Abstract
We used the spatially distributed and physically based snow cover model SNOWGRID-CL to derive daily grids of natural snow conditions and snowmaking potential at a spatial resolution of 1 × 1 km for Austria for the period 1961–2020 validated against homogenized long-term snow observations. Meteorological driving data consists of recently created gridded observation-based datasets of air temperature, precipitation, and evapotranspiration at the same resolution that takes into account the high variability of these variables in complex terrain. Calculated changes reveal a decrease in the mean seasonal (November–April) snow depth (HS), snow cover duration (SCD), and potential snowmaking hours (SP) of 0.15 m, 42 days, and 85 h (26%), respectively, on average over Austria over the period 1961/62–2019/20. Results indicate a clear altitude dependence of the relative reductions (−75% to −5% (HS) and −55% to 0% (SCD)). Detected changes are induced by major shifts of HS in the 1970s and late 1980s. Due to heterogeneous snowmaking infrastructures, the results are not suitable for direct interpretation towards snow reliability of individual Austrian skiing resorts but highly relevant for all activities strongly dependent on natural snow as well as for projections of future snow conditions and climate impact research.
Highlights
The seasonal snow cover (SC) in the European Alps shows strong year-to-year and multi-decadal variations, which are superimposed onto the long-term climate signal, partly masking longer-term trends [1]
Follow-up work demonstrated the relevance of homogenization of snow depth time series for climatological analysis, as the homogenization status influences derived anomalies and climatological trends [58]
The dataset used in our study consists of daily manual snow depth observations, collected by the Hydrographisches Zentral Büro (HZB—national hydrological service) and Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG—national meteorological service)
Summary
The seasonal snow cover (SC) in the European Alps shows strong year-to-year and multi-decadal variations, which are superimposed onto the long-term climate signal, partly masking longer-term trends [1]. Ocean–atmosphere interactions are the main reason for the short-to-medium-term variability of the SC [3]. Long-term decreasing snow trends in the European Alps, as a response to atmospheric warming, are well constrained by many studies [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Because of the loss of natural SC and its variability, technical snow production plays a key role today to allow the stable operation of skiing resorts [14]. About 70% of ski slopes in Austria are equipped with snowmaking [15]
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