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Sundial Peak in the Wasatch Mountains
Sundial Peak (elevation 10,320 feet, or 3,146 meters) in the Wasatch Mountains with Lake Blanche (elevation 8920 feet, or 2718 meters) in the foreground, May 2016. A study by researchers at the University of Utah has found that spring snowpack, relied on by ski resorts and water managers throughout the Western U.S., may be more vulnerable to a warming climate in coming decades than first thought, according to a University of Utah study.
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The University of Utah study modeled the year-to-year variability in precipitation and temperature in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains and other ranges in the West. Jason Scalzitti, a graduate student in atmospheric sciences, and professors Court Strong and Adam Kochanski found that above a threshold elevation, the amount of spring snowpack is dependent more on the amount of precipitation in a year than the temperature. In other words, whether a year is wet matters more than if it’s warm. But below that threshold, temperature matters more. By the end of the century, according to the study, that threshold will move uphill by around 800 feet in the Wasatch and more in the Sierra Nevada, Cascades and parts of the Rocky Mountains.
"In the past we’ve thought mainly about total precipitation as an indicator of how good the ski seasons going to be," says Strong. "As we move into the future, especially at elevations below the threshold, temperature increases in importance."
In addition to impacting ski resorts--and thus, Utah's economy--another impact will be on water resources. Melting spring snowpack fills reservoirs, providing water for the residents of the Salt Lake Valley. Spring snowpack amounts are a key indicator for water managers of how much water they’ll have available in reservoirs for the coming year.
"They look at that as how much water is available in the form of snow to melt and capture in the reservoirs," Strong says. "That will be down in the future. Even if we have the same amount of water coming into the system, it will be melting earlier and faster. If we want to supply that to a growing population, then we need increased storage capacity."
This work was partially supported by iUTAH EPSCoR and funded by the National Science Foundation.
To learn more about this research, see University of Utah news story Spring snow a no-go?. (Date image taken: May 21, 2016; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: Oct. 4, 2016)
Credit: David White
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