OBSERVED ROBUSTNESS OF INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY OF OCTOBER EURASIAN SNOWCOVER AND ITS CLIMATE LINKAGE...

OBSERVED ROBUSTNESS OF INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY OF OCTOBER EURASIAN SNOWCOVER AND ITS CLIMATE LINKAGE

CanSISE conference, VictoriaYara MohajeraniMay 9, 2014

Outline

Background Eurasian October snow and wintertime

climate Snow cover datasets

Evaluation of snow cover datasets Climate linkage Conclusion

Snow-Climate Connection

Vast and highly variable snow cover

Positive October snow anomaly negative AO phase in the following winter

Effect of October snow on AOCohen et al 2007, Figure 6,

page 5342

Inconsistencies in snow data

Known inconsistencies in snowcover data

NOAA shows false positive trend

NOAA widely used in climate-connection studies

Snow Cover Extent AnomalyBrown and Derksen (2013) Figure 2,

page 4

Project Overview

1. Validation and evaluation of satellite and reanalysis datasets against ground measurements (for ground station locations) Need global coverage, but can only validate data with

local observations

2. Application of revised datasets to the issue of relationships between October Eurasian snow cover and northern hemisphere winter circulation (sea level pressure and free atmospheric geopotential) from 1980 to 2011.

Snow Cover Fraction (SCF) datasets

Measurement Type Name Monthly SCF Definition

Reanalysis (based on ERAint temperature and precipitation) BROWN

% of days in a month with ≥ 2cm snow depth

Reanalysis MERRA% of days in a month with SWE ≥4mm

Passive Microwave Satellite Measurements PMW

% of days in a month with SWE ≥7.5mm

Visible Satellite Measurements NOAA% of days in month that a cell has more than 50% snow covered

Ground Measurements of snow depth over Russia RU

% of days in a month with >=2 cm snow depth.

Consistency

Consistency (15%)

S(t) time series

Dataset SCF Change (%)

MERRA -8.2

BROWN -11.4

NOAA 16.7

RU -7.5

Correlation of snow indices

Snow-Climate Connection

Regression: 2-meter Temperature

Regression: Sea Level Pressure

Regression: Zonal mean geopotential [Z]

Snowcover and AO index

Snow climate connection discussion MERRA has weaker correlation than

NOAA BROWN has very weak correlation Time frame matters: MERRA and NOAA

more similar in JF than DJF

Conclusions

Internal inconsistencies in NOAA: false positive trend

MERRA and BROWN have best agreement with in-situ data (respectively)

Dataset bias (NOAA) possible in previous climate linkage studies

Relationship still evident between October Eurasian snow and wintertime circulation

The extent of this relationship should be taken with caution due to inconsistencies in snowcover data

Acknowledgements

Professor Paul J. Kushner Dr. Chris Derksen Dr. Ross Brown Centre for Global Change Science,

University of Toronto The Canadian Sea Ice and Snow

Evolution (CanSISE) Department of Physics, University of

Toronto

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DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-10-05033.1

Supplementary Material

SCF Histogram

Regression: Zonally Asymmetric geopotential [Z]*