A low-to-no snow future and its impacts on water resources in the western United States

Siirila‐Woodburn, Erica R.; Rhoades, Alan M.; Hatchett, Benjamin J.; Huning, Laurie S.; Szinai, Julia; Tague, Christina; Nico, Peter; Feldman, D.; Jones, A. D.; Collins, William D.; Kaatz, L.

doi:10.1038/s43017-021-00219-y

Cited by 207 publications

(231 citation statements)

References 246 publications

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“…Second, less efficient runoff in future wet years implies these years will not ameliorate drought as effectively as in the historical record. Risks associated with markedly reduced runoff pose direct challenges to an already complex decision-making system (Huss et al, 2017;Sturm et al, 2017;Immerzeel et al, 2020;Siirila-Woodburn et al, 2021). These risks are heightened by centuries of infrastructure design and management strategies that have largely assumed climate stationarity (Milly et al, 2008;Cosgrove & Loucks, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Low-snow is defined as peak SWE ≤30th percentile and (virtually) no-snow is peak SWE ≤10th percentile (Siirila-Woodburn et al, 2021). These percentiles are also analogous to "snow drought" thresholds utilized in recent literature (e.g., Marshall et al, 2019;Hatchett et al, 2021), yet we prefer the low-to-no snow label as drought implies a temporary deviation from normal which is unlikely to occur in a dramatically warmer world.…”

Section: Mountain Definitionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…The inherent challenges in modeling the cross-scale interactions that shape the mountainous hydrologic cycle pose a scientific grand challenge, particularly in estimating the time horizon, spatial extent, and magnitude of low-to-no snow conditions (Siirila-Woodburn et al, 2021). Simulating decadal to centennial length changes in mountain hydrology at global-scales with better fidelity requires high-resolution (≤0.5 • horizontal resolution as discussed by Demory et al, 2013) and cannot be done with traditional Earth system model simulations (Rhoades et al, 2017;Kapnick et al, 2018;Palazzi et al, 2019).…”

Section: Identifying Low-to-no Snow Emergencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Anthropogenic climate change is expected to fundamentally alter the hydrologic cycle in mountains (Huss et al, 2017;Immerzeel et al, 2020;Viviroli et al, 2020;Siirila-Woodburn et al, 2021). These alterations include phase changes in precipitation, decreased snowpack and glacial storage, and amplified warming with increasing elevation (Pepin et al, 2015;Sturm et al, 2017;Huss et al, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Coinciding with this enhanced aridity, observations indicate with high-confidence that mountain snow cover has appreciably declined (Hock et al, 2019). If trends in model projections continue, deleterious, widespread, and persistent impacts on downstream water resource availability and timing could occur across the American Cordillera (Sturm et al, 2017;Siirila-Woodburn et al, 2021). This outcome is referred to as a low-to-no snow future.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Asymmetric Emergence of Low-to-No Snow in the American Cordillera

Rhoades¹,

Hatchett²,

Risser³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Societies and ecosystems within and downstream of mountains rely on seasonal snowmelt to satisfy their water demands. Anthropogenic climate change has reduced mountain snowpacks worldwide, altering snowmelt magnitude and timing. Here, the global warming level leading to widespread and persistent mountain snowpack decline, termed low-to-no snow, is estimated for the world's most latitudinally contiguous mountain range, the American Cordillera. We show a combination of dynamical, thermodynamical, and hypsometric factors results in an asymmetric emergence of low-to-no snow conditions within the midlatitudes of the American Cordillera. Low-to-no snow emergence occurs approximately 20 years earlier in the Southern Hemisphere, at a third of the local warming level, and coincides with runoff efficiency declines in both dry and wet years. Prevention of a low-to-no snow future in either hemisphere requires the level of global warming to be held to, at most, +2.5 °C.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mountain Definitionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Identifying Low-to-no Snow Emergencementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Asymmetric Emergence of Low-to-No Snow in the American Cordillera

Rhoades¹,

Hatchett²,

Risser³

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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Oil and gas development influences potential for dust emission from the Upper Colorado River Basin, USA

Tyree,

Chappell,

Villarreal

et al. 2024

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Wind erosion and dust emission from drylands have large consequences for ecosystem function and human health. Wind erosion is naturally reduced by soil crusting and sheltering by non‐erodible roughness elements such as plants. Land uses that reduce surface roughness and disturb the soil surface can dramatically increase dust emission. Extraction of oil and gas is a common and growing land use in the western United States (US) that removes vegetation and other roughness elements for construction of well pads and unpaved access roads, resulting in thousands of small (1–4 ha), discrete patches of unprotected soil. Here, we use a satellite albedo‐based model to assess the effect of oil/gas activity on surface roughness in the Uinta‐Piceance Basin, an area of the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) with dense oil and natural gas development and modelled how the change in surface roughness could impact aeolian sediment flux and dust emission. We also investigated how regional drought influences the response of surface roughness to well pads and access roads. Oil/gas activity reduced surface roughness and increased modelled aeolian sediment flux at the landscape scale across much of the study region, resulting in a modest increase of 10 139 kg of dust per year, which is small relative to dust loads from a single regional dust event observed in the region, but downwind impact could be significant. The magnitude of surface roughness reductions by oil/gas activity was generally consistent among land cover types. However, in parts of the basin that had high cover of annual forbs and grasses, oil/gas activity was associated with larger surface roughness and smaller potential dust emission. Drought decreased surface roughness across disturbed and undisturbed sites, but there was no interactive effect of oil/gas activity and drought on surface roughness. These results suggest that oil/gas activity may increase sediment fluxes and likely contributes to dust emission from landscapes in the UCRB. Understanding how drought and land use change contribute to dust emissions will benefit mitigation of undesirable impacts of wind erosion and dust transport.

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Complementary observations aid identification of the mountain rain-snow transition elevation

Brandt

Cannon

Cooper

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The elevation of the mountain rain-snow transition is critical for short-term hazard forecasting and longer-term water supply considerations. Despite the transition's importance, direct in-situ observations are rare. Here we present two new methods that utilize "anomalous" snow observations to detect rainfall during rain-on-snow: (1) a mass fluctuation at snow pillow sites, and (2) inflated remotely sensed snow grain sizes. Using auxiliary data, we show snow pillows respond to rain-on-snow with distinct perturbations that appear as pulses, collapses and declines within the snow water equivalent. We use these responses to identify mountain-scale rain-snow transitions across California's Sierra Nevada. We also show how a threshold approach (>200 mm) for remotely sensed snow grain size can identify rain-on-snow as snow grain sizes artificially inflate due to a liquid water film. While the methods are not predictive, if paired retroactively with hydrometeorological models, these new methods have the potential to improve predictive streamflow capabilities.

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A low-to-no snow future and its impacts on water resources in the western United States

Cited by 207 publications

References 246 publications

Asymmetric Emergence of Low-to-No Snow in the American Cordillera

Asymmetric Emergence of Low-to-No Snow in the American Cordillera

Oil and gas development influences potential for dust emission from the Upper Colorado River Basin, USA

Complementary observations aid identification of the mountain rain-snow transition elevation

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