Twenty one Scottish snow patches survive until winter 2014/2015

Abstract

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Snow cover duration and extent for Great Britain in a changing climate: Altitudinal variations and synoptic‐scale influences

“…Beyond this, the prospect of new volunteer initiatives to record local snow cover variations at national level may be adopted, including for local mountain landmarks, following successful “citizen‐science” applications for other climate‐related phenomena (e.g., phenology; Mayer, ). In GB, this would also allow useful linkages with volunteer‐based efforts to record persistence and survival of summer and early autumn snow patches in mountain areas, including integrated analysis of similar anomalous years with extended snow duration related to prevailing weather patterns (e.g., 2013–2014; Cameron et al , ). Finally, good prospects remain for further investigation of synoptic‐scale analysis, as through exploration of airflow indices and LWTs, both through observed and climate model data (Turnpenny et al , ; Jones et al , ).…”

Snow cover variability in Great Britain during a changing climate

“…As most UK mountain ranges are in westerly or northerly situations, these ranges have the potential for large snow accumulations from cold, moist polar maritime airflows, especially when enhanced through orographic effects, in comparison to more gradual accumulations due to colder, drier air from easterly continental sources. Extremely snowy years also show a good correspondence with the following summers having a large depth and extent of snow in surviving patches as, for example, in summer 2014 (Cameron et al ., ).…”

Long‐term observations of increasing snow cover in the western Cairngorms

“…Finally, to examine the wider context of snow presence in the Allt a'Mharcaidh we tested our snow presence data against snow patch survival data (i.e. persisting from one winter to the next) gathered across the wider Cairngorm region by Iain Cameron (see Cameron et al () for further details on this data).…”

“…Snow during the winter of 2012/2013 largely occurred later in the year than usual, with heaviest snowfalls during spring (Cameron et al , ) resulting in a colder than usual spring, followed by a later than expected melt date. The winter of 2013/2014 differed by the exceptionally large accumulations of snow above 600m throughout the winter period (Cameron et al , ). Larger accumulations as witnessed in 2013/2014 are likely less sensitive to climatic conditions (Trivedi et al , ), and despite a warmer than usual spring, the sheer depth of snow required to melt resulted in a much later melt date than was predicted by the model.…”