References

The Cryosphere

1994-0424

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/tc-7-67-2013

An analysis of present and future seasonal Northern Hemisphere land snow cover simulated by CMIP5 coupled climate models

Brutel-Vuilmet

¹ Ménégoz

¹ Krinner

CNRS and UJF Grenoble 1, Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE, UMR5183), 38041 Grenoble, France

21 01 2013

7 1 67 80

This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article is available from http://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/67/2013/tc-7-67-2013.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/67/2013/tc-7-67-2013.pdf

The 20th century seasonal Northern Hemisphere (NH) land snow cover as simulated by available CMIP5 model output is compared to observations. On average, the models reproduce the observed snow cover extent very well, but the significant trend towards a reduced spring snow cover extent over the 1979–2005 period is underestimated (observed: (−3.4 &pm; 1.1)% per decade; simulated: (−1.0 &pm; 0.3)% per decade). We show that this is linked to the simulated Northern Hemisphere extratropical spring land warming trend over the same period, which is also underestimated, although the models, on average, correctly capture the observed global warming trend. There is a good linear correlation between the extent of hemispheric seasonal spring snow cover and boreal large-scale spring surface air temperature in the models, supported by available observations. This relationship also persists in the future and is independent of the particular anthropogenic climate forcing scenario. Similarly, the simulated linear relationship between the hemispheric seasonal spring snow cover extent and global mean annual mean surface air temperature is stable in time. However, the slope of this relationship is underestimated at present (observed: (−11.8 &pm; 2.7)% °C<sup>−1</sup>; simulated: (−5.1 &pm; 3.0)% °C<sup>−1</sup>) because the trend towards lower snow cover extent is underestimated, while the recent global warming trend is correctly represented.

References 1

Adam, J. C. and Lettenmaier, D. P.: Adjustment of global gridded precipitation for systematic bias, J. Geophys. Res., 108, 4257, doi:10.1029/2002JD002499, 2003.

Alexander, M. A., Tomas, R., Deser, C., and Lawrence, D. M.: The atmospheric response to projected terrestrial snow changes in the late twenty-first century, J. Climate, 23, 6430–6437, http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2010JCLI3899.1doi:10.1175/2010JCLI3899.1, 2010.

Brown, R. D.: Northern Hemisphere snow cover variability and change, 1915–1997. J. Climate, 13, 2339–2355, 2000.

Brown, R. D. and Frei, A.: Comment on "Evaluation of surface albedo and snow cover in AR4 coupled models", edited by: Roesch, A., J. Geophys. Res., 112, D22102, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006JD008339doi:10.1029/2006JD008339, 2007.

Brown, R. D. and Robinson, D. A.: Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover variability and change over 1922–2010 including an assessment of uncertainty, The Cryosphere, 5, 219–229, http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/tc-5-219-2011doi:10.5194/tc-5-219-2011, 2011.

Derksen, C. and Brown, R.: Spring snow cover extent reductions in the 2008–2012 period exceeding climate model projections, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L19504, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2012GL053387doi:10.1029/2012GL053387, 2012.

Déry, S. J. and Brown, R. D.: Recent Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent trends and implications for the snow-albedo feedback, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L22504, doi:10.1029/2007GL031474,2007.

Dewey, K. F.: Daily maximum and minimum temperature forecasts and the influence of snow cover, Mon. Weather Rev., 105, 1594–1597, 1977.

Dye, D.: Variability and trends in the annual snow cover cycle in Northern Hemisphere snow cover areas, 1972–2000, Hydrol. Processes, 16, 3065–3077, 2002.

Fletcher, C. G., Zhao, H., Kushner, P. J., and Fernandez, R.: Using models and satellite observations to evaluate the strength of snow albedo feedback, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D11117, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2012JD017724doi:10.1029/2012JD017724, 2012.

Gleckler, P. J., Taylor, K. E., and Doutriaux,~C.: Performance metrics for climat models, J. Geophys. Res., 113, D06104, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007JD008972doi:10.1029/2007JD008972, 2008.

Groisman, P. Y., Karl, T. R., and Knight, R. W.: Observed impact of snow cover on the heat balance and the rise of continental spring temperatures, Science, 263, 198–200, 1994.

Gouttevin, I., Menegoz, M., Dominé, F., Krinner, G., Koven, C., Ciais, P., Tarnocai, C., and Boike, J.: How the insulating properties of snow affect soil carbon distribution in the continental pan-Arctic area, J. Geophys. Res., 117, G02020, doi:10.5194/tc-6-407-2012, 2012.

Hall, A. and Qu, X.: Using the current seasonal cycle to constrain snow albedo feedback in future climate change, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L03502, doi:10.1029/2005GL025127, 2006.

Hansen, J., Saito, M., Ruedy, R., Lo, K., Lea, D. W., and Medina-Elizade, M.: Global temperature change, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA, 103, 14288–14293, 2006.

Hourdin, F., Issartel, J.-P., Cabrit, B., and Idelkadi, A.: Reciprocity of atmospheric transport of trace species, C. R. Acad. Sci., 329, 623–628, 1999.

Jones, P. D., Lister, D. H., Osborn, T. J., Harpham, C., Salmon, M., and Morice, C. P.: Hemispheric and large-scale land surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2010, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D05127, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011JD017139doi:10.1029/2011JD017139, 2012.

Koven, C. D., Ringeval, B., Friedlingstein, P., Ciais, P., Cadule, P., Khvorostyanov, D., Krinner, G., and Tarnocai, C.: Permafrost carbon-climate feedbacks accelerate global warming, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA, 108, 14769–14774, 2011.

Krinner, G., Viovy, N., de Noblet-Ducoudré, N., Ogée, J., Polcher, J., Friedlingstein, P., Ciais, P., Sitch, S., and Prentice, I. C.: A dynamic global vegetation model for studies of the coupled atmosphere-biosphere system, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 19, GB1015, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2003GB002199doi:10.1029/2003GB002199, 2005.

Lawrence, D. M. and Slater, A. G.: The contribution of snow condition trends to future ground climate, Clim. Dyn., 34, 969–981, 2010.

Lemke, P., Ren, J., Alley, R. B., Allison, I., Carrasco, J., Flato, G., Fujii, Y., Kaser, G., Mote, P., Thomas, R. H., and Zhang, T.: Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground, in: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis ,M., Averyt, K. B., Tignor, M., and Miller, H. L., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 337–383, 2007.

Liu, J., Curry, J. A., Wang, H., Song, M., and Horton, R. M.: Impact of declining Arctic sea ice on winter snowfall, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 109, 4074–4079, 2012.

Mahlstein, I. and Knutti, R.: September Arctic sea ice predicted to disappear near 2C global warming above present, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D06104, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011JD016709doi:10.1029/2011JD016709, 2012.

Masson-Delmotte, V., Kageyama, M., Braconnot, P., Charbit, S., Krinner, G., Ritz, C., Guilyardi, E., Jouzel, J., Abe-Ouchi, A., Crucifix, M., Gladstone, R. M., Hewitt, C. D., Kitoh, A., LeGrande, A. N., Marti, O., Merkel, U., Motoi, T., Ohgaito, R., Otto-Bliesner, B., Peltier, W. R., Ross, I., Valdes, P. J., Vettoretto, G., Weber, S. L., Wolk, F., and Yu, Y.: Past and future polar ampli?cation of climate change: climate model intercomparisons and ice-core constraints, Clim. Dyn., 26, 513–529, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-005-0081-9doi:10.1007/s00382-005-0081-9, 2006.

Meinshausen, M., Meinshausen, N., Hare, W., Raper, S. C. B, Frieler, K., Knutti, R., Frame, D. J., and Allen M. R.: Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 °C, Nature, 458, 1158–1163, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature08017doi:10.1038/nature08017, 2009.

Mitchell, T. D.: Pattern scaling: an examination of the accuracy of the technique for describing future climates, Clim. Change, 60, 217–242, 2003.

Morice, C. P., Kennedy, J. J., Rayner, N. A., and Jones, P. D.: Quantifying uncertainties in global and regional temperature change using an ensemble of observational estimates: The HadCRUT4 data set, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D08101, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011JD017187doi:10.1029/2011JD017187, 2012.

Moss, R. H. , Edmonds, J. A., Hibbard, K. A.,Manning, M. R.,Rose, S. K., van Vuuren, D. P., Carter, T. R., Emori, S., Kainuma, M., Kram, T., Meehl, G. A., Mitchell, J. F. B., Nakicenovic, N., Riahi, K., Smith, S. J., Stouffer, R. J., Thomson, A. M., Weyant, J. P., and Wilbanks, T. J.: The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment, Nature, 463, 747–756, 2010.

New, M., Hulme, M., and Jones, P.: Representing twentieth century space–time climate variability, Part I: Development of a 1961–1990 mean monthly terrestrial climatology, J. Clim., 12, 829–856, 1999.

New, M., Hulme, M., and Jones, P.: Representing twentieth century space–time climate variability, Part II: Development of 1901–1996 monthly grids of terrestrial surface climate, J. Clim., 13, 2217–2238, 2000.

Robinson, D. A. and Frei, A.: Seasonal variability of northern hemisphere snow extent using visible satellite data, Profes. Geogr., 51, 307–314, 2000.

Räisänen, J.: Warmer Climate: less or more snow?, Clim. Dyn., 30, 307–319, 2008.

Roesch, A.: Evaluation of surface albedo and snow cover in AR4 coupled climate models, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D15111, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2005JD006473doi:10.1029/2005JD006473, 2006.

Roesch, A. and Roeckner, E.: Assessment of snow cover and surface albedo in the ECHAM5 general circulation model, J. Clim., 19, 3828–3843, 2006.

Santer, B. D., Wigley, T. M. L., Schlesinger, M. E., and Mitchell, J. F. B.: Developing climate scenarios from equilibrium GCM results, MPI report number 47, Hamburg, 1990.

Schneider, U., Fuchs, T., Meyer-Christoffer, A., and Rudolf, B.: Global precipitation analysis products of the GPCC, Global Precip. Climatol. Cent., Dtsch. Wetterdienst, Offenbach am Main, Germany, 2008.

Sutton, R. T., Dong, B., and Gregory, J. M.: Land/sea warming ratio in response to climate change: IPCC AR4 model results and comparison with observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L02701, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2006GL028164doi:10.1029/2006GL028164, 2007.

Taylor, K. E., Stouffer, R. J., and Meehl, G. A.: An Overview of CMIP5 and the Experiment Design, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 93, 485–498. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00094.1doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00094.1, 2012.

Uppala, S. M., Kållberg, P. W., Simmons, A. J., Andrae, U., Bechtold, V. D. C., Fiorino, M., Gibson, J. K., Haseler, J., Hernandez, A., Kelly, G. A., Li, X., Onogi, K., Saarinen, S., Sokka, N., Allan, R. P., Andersson, E., Arpe, K., Balmaseda, M. A., Beljaars, A. C. M., Berg, L. V. D., Bidlot, J., Bormann, N., Caires, S., Chevallier, F., Dethof, A., Dragosavac, M., Fisher, M., Fuentes, M., Hagemann, S., Hólm, E., Hoskins, B. J., Isaksen, L., Janssen, P. A. E. M., Jenne, R., Mcnally, A. P., Mahfouf, J.-F., Morcrette, J.-J., Rayner, N. A., Saunders, R. W., Simon, P., Sterl, A., Trenberth, K. E., Untch, A., Vasiljevic, D., Viterbo, P., and Woollen, J.: The ERA-40 reanalysis, Quart. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 131, 2961–3012, 2005.

van Vuuren, D. P., Edmonds, J., Kainuma, M., Riahi, K., Thomson, A., Hibbard, K., Hurtt, G. C., Kram, T., Krey, V., Lamarque, J.-F., Masui, T., Meinshausen, M., Nakicenovic, N., Smith, S. J., and Rose, S. K.: The representative concentration pathways: an overview, Clim. Change, 109, 5–31, 2011.

Vavrus, S.: The role of terrestrial snow cover in the climate system, Clim. Dyn., 29, 73–88, 2007.

Wallace, J. M., Fu, Q., Smoliak, B. V., Lin, P., and Johanson, C. M.: Simulated versus observed patterns of warming over the extratropical Northern Hemisphere continents during the cold season, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA, 109, 14337–14342, http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1204875109doi:10.1073/pnas.1204875109, 2012.

Walsh, J. E. and Ross, B.: Sensitivity of 30 day dynamical forecasts to continental snow cover, J. Clim., 1, 739–754, 1988.

Weedon, G. P., Gomes, S., Viterbo, P., Shuttleworth, W. J., Blyth, E., Österle, H., Adam, J. C., Bellouin, N., Boucher, O., and Best, M.: Creation of the WATCH Forcing Data and Its Use to Assess Global and Regional Reference Crop Evaporation over Land during the Twentieth Century, J. Hydrometeor., 12, 823–848, 2011.

Zhang, T.: Influence of the seasonal snow cover on the ground thermal regime: An overview, Rev. Geophys., 43, RG4002, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2004RG000157doi:10.1029/2004RG000157, 2005.

Zhao, P., Zhou, Z., and Liu, J.: Variability of Tibetan Spring Snow and Its Associations with the Hemispheric Extratropical Circulation and East Asian Summer Monsoon Rainfall: An Observational Investigation, J. Clim., 20, 3942–3955, 2007.