Abstract
Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) AFB180004 Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 1171032 11151009
Highlights
Snowmelt in the subtropical Andes Cordillera (25◦–38◦ S) is the primary source of surface runoff during spring and summer months, having important implications for water supply and the local economy
Taking into account the months between April and October, we define a Moderate to Strong El Niño (MSE) if the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) 3.4 anomaly value is over 1◦C; a Weak El Niño (WE) if ENSO 3.4 is between 0.5 and 1◦C; a Weak La Niña (WL) if ENSO 3.4 is between −0.5 and −1◦C; and Moderate to Strong La Niña (MSL) for ENSO 3.4 values lower than −1◦C
The snow accumulation maximum is observed on the high western slopes close to the crest, both seasonal and annual total atmospheric rivers (ARs) contribution plots of Figure 2 show that the AR contribution is slightly larger on lower western slopes than on high terrain close to the crest
Summary
Snowmelt in the subtropical Andes Cordillera (25◦–38◦ S) is the primary source of surface runoff during spring and summer months, having important implications for water supply and the local economy. ARs are narrow and elongated streams of intense water vapor that play an important role in the global water cycle and the local hydroclimate They account for 84–88% of the total meridional Integrated Vapor Transport (IVT), covering 10% of Earth’s circumference at midlatitudes (Zhu and Newell, 1998; Guan and Waliser, 2015). AR snow events contributed to 30–40% of the annual SWE accumulation in most years for that region, with that fraction determined in many cases by just one or two extreme events (Guan et al., 2010). By using only six snow measurement sites in the central Andes (30◦ S–35◦ S), Viale et al (2018) reported that ARs contribute between 43 and 55% of observed snow accumulation between 2001 and 2015. Given the important effect of ENSO on snowpack accumulation (Cortés and Margulis, 2017), the effects of AR events on the spatiotemporal variability of SWE during different ENSO phases are analyzed
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