Snow Drought: Recognizing and Understanding its Impacts in Alaska

Start Date

2016-10-01

End Date

2018-09-30

Release Date

2016

While the attention paid to Arctic and sub-Arctic temperature change has increased dramatically in recent years, precipitation and its impacts on high-latitude ecosystems have been given relatively little notice. In many cases the effects of precipitation variability and change are less visible, especially where precipitation arrives mainly as snow. However, snow remains a crucial component of atmospheric and hydrologic dynamics, and key driver of regional ecosystems. Addressing “snow drought” as it manifests in changes to total snowfall amounts, snow accumulation, and the timing/length of the snow season are then critical for understanding and predicting a host of climate impacts. Unfortunately, snowfall-dominated areas defy traditional approaches to drought characterization. As such, this project seeks to address the following research questions: What are the most effective definitions of meteorological and hydrological snow drought for Alaska? What are the temporal features or indicators for snow drought? How crucial is the gap between how well we measure snow at gauges (meteorological snow drought) and snowpack conditions (hydrological snow drought)? What changes in snowpack and snow drought susceptibility are potentially due to changes in cover or terrain? This project will also use existing datasets (ground observations, reanalyses, remote sensing datasets, and modeled) to address snow drought in Alaska. Specific tasks for the project include: Analyzing various drought indices and their coherence, as well as their temporal and spatial variability to assess their suitability for Alaska conditions. Assessing snowpack characteristics (e.g., timing of arrival and departure, speed of departure) on drought manifestation and severity, and if those characters are exacerbating snow drought occurrences or extent over time. Exploring the linkages among station observations (precipitation falling from the sky) and snowpack development (snow on the ground) with drought. Observing whether snow drought conditions are tied to ecosystem trajectories, vegetation indices, or fire occurrence, and how changing landscapes and ecosystems are impacting snow distributions.

ScienceBase WMS

• Alaska CASC
• National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers