Regions of intensification of extreme snowfall under future warming
- Due to climate change the frequency and character of precipitation are changing as the hydrological cycle intensifies. With regards to snowfall, global warming has two opposing influences; increasing humidity enables intense snowfall, whereas higher temperatures decrease the likelihood of snowfall. Here we show an intensification of extreme snowfall across large areas of the Northern Hemisphere under future warming. This is robust across an ensemble of global climate models when they are bias-corrected with observational data. While mean daily snowfall decreases, both the 99th and the 99.9th percentiles of daily snowfall increase in many regions in the next decades, especially for Northern America and Asia. Additionally, the average intensity of snowfall events exceeding these percentiles as experienced historically increases in many regions. This is likely to pose a challenge to municipalities in mid to high latitudes. Overall, extreme snowfall events are likely to become an increasingly important impact of climate change in the nextDue to climate change the frequency and character of precipitation are changing as the hydrological cycle intensifies. With regards to snowfall, global warming has two opposing influences; increasing humidity enables intense snowfall, whereas higher temperatures decrease the likelihood of snowfall. Here we show an intensification of extreme snowfall across large areas of the Northern Hemisphere under future warming. This is robust across an ensemble of global climate models when they are bias-corrected with observational data. While mean daily snowfall decreases, both the 99th and the 99.9th percentiles of daily snowfall increase in many regions in the next decades, especially for Northern America and Asia. Additionally, the average intensity of snowfall events exceeding these percentiles as experienced historically increases in many regions. This is likely to pose a challenge to municipalities in mid to high latitudes. Overall, extreme snowfall events are likely to become an increasingly important impact of climate change in the next decades, even if they will become rarer, but not necessarily less intense, in the second half of the century.…
Author details: | Lennart QuanteORCiDGND, Sven N. WillnerORCiDGND, Robin MiddelanisORCiDGND, Anders LevermannORCiDGND |
---|---|
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95979-4 |
ISSN: | 2045-2322 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34404852 |
Title of parent work (English): | Scientific reports |
Publisher: | Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature |
Place of publishing: | Berlin |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2021/08/17 |
Publication year: | 2021 |
Release date: | 2024/01/18 |
Volume: | 11 |
Issue: | 1 |
Article number: | 16621 |
Number of pages: | 9 |
Funding institution: | German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) [01LA1817C, 01LP1907A]; Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union [820712]; European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)European Commission; German Federal Ministry of Education and ResearchFederal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF); Land Brandenburg |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Informatik und Computational Science |
Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Physik und Astronomie | |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 50 Naturwissenschaften / 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik |
6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 60 Technik / 600 Technik, Technologie | |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Gold Open-Access |
DOAJ gelistet | |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |