Spring snow cover extent reductions in the 2008-2012 period exceeding climate model projections
Chris Derksen and Ross Brown
Abstract
Analysis of Northern Hemisphere spring terrestrial snow cover extent
(SCE) from the NOAA snow chart Climate Data Record (CDR)
for the April to June period (when snow cover is
mainly located over the Arctic) has revealed statistically significant
reductions
in May and June SCE. Successive records for the
lowest June SCE have been set each year for Eurasia since 2008, and in 4
of
the past 5 years for North America. The rate of
loss of June snow cover extent since 1979 (-21.5% decade-1) is greater
than
the loss of September sea ice extent (-10.8%
decade-1) over the same period. Analysis of Coupled Model
Intercomparison Project
Phase 5 (CMIP5) model output shows the marked
reductions in June SCE observed since 2005 fall below the zone of model
consensus
defined by +/-1 standard deviation from the
multi-model ensemble mean.
Received 30 July 2012;
accepted 9 September 2012.
Citation:
(2012),
Spring snow cover extent reductions in the 2008-2012 period exceeding climate model projections,
Geophys. Res. Lett., 39 (2012) L19504;
doi:10.1029/2012GL053387.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012GL053387.shtml
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