TY - JOUR

T1 - Experimental Whole-Ecosystem Warming Enables Novel Estimation of Snow Cover and Depth Sensitivities to Temperature, and Quantification of the Snow-Albedo Feedback Effect

AU - Richardson, Andrew D.

AU - Schädel, Christina

AU - Westergaard-Nielsen, Andreas

AU - Novick, Kimberly A.

AU - Basler, David

AU - Phillips, Jana R.

AU - Krassovski, Misha B.

AU - Warren, Jeffrey M.

AU - Sebestyen, Stephen D.

AU - Hanson, Paul J.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024. The Authors.

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - Climate change is reducing the amount, duration, and extent of snow across high-latitude ecosystems. But, in landscapes where persistent winter snow cover develops, experimental platforms to specifically investigate interactions between warming and changes in snowpack, and impacts on ecosystem processes, have been lacking. We leveraged a whole-ecosystem warming experiment in a boreal peatland forest to quantify how snow duration, depth, and fractional cover vary with warming of up to +9°C. We found that every snow-related quantity we examined declined precipitously as the amount of warming increased. The importance of deep, continuous snow cover for moderating shallow soil temperature is highlighted by an increase in soil temperature variance and the frequency of short-duration freeze-thaw cycles in the warmer plots. We used a paired-plot approach to estimate the magnitude of the snow-albedo feedback effect, and demonstrate that albedo-driven warming linked to reduced snow cover varies between December (+0.4°C increase in maximum air temperature) and March (+1.2°C increase) because of differences in insolation. Overall, results show that even modest future warming will have profound impacts on northern winters and cold-season ecosystem processes. Plot-level data from this warming experiment, and emergent relationships between warming and quantities related to snow cover and duration, could be of enormous value for testing and improving the representation of snow processes in simulation models, especially under future climate scenarios that are outside of the range of historically observed variability.

AB - Climate change is reducing the amount, duration, and extent of snow across high-latitude ecosystems. But, in landscapes where persistent winter snow cover develops, experimental platforms to specifically investigate interactions between warming and changes in snowpack, and impacts on ecosystem processes, have been lacking. We leveraged a whole-ecosystem warming experiment in a boreal peatland forest to quantify how snow duration, depth, and fractional cover vary with warming of up to +9°C. We found that every snow-related quantity we examined declined precipitously as the amount of warming increased. The importance of deep, continuous snow cover for moderating shallow soil temperature is highlighted by an increase in soil temperature variance and the frequency of short-duration freeze-thaw cycles in the warmer plots. We used a paired-plot approach to estimate the magnitude of the snow-albedo feedback effect, and demonstrate that albedo-driven warming linked to reduced snow cover varies between December (+0.4°C increase in maximum air temperature) and March (+1.2°C increase) because of differences in insolation. Overall, results show that even modest future warming will have profound impacts on northern winters and cold-season ecosystem processes. Plot-level data from this warming experiment, and emergent relationships between warming and quantities related to snow cover and duration, could be of enormous value for testing and improving the representation of snow processes in simulation models, especially under future climate scenarios that are outside of the range of historically observed variability.

U2 - 10.1029/2023JG007833

DO - 10.1029/2023JG007833

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85188121822

VL - 129

JO - Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth

JF - Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth

SN - 0148-0227

IS - 3

M1 - e2023JG007833

ER -