Impacts of 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming on winter snow depth in Central Asia

Yun Li; Hui Tao; Buda Su; Zbigniew W Kundzewicz; Tong Jiang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.126

Impacts of 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming on winter snow depth in Central Asia

Sci Total Environ. 2019 Feb 15;651(Pt 2):2866-2873. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.126. Epub 2018 Oct 15.

Authors

Yun Li¹, Hui Tao², Buda Su³, Zbigniew W Kundzewicz⁴, Tong Jiang⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; College of Resource and Environment Sciences, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, Xinjiang, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China. Electronic address: taohui@ms.xjb.ac.cn.
³ Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Institute for Disaster Risk Management (iDRM), School of Geographical Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China; National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China.
⁴ Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland; Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Institute for Disaster Risk Management (iDRM), School of Geographical Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
⁵ Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Institute for Disaster Risk Management (iDRM), School of Geographical Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.

PMID: 30463139
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.126

Abstract

Snow depth plays an essential role in the water and energy balance of the land surface. It is of special importance in arid and semi-arid regions of Central Asia. Owing to the limited availability of field observations, the spatial and temporal variations of snow depth are still poorly known. Using the Japanese 55-year (JRA-55) and the ERA-Interim reanalysis snow depth products, we considered four global climate models (GCMs) applied in the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP), examining how they represent snow depth in Central Asia during the period 1986-2005 in terms of spatial and temporal characteristics. We also investigated changes of winter (January-March) snow depth in Central Asia, at 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming levels. Finally, the joint probabilistic behavior of winter temperature and precipitation at 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming are investigated using the kernel density estimator (KDE). The result shows that the snow depth climatology of Central Asia is generally well simulated in both spatial pattern and temporal (inter-annual and inter-seasonal) pattern. All models approximately simulate the winter maximum and the summer minimum values of snow depth but tend to overestimate the amplitude during October-December. Only the trend in HadGEM2-ES matches fairly well to the JRA-55 reanalysis snow depth. When comparing the projections of spatial distribution of winter snow depth, distinctive spatial pattern is noted at both 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming levels, when the snow depth is shown to increase in northeastern and to decrease in midwestern regions of Central Asia. According to the joint probability distributions of precipitation and temperature, Central Asia will tend to experience a warmer and wetter winter at both 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming levels, which can be associated with an increase in snow depth in the northeastern regions.

Keywords: Central Asia; Global warming; ISI-MIP; JRA-55 reanalysis; Winter snow depth.