snowpack and snowmelt runoff for key mountain regions, Hydrol. Process., 23, 78–94, 2009.
Stieglitz, M., Ducharne, A., Koster, R., and Suarez, M.: The impact of detailed snow physics on the simulation of snow cover and subsurface thermodynamics at continental scales, J. Hydrometeor., 2, 228–242, 2001.
Takala, M., Luojus, K., Pulliainen, J., Derksen, C., Lemmetyinen, J., Kärnä, J.-P., Koskinen, J., and Bojkov, B.: Estimating northern hemisphere snow water equivalent for climate research through assimilation of space-borne radiometer data and ground-based measurements, Remote Sens. Environ., 115, 3517–3529, 2011.
Taylor, K. E.: Summarizing multiple aspects of model performance in a single diagram, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 106, 7183–7192, 2001.
Taylor, K. E., Stouffer, R. J., and Meehl, G. A.: An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 93, 485–498, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00094.1, 2012.
Tedesco, M., Kelly, R., Foster, J., and Chang, A.: AMSR-E/Aqua Daily L3 Global Snow Water Equivalent EASE-Grids. Version 2. [2002–2011]. Boulder, Colorado USA: NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center, https://doi.org/10.5067/AMSR-E/AE_DYSNO.002, 2004.
Terzago, S., von Hardenberg, J., Palazzi, E., and Provenzale, A.: Snowpack changes in the Hindu-Kush Karakoram Himalaya from CMIP5 Global Climate Models, J. Hydrometeorol., 15, 2293–2313, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-13-0196.1, 2014.
Tong, J. and Velicogna, I.: A comparison of AMSR-E/Aqua snow products with in situ observations and MODIS snow cover products in the Mackenzie River Basin, Canada, Remote Sensing, 2, 2313–2322, 2010.
Uppala, S. M., Kållberg, P., Simmons, A., Andrae, U., Bechtold, V. d., Fiorino, M., Gibson, J., Haseler, J., Hernandez, A., Kelly, G., Li, X., Onogi, K., Saarinen, S., Sokka, N., Allan, R. P., Andersson, E., Arpe, K., Balmaseda, M. A., Beljaars, A. C. M., Berg, L. V. D., Bidlot, J., Bormann, N., Caires, S., Chevallier, F., Dethof, A., Dragosavac, M., Fisher, M., Fuentes, M., Hagemann, S., Hólm, E., Hoskins, B. J., Isaksen, L., Janssen, P. A. E. M., Jenne, R., Mcnally, A. P., Mahfouf, J.-F., Morcrette, J.-J., Rayner, N. A., Saunders, R. W., Simon, P., Sterl, A., Trenberth, K. E., Untch, A., Vasiljevic, D., Viterbo, P., and Woollen, J.: : The ERA-40 re-analysis, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 131, 2961–3012, 2005.
van den Hurk, B., Kim, H., Krinner, G., Seneviratne, S. I., Derksen, C., Oki, T., Douville, H., Colin, J., Ducharne, A., Cheruy, F., Viovy, N., Puma, M. J., Wada, Y., Li, W., Jia, B., Alessandri, A., Lawrence, D. M., Weedon, G. P., Ellis, R., Hagemann, S., Mao, J., Flanner, M. G., Zampieri, M., Materia, S., Law, R. M., and Sheffield, J.: LS3MIP (v1.0) contribution to CMIP6: the Land Surface, Snow and Soil moisture Model Intercomparison Project – aims, setup and expected outcome, Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 2809–2832, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-2809-2016, 2016.
Van Meijgaard, E., Van Ulft, L., Lenderink, G., De Roode, S., Wipfler, E. L., Boers, R., and van Timmermans, R.: Refinement and application of a regional atmospheric model for climate scenario calculations of Western Europe, KVR 054/12, KVR, 2012.
Voldoire, A., Sanchez-Gomez, E., Salas y Mélia, D., Decharme, B., Cassou, C., Sénési, S., Valcke, S., Beau, I., Alias, A., Chevallier, M., Déqué, M., Deshayes, J., Douville, H., Fernandez, E., Madec, G., Maisonnave, E., Moine, M.-P., Planton, S., Saint-Martin, D., Szopa, S., Tyteca, S., Alkama, R., Belamari, S., Braun, A., Coquart, L., and Chauvin, F.: The CNRM-CM5.1 global climate model: description and basic evaluation, Clim. Dynam., 40, 2091–2121, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1259-y, 2013.
Volodin, E., Dianskii, N., and Gusev, A.: Simulating present-day climate with the INMCM4.0 coupled model of the atmospheric and oceanic general circulations, Atmos. Ocean. Phys., 46, 414–431, https://doi.org/10.1134/s000143381004002x, 2010.
Wu, T., Li, W., Ji, J., Xin, X., Li, L., Wang, Z., Zhang, Y., Li, J., Zhang, F., Wei, M., Shi, X., Wu, F., Zhang, L., Chu, M., Jie, W., Liu, Y., Wang, F., Liu, X., Li, Q., Dong, M., Liang, X., Gao, Y., and Zhang, J.: Global carbon budgets simulated by the Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model for the last century, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 118, 4326–4347, https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50320, 2013.
Yukimoto, S., Adachi, Y., and Hosaka, M.: A new global climate model of the Meteorological Research Institute: MRI-CGCM3: model description and basic performance (special issue on recent development on climate models and future climate projections), J. Meteorol. Soc. Jpn., 90, 23–64, https://doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2012-a02, 2012.
Short summary
The estimate of the current and future conditions of snow resources in mountain areas depends on the availability of reliable fine-resolution data sets and of climate models capable of properly representing snow processes and snow–climate interactions. This work considers the snow water equivalent data sets from remote sensing, reanalyses, regional and global climate models available for the Alps and explores their ability to provide a coherent view of the snowpack features and its changes.
The estimate of the current and future conditions of snow resources in mountain areas depends on...
