Reduced surface hoar in a warming world

Rudisill, William; Feldman, Dan; Marshall, Adrienne; Koshkin, Arielle

doi:10.5194/tc-20-5585-2026

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-5585-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-5585-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

Research article

|

01 Oct 2026

Research article |

| 01 Oct 2026

Reduced surface hoar in a warming world

William Rudisill, Dan Feldman, Adrienne Marshall, and Arielle Koshkin

Data sets

Data Quality Assessment for ARM Radiation Data (QCRAD1LONG) D. Zhang https://doi.org/10.5439/1227214

Active Remote Sensing of CLouds (ARSCL) product using Ka-band ARM Zenith Radars (ARSCLKAZR1KOLLIAS) K. Johnson et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1393437

Interpolated Sonde (INTERPOLATEDSONDE) M. Jensen et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1095316

Surface Meteorological Instrumentation (MET) J. Kyrouac et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1786358

Model code and software

Reduced Surface Hoar in a Warming World— SUMMA Model Output and Codes William Rudisill https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18667221

Short summary

Surface hoar crystals occasionally grow on the top of snowpacks overnight. Little work has focused on climatic conditions leading to surface hoar. We use data from three field campaigns in the Colorado Rockies to investigate. We show that surface hoar events decline as the climate warms, and that there may be 14 % fewer events per year in the future. There is still work needed to reconcile measured amounts of surface hoar crystals, models, and the relationship with turbulent air.