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Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-596
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-596
30 May 2023
 | 30 May 2023

Changing Snow Water Storage in Natural Snow Reservoirs

Christina Marie Aragon and David Foster Hill

Abstract. This work defines a new snow metric, snow water storage (SwS), which is the integrated area under the snow water equivalent (SWE) curve. Other widely-used snow metrics capture snow variables at a single point in time (e.g. maximum SWE) or describe temporal snow qualities (e.g. length of snow season), SwS can be applied at numerous spatial and temporal scales. The flexibility in the SwS metric allows us to characterize the natural reservoir function of snowpacks and quantify how this function has changed in recent decades. In this study, changes in the SwS metric are evaluated at point, gridded and aggregated scales across the conterminous United States (hereafter US). There is special focus on 16 mountainous EPA Level III Ecoregions (ER3s), which play an inordinate role in US annual SwS (SwSA). An average of 72 % of the annual SwSA in the US is held in the 16 mountain ER3s, despite these ER3s only covering 16 % of the US land area. SwSA and monthly SwS (SwSM) have changed significantly across the US since 1982 at point, gridded and ER3 scales. This change is spatially variable across the US with more spatially widespread significant decreases in SwSA than increases. The greatest SwSM loss occurs early in the snow snow season, particularly in November. All but two ER3 mountain ranges have decreasing trends in SwSA and there has been a 22 % decline in SwSA across all mountain ER3s. Unsurprisingly, the highest elevations are responsible for the greatest SwS in all mountain ranges, though the elevations that have lost or gained SwS over the 39 years of study are variable across mountain ranges. Comparisons of the percent change in SwS to other snow metrics reveals that change in the SWE curve has not been shape-preserving - instead, the SWE curve has been flattening. As we move into a future of increased climate variability and increased variability in mountain snowpacks, spatially and temporally flexible snow metrics such as SwS may become more valuable.

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.
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Journal article(s) based on this preprint

20 Feb 2024
Changing snow water storage in natural snow reservoirs
Christina Marie Aragon and David F. Hill
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 781–800, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-781-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-781-2024, 2024
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The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.

Short summary
A new metric, snow water storage (SwS), is used to characterize the natural reservoir function...
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