{"id":71789,"date":"2024-03-25T14:54:14","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T21:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=71789"},"modified":"2024-03-25T14:54:14","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T21:54:14","slug":"richardson-snowpack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/richardson-snowpack\/","title":{"rendered":"How much difference can one degree of warming make?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A vicious cycle of warming temperatures and reduced snowpack in northern forests is more severe than climate models have shown and could lead to increased fire risk and permanent damage to ecosystems.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A <\/span>new study of long-term warming experimental results led by Northern Arizona University ecologist <\/span>Andrew Richardson<\/span><\/b> <\/a>found that even slight increases in temperature in the boreal forests can lead to a significant reduction in snowpack. Less snowpack means more light and heat is absorbed into the soil, which further increases the ground temperature, resulting in warmer air temperatures and more snowmelt. This means that the boreal forest, which stretches across the northern half of three continents and is home to many critical ecosystems, is changing even faster than scientists realized.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSnow is really a critical part of winter in most northern ecosystems,\u201d said Richardson, a Regents\u2019 professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems and the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society. \u201cTransitioning to low- or no-snow winters is going to have major implications for how these ecosystems \u2018work.\u2019 We\u2019ll likely see negative impacts of low snow, such as frozen soils and damaged plant tissues, as well as reduced spring runoff and drier soils going into summer. Even if you don\u2019t like winter, this is just bad news all around.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Indeed,
The pronounced difference between virtually 100% fractional snow cover in a control plot (Figure b) and\u2014at the same time, 12 noon on Jan. 1, 2020\u2014almost 0% fractional snow cover in one of the +9 plots (Figure c) highlights the impact of the warming treatments. Top photo: Experimental forest in northern Minnesota. Courtesy of Courtesy of Paul Hanson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The researchers used the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s SPRUCE Experiment in northern Minnesota to test their hypotheses. Large experimental enclosures, 30 feet wide and 20 feet high, were used to simulate future climate conditions, in which air and soil temperatures were manipulated using fans and heaters. Time-lapse digital photography was used to monitor conditions in each enclosure every 30 minutes, and snow depth and cover was estimated from the pictures. Comparing these results to historical data on snow depth and precipitation allowed them to get a better picture of the effects of temperature changes on the ecosystem and the changes in snow albedo, or reflectivity, which can affect soil and air temperatures. \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The snow-albedo effect occurs when light reflects off snow-covered surfaces, which keeps the surface cooler. When snow melts and exposes the darker surfaces underneath, those dark areas absorb the light, which leads to an increased temperature, which melts snow, which leads to more light being absorbed, thus continuing the cycle.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

What they learned wasn\u2019t exactly a surprise: an increase in temperature led to more snowmelt. What was surprising was the severity of that snowmelt; they found that snow cover dropped precipitously with any amount of warming, no matter how small. That led to changes in the plant life and soil ecosystems in the boreal forest, including increased plant stress and mortality. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Experimental
Courtesy of Courtesy of Paul Hanson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What this means for climate modeling is particularly important; results from this study can be used to evaluate how well current models are simulating the effects of warmer temperatures on the extent and duration of snow cover. Because the only variable is temperature, they were able to capture data that aren\u2019t possible to isolate in the real world.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although northern Arizona isn\u2019t in the boreal forest, these findings herald what we likely will experience in future winters\u2014less snow, more rain and a snowpack that doesn\u2019t stick around as long. \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kind of close to the edge already\u2014you just have to look at how much more snow there usually is at the Flagstaff Nordic Center, just a bit higher in elevation, than there is in town,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cThis may sound like good news for local residents who are tired of snow by the end of January, but it probably translates to more stressed forests.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who loves winter, this is a double dose of bad news\u2014less snow and more fire danger.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/p>\n

Heidi Toth | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-8737 | heidi.toth@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A vicious cycle of warming temperatures and reduced snowpack in northern forests is more severe than climate models have shown and could lead to increased fire risk and permanent damage to ecosystems.\u00a0 A new study of long-term warming experimental results led by Northern Arizona University ecologist Andrew Richardson found that even slight increases in temperature…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":71790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}