Climate change is driving a sharp drop in snow levels

Parts of the Northern Hemisphere are warming enough that their prospects of future snow are rapidly declining

- DELGER ERDENESANAA

CHANGING SNOW PATTERNS have farreaching consequences, from water shortages to shuttered ski resorts. A new study confirms that human-caused climate change has affected snow patterns across the Northern Hemisphere, including clear declines of snowpack in at least 31 individual river basins.

What's more, the researchers found that when a region warms to an average temperature of 17 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 8 degrees Celsius, over the whole winter, it appears to reach a tipping point that snow starts to melt away quickly.

"Beyond that threshold, we kind of see everybody go off a cliff," said Justin Mankin, a professor of geography at Dartmouth College and coauthor of the study, which was published in Nature.

Declines in snowpack, the total mass of snow on the ground, have serious implications for places that depend on spring snow melt as a water source.

Large storms this week across the United States dumped a lot of snow, but the snow now on the ground may not last through winter. In the short term, climate change can create deeper snow from blizzards because of increased precipitation, but, with warmer temperatures, this snow is likely going to melt faster and may not stick around as snowpack.