Bias-adjusted projections of snow cover over eastern Canada using an ensemble of regional climate models

Abstract. In the context of climate change, stakeholders and decision makers need easily accessible bias-adjusted projections of snow cover and indices produced from those to develop adaptation plans. To meet this need, we produced an ensemble of regional climate projections statistically bias adjusted of snow water equivalent (SWE) in the province of Québec, Canada. This bias adjustment required some fine-tuning to operational methods, mainly due to the seasonality in the SWE. We calculated indices of interest for several sectors based on the bias-adjusted SWE. These indices included the maximum of SWE as well as the duration, start, and end of the snow season, and the days without snow cover. In eastern Canada, snow cover tended to persist for shorter periods as the climate warms, with symmetrical shrinkage at the beginning and the end of the snow season, with the exception of the Nunavik region. The maximum SWE was projected to decrease in the southern part of the domain and increase elsewhere. The snow season in the Côte-Nord, southern Québec and St-Lawrence River Valley regions would be increasingly interrupted by sequences of days without snow cover, whereas this would not be the case for the northern and central Québec regions.