Assigned Session: FS 3.115: Drought in mountain regions
Snow-eater heatwaves of western North America
Abstract ID: 3.9088 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA
Alan Rhoades (0)
North, Josh (1), Rudisill, William (1), Hatchett, Benjamin (2), Risser, Mark (1), Beltra-Pena, Areidy (3), Heggli, Anne (4), Hotaling, Scott (5), Huning, Laurie (6), LaPlante, Matthew (5), Mahesh, Ankur (1), Marshall, Adrienne (7), McCrary, Rachel (8), McEvoy, Daniel (4), Rahimi, Stefan (9), Randall, Calen (10), Srivastava, Abhishekh (10), Wang, Simon (5), Wehner, Michael (1), Zhou, Yang (1), Jones, Andrew (1)
Alan Rhoades ((0) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Earth & Environmental Sciences Area – Berkeley Lab, 1 Cyclotron Road, MS74R316C, 94720, Berkeley, CA, US)
North, Josh (1), Rudisill, William (1), Hatchett, Benjamin (2), Risser, Mark (1), Beltra-Pena, Areidy (3), Heggli, Anne (4), Hotaling, Scott (5), Huning, Laurie (6), LaPlante, Matthew (5), Mahesh, Ankur (1), Marshall, Adrienne (7), McCrary, Rachel (8), McEvoy, Daniel (4), Rahimi, Stefan (9), Randall, Calen (10), Srivastava, Abhishekh (10), Wang, Simon (5), Wehner, Michael (1), Zhou, Yang (1), Jones, Andrew (1)
(0) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Earth & Environmental Sciences Area – Berkeley Lab, 1 Cyclotron Road, MS74R316C, 94720, Berkeley, CA, US
(1) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(2) Global Systems Laboratory
(3) Stanford University
(4) Desert Research Institute
(5) Utah State University
(6) California State University, Long Beach
(7) Colorado School of Mines
(8) National Center for Atmospheric Research
(9) University of Wyoming
(10) University of California, Davis
(1) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(2) Global Systems Laboratory
(3) Stanford University
(4) Desert Research Institute
(5) Utah State University
(6) California State University, Long Beach
(7) Colorado School of Mines
(8) National Center for Atmospheric Research
(9) University of Wyoming
(10) University of California, Davis
(2) Global Systems Laboratory
(3) Stanford University
(4) Desert Research Institute
(5) Utah State University
(6) California State University, Long Beach
(7) Colorado School of Mines
(8) National Center for Atmospheric Research
(9) University of Wyoming
(10) University of California, Davis
Abrupt snowmelt, whether through rain-on-snow or snow-heatwave interactions (snow-eaters), can increase the risk of midwinter and spring flooding, accelerate the onset of snow drought during late spring and early summer, and alter water availability later in the year. Snow-eater heatwaves have been less studied than rain-on-snow events, yet have the potential to increase in area, duration, frequency, and/or intensity in a rapidly changing climate. Using the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Version 3 (20Cv3) we develop an approach to identify snow-eater heatwaves, estimate their melt potential, and explore how their characteristics (e.g., area, intensity, duration, and frequency) have changed over the last two centuries (1806-2015). TempestExtremesv2 is used to track snow-eater heatwave events, and an operational snowmelt model (SNOW-17) is used to estimate their heatwave melt potential. Additionally, we developed a few experimental forms of SNOW-17 that add non-linear snowmelt during heatwave events (which is currently not incorporated in SNOW-17). We optimize our approach over western North America using a few notable snow-eater heatwave events in recent history (e.g., 1983, 2002, and 2013) and compare the SNOW-17 snowmelt estimates to in-situ measurement networks (SNOTEL sites) over an overlapping period of record to 20Cv3 (1980-2015). We then utilize the best-performing SNOW-17 models to perform trend analyses of snow-eater heatwave characteristics from 1806-2015. Results indicate that heatwave definition is essential to inferences about the effects of heatwaves on snowmelt and that snow-eater heatwaves have made large contributions to historical and highly consequential melt events, such as in 1983.
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