<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 65, 116);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Water Resources Research - </span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">Published online 2 MAY 2017</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 65, 116);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">COMMENTARY </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(122, 124, 127);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">10.1002/2017WR020840 </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(122, 124, 127);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/2017WR020840" class="">https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/2017WR020840<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(122, 124, 127);" class=""></span></a></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Above link gets you access to the free pdf. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Or, because I already grabbed it, you can get it from me. Feel free to ask.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Lance</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 20px; line-height: normal; font-family: Times; color: rgb(0, 65, 116);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Water and life from snow: A trillion dollar science question </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 10.7px; line-height: normal; font-family: Times; color: rgb(88, 89, 91);" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class="">Matthew Sturm</span><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 8px; line-height: normal; vertical-align: 2.5px; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class="">1 </span><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class="">, Michael A. Goldstein</span><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 8px; line-height: normal; vertical-align: 2.5px; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class="">2 </span><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class="">, and Charles Parr</span><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 8px; line-height: normal; vertical-align: 2.5px; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class="">1</span><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 8px; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class=""><br class=""></span><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 8px; line-height: normal; vertical-align: 5px; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">1</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA, </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 10.7px; line-height: normal; font-family: Times; color: rgb(88, 89, 91);" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; font-size: 8px; line-height: normal; vertical-align: 5px; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">2</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Finance Division, Babson College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 65, 116);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><b class="">Excerpts [ bold added ]</b></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 65, 116);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">The Importance of Snow </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">About one sixth of the world’s population (1.2 billion people) relies on snowmelt water for agriculture and human consumption [Barnett et al., 2005], while virtually all of the world’s population benefits from the climate services provided by snow. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Vast areas of the world receive the bulk of their annual precipitation in the form of snow (Figure 1), and even in California, where most of the population lives in a largely snow-free zone near the coast, the water people drink and their electrical power is largely derived from mountain snowmelt [cf. Sibley, 1977; Kahrl, 1979]. The same Sierra snowpack sustains a $47 billion per year California agribusiness [CDFA, 2017]. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(35, 31, 32);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><b class="">The climate benefits of snow, while harder to quantify or monetize, may actually be worth more. These arise mostly from the superlative reflectance of solar energy by snow [Warren, 1982] and the vast area of the Earth that is snow covered each year (Figure 1). The combination produces an enhanced cooling critical to the Earth’s heat budget </b></span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">[Groisman et al., 1994]. For example, late-lying spring snow in northern Canada, Alaska, and Siberia (an area of 19 3 10</span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; vertical-align: 5px; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">6 </span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">km</span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; vertical-align: 5px; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">2</span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">) sheds about 2 3 10</span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; vertical-align: 5px; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">12 </span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">GJ of energy per year back to space, an amount that otherwise might have heated our planet (data from Flanner et al. [2011]). This cooling benefit doubles when we add in the effect of snow-covered Arctic sea ice [Curry et al., 1995]. </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><b class="">Economic losses from reductions in snow-covered area [Mudryk et al., 2017], and the associated losses of Earth cooling, have been valued at $575 billion [Euskirchen et al., 2013; see also Lutz and Howarth, 2015].</b></span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""> Beyond these essential life services, snow also provides a platform for the multibillion dollar outdoor recreation industry [Burakowski and Magnusson, 2012]. </span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Despite difficulties, there are clear, and generally negative, trends in snow resources: <b class="">[ bold added ]</b></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">1. </span><b class="">The global extent of snow-covered area on land has been declining over the past 30 years </b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">[Brown, 2000;Derksen and Brown2012;Kunkel et al., 2016;Mudryk et al., 2017].</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">2. </span><b class="">The mass of this snow (it’s SWE) is also declining</b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> [Brown, 2000;</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Mote, 2006;Clow, 2010;Hamlet et al.,2005;Kunkel et al., 2016], a trend also observed on Arctic sea ice [Webster et al., 2014]. This trend appears to be a direct consequence of warming global temperatures [Mote et al., 2005].</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">3. </span><b class="">The snow that does fall is melting sooner, producing earlier stream runoff and decreasing the period during which snow covers the ground</b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> [Brown, 2000;Laternser and Schneebeli, 2003;Stewart et al., 2005;</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Clow, 2010;Liston and Hiemstra, 2011;Kunkel et al., 2016].</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">4. </span><b class="">In many places, particularly those with a more maritime climate, winter precipitation is arriving increasingly as rain </b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">[McCabe et al</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">., 2007;Ye et al., 2008;Cohen et al., 2015], a trend associated with increasing flood risk in snow-covered mountain areas [Allamano et al</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">., 2009]. </span><b class="">This trend also appears to be having an adverse impact on wildlife </b><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">and transportation.</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">5. </span><b class="">The number and intensity of winter snowfall events appears to be declining [Lute and Abatzoglou, 2014;Lute et al, 2015]; since these often account for the majority of the winter snow deposited in some locations, the trend is consistent with (2).</b></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">6. </span><b class="">The worldwide reduction in glacier mass balance [Gardner et al</b></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><b class="">., 2013] also implies a loss of snow on glaciers and ice sheets, again a partial confirmation of (2). All of these trends are consistent with (and feedback to) a warming climate. Currently predicted by climate</b></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><b class="">models [Raisanen, 2008;Dominguez et al., 2012], but yet to be observed, is an increase in winter precipitation due to a warmer atmosphere.</b></div><div class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><span style="font-size: 11px;" class="">^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^<br class="">” … housing growth poses the main threat to protected areas in the United States <br class="">whereas deforestation is the main threat in developing countries."<br class=""> <br class="">Volker C. Radeloff, Susan I. Stewart et al. Housing growth in and near United States <br class="">protected areas limits their conservation value. PNAS. January 12, 2010. <br class=""><br class=""><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/107/2/940.abstract?sid=4718e5e2-8fa3-475a-9b92-032f399600c3" class="">http://www.pnas.org/content/107/2/940.abstract?sid=4718e5e2-8fa3-475a-9b92-032f399600c3</a><br class=""><br class=""></span><br class=""></div>
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