Abstract ID: 3.10845 | Withdrawn | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA

In Svalbard, continued climate warming is expected to produce a threefold increase in the frequency of winter warming events by 2100 leading to changes in wintertime rainfall, melting and refreezing with subsequent impacts on land and glaciers. Wintertime rain-on-snow (ROS) events have significant ecological impact in Svalbard. Layers of ice may form at the ground-snow interface after a ROS event, which can both damage vegetation and restrict access to forage by reindeer, which has in some years led to eventual starvation and large die-offs. Changes in the frequency, intensity, duration and spatial distribution of ROS events are therefore important to understand and quantify due to their wide-ranging impacts on the physical environment but also on society, wildlife and ecosystems. However, to understand which areas are most vulnerable to ROS impacts at present and in the future, reliable datasets describing the spatial and temporal variations of ROS characteristics are crucial. Until now, most studies of ROS have utilised single source datasets compared against a limited set of ground observations for validation. ROS events can be detected using gridded meteorological data, but these datasets are highly threshold-dependent and can give widely differing results depending on the thresholds applied. ROS impacts, on the other hand, such as snowmelt can be observed over large areas and at regular intervals using satellite remote sensing methods, but these types of observations lack the capability to distinguish the cause of snowmelt. In-situ measurements of ground ice provide direct measurements of the ROS impacts on the snowpack but are limited in spatial extent. A lack of integration of ROS data sources across disciplines hinders a more comprehensive understanding of their characteristics and associated impacts on terrestrial ecosystems. This pilot study has exploited the opportunity to carry out a multidisciplinary analysis of ROS characteristics and the spatial heterogeneity of its impacts on the cryosphere across Svalbard by analysing and integrating a diverse set of field, model, and remote sensing observations, thus providing a more holistic understanding of ROS and its signatures from atmosphere to cryosphere.