Our current snowpack anomaly in past 30 years | The Coloradoan | coloradoan.com
It's the middle of June and the snowpack in Northern Colorado's mountains is still thick and full of water.
But a new U.S. Geological Survey study released Thursday shows that this year's robust snowpack across the region is not normal in the context of the past three decades, when anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change has been causing Colorado's snowpack to progressively shrink.
...
There was an "inflection point" in the 1980s when the size of a given year's snowpack was more influenced by temperature than by amount of precipitation, said USGS research scientist Gregory Pederson, lead author of the study, "The Unusual Nature of Recent Snowpack Declines in the North American Cordillera."
...
Natural variability could intensify as climate change strengthens its grip on the Rockies, with some winters being much colder and snowier than normal and others being significantly warmer and drier than normal.
No comments:
Post a Comment