How Do We Define Climate Change? Considering the Temporal Resolution of Niveo-Meteorological Data

Abstract

Historically, snowpack trends have been assessed using one fixed date to represent peak snow accumulation prior to the onset of melt. Subsequent trend analyses have considered the peak snow water equivalent (SWE), but the date of peak SWE can vary by several months due to inter-annual variability in snow accumulation and melt patterns. A 2018 assessment evaluated monthly SWE trends. However, since the month is a societal construct, this current work examines daily trends in SWE, cumulative precipitation, and temperature. The method was applied to 13 snow telemetry stations in Northern Colorado, USA for the period from 1981 to 2018. Temperature trends were consistent among all the stations; warming trends occurred 63% of the time from 1 October through 24 May, with the trends oscillating from warming to cooling over about a 10-day period. From 25 May to 30 September, a similar oscillation was observed, but warming trends occurred 86% of the time. SWE and precipitation trends illustrate temporal patterns that are scaled based on location. Specifically, lower elevations stations are tending to record more snowfall while higher elevation stations are recording less. The largest SWE, cumulative precipitation, and temperature trends were +30 to −70 mm/decade, +30 to −30 mm/decade, and +4 to −2.8 °C/decade, respectively. Trends were statistically significance an average of 25.8, 4.5, and 29.4% of the days for SWE, cumulative precipitation, and temperature, respectively. The trend in precipitation as snow ranged from +/−2%/decade, but was not significant at any station.