Snow cover changes in European mountains derived from Global SnowPack time series

Kurzfassung

Snow cover is an important variable for water availability, the radiation budget, glaciers, flora and fauna, and may cause natural disasters such as avalanches or floods. Within Europe especially in Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, snow is an important source of freshwater for reservoirs and the subsequent production of electricity. Climate change is affecting the global snow cover distribution, extent, and mass, influencing all the aforementioned parameters. It is therefore important to monitor the developments and changes to be able to detect possible trends and future impacts of changing snow cover on our environment. Within the presented study we analysed the daily snow cover information provided by DLR’s Global SnowPack product to identify snow cover developments in European mountains since the year 2000. The Global SnowPack is a medium resolution (500 m pixels) reprocessed time series based on the snow cover products MOD10A1/MYD10A1 derived from MODIS, where all gaps caused by cloud cover or polar darkness have been interpolated to provide a gapless time series of daily data. In Europe the analysis of the time series showed similar results for most mountainous regions, which are characterised by a tendency towards a decreasing snow cover duration. The only exception is Scotland where a tendency towards increased snow cover duration can be observed. The presentation will outline the techniques used to analyse the Global SnowPack and it will be illustrated for each mountain region within Europe, how the snow cover duration has been developing since the year 2000.