Abstract
A better understanding of the impact of changing temperatures on snow amounts is very important for the ski industry, but it is difficult to measure, particularly at different times of the snow season and not only on an annual or seasonal basis. Here, we analyze the snow day vs precipitation day ratios on a monthly basis from November to April in Switzerland and at 52 meteorological stations located between 200 and 2,700 m above sea level over a 48-year time span. Our results show that the conditions measured in the 1960s in November and March correspond to the present ones in December, January, and February.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Begert M, Schlegel T, Kirchhofer W (2005) Homogeneous temperature and precipitation series of Switzerland from 1864 to 2000. Int J Climatol 25(1):65–80. doi:10.1002/joc.1118
Durand Y, Giraud G, Laternser M, Etchevers P, Merindol L, Lesaffre B (2009) Reanalysis of 47 years of climate in the French Alps (1958–2005): climatology and trends for snow cover. J Appl Meteorol Climatol 48(12):2487–2512. doi:10.1175/2009jamc1810.1
Hantel M, Hirtl-Wielke LM (2007) Sensitivity of Alpine snow cover to European temperature. Int J Climatol 27(10):1265–1275. doi:10.1002/joc.1472
IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007. The physical science basis. IPCC, Cambridge
Ke CQ, Yu T, Yu K, Tang GD, King L (2009) Snowfall trends and variability in Qinghai, China. Theor Appl Climatol 98(3–4):251–258. doi:10.1007/s00704-009-0105-1
Laternser M, Schneebeli M (2003) Long-term snow climate trends of the Swiss Alps (1931–99). Int J Climatol 23(7):733–750. doi:10.1002/joc.912
Marty C (2008) Regime shift of snow days in Switzerland. Geophys Res Lett 35(12):L12501. doi:10.1029/2008gl033998
Marty C, Blanchet J (2012) Long-term changes in annual maximum snow depth and snowfall in Switzerland based on extreme value statistics. Clim Change 111(3–4):705–721. doi:10.1007/s10584-011-0159-9
Marty C, Meister R (2012) Long-term snow and weather observations at Weissfluhjoch and its relation to other high-altitude observatories in the Alps. Theor Appl Climatol 110(4):573–583. doi:10.1007/s00704-012-0584-3
McCullagh P, Nelder JA (1989) Generalized linear models, vol 37, 2nd edn, Monographs on statistics and applied probability. Chapman and Hall, London, UK
Micu D (2009) Snow pack in the Romanian Carpathians under changing climatic conditions. Meteorol Atmos Phys 105(1–2):1–16. doi:10.1007/s00703-009-0035-6
Morin J, Block P, Rajagopalan B, Clark M (2008) Identification of large scale climate patterns affecting snow variability in the eastern United States. Int J Climatol 28(3):315–328. doi:10.1002/joc.1534
Rebetez M (1999) Twentieth century trends in droughts in southern Switzerland. Geophys Res Lett 26(6):755–758. doi:10.1029/1999GL900075
Rebetez M, Reinhard M (2008) Monthly air temperature trends in Switzerland 1901-2000 and 1975-2004. Theor Appl Climatol 91(1–4):27–34. doi:10.1007/s00704-007-0296-2
Scherrer SC, Appenzeller C (2006) Swiss Alpine snow pack variability: major patterns and links to local climate and large-scale flow. Clim Res 32(3):187–199
Scherrer SC, Appenzeller C, Laternser M (2004) Trends in Swiss Alpine snow days: the role of local- and large-scale climate variability. Geophys Res Lett 31(13):L13215. doi:10.1029/2004gl020255
Schmidli J, Frei C (2005) Trends of heavy precipitation and wet and dry spells in Switzerland during the 20th century. Int J Climatol 25(6):753–771. doi:10.1002/joc.1179
Schoner W, Auer I, Bohm R (2009) Long term trend of snow depth at Sonnblick (Austrian Alps) and its relation to climate change. Hydrol Process 23(7):1052–1063. doi:10.1002/hyp.7209
Serquet G, Marty C, Dulex J-P, Rebetez M (2011) Seasonal trends and temperature dependance of the snowfall/precipitation-day ratio in Switzerland. Geophys Res Lett 38:L07703. doi:10.1029/2011GL046976
Wielke LM, Haimberger L, Hantel M (2004) Snow cover duration in Switzerland compared to Austria. Meteorol Z 13(1):13–17. doi:10.1127/0941-2948/2004/0013-0013
Xu CC, Chen YN, Li WH, Chen YP, Ge HT (2008) Potential impact of climate change on snow cover area in the Tarim River basin. Environ Geol 53(7):1465–1474. doi:10.1007/s00254-007-0755-1
Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by the Forest Investigation Programme, a joint project between the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), and by Canton Vaud, Vaud regional associations (ADAEV, ADNV, ADPE, ARDA, Nyon Region) and OTV, Switzerland. We are grateful to MeteoSwiss for providing the data and to John Innes for his useful comments and suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Serquet, G., Marty, C. & Rebetez, M. Monthly trends and the corresponding altitudinal shift in the snowfall/precipitation day ratio. Theor Appl Climatol 114, 437–444 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-013-0847-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-013-0847-7