Effects of Temperature Variability and Warming on the Timing of Snowmelt Events in Southern Finland during the Past 100 Years

Journal: Region - Water Conservancy DOI: 10.32629/rwc.v3i1.134

Masoud Irannezhad

Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)

Abstract

This study analyses the first and last days of snowmelt events and the number of days (duration) between those throughout a water year (September-August). The snowmelt duration (SD) as well as its first (SFD) and last (SLD) days were estimated using daily precipitation and temperature measurements at the Kaisaniemi meteorological station in southern Finland during 1909-2008 as input datasets to a temperature-index snowmelt model. As snowmelt is a sensitive hydrological variable to temperature, this study also evaluated historical variations and trends in November-May (SDt), November-January (SFDt), and March-May (SLDt) temperatures corresponding to SD, SFD, and SLD at Kaisaniemi. The trends in all these parameters as well as their correlations with the well-known climate teleconnections over Finland were investigated. Long-term average values indicated the longest SD was about 131 days between 15 December and 25 April at Kaisaniemi. The SD significantly (p<0.05) shortened by 0.37 (days/year) at Kaisaniemi during 1909-2008 mainly due to the earlier (0.32 days/year) SLD. Such trends in SD and SLD were principally associated with century-long significant warming trends (0.02 °C/year) in both SDt and SLDt. The Arctic Oscillation (AO) was the most influential climate teleconnection for historical variations in SD, SLD, SDt, SFDt, and SLDt at Kaisaniemi.

Keywords

duration; first and last days; Kaisaniemi; trend analysis; snowpack hydrological processes; temperature-index model; climate teleconnections.

Funding

Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI); Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE); The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), USA

Full Text

PDF - Viewed/Downloaded: 9 Times

References

[1] Barnett, T.P., Pierce, D.W., Hidalgo, H.G., Bonfils, C., Santer, B.D., Das, T., Bala, G., Wood, A.W., Nozawa, T., Mirin, A.A., Cayan, D.R., Dettinger, M.D. (2008) Human-induced Changes in the Hydrology of the Western United States. Science, (319), 1080–1083.
[2] Barnett, T.P.T., Adam, J.C., Lettenmaier, D.P. (2005) Potential Impacts of a Warming Climate on Water Availability in Snow-dominated Regions. Nature, (438), 303–309.
[3] Chen, D., Chen, T. (2003) Association Between Winter Temperature in China and Upper Air Circulation over East Asia Revealed by Canonical Correlation Analysis. Glob. Planet. Chang, (37), 315–325.
[4] Glantz, M.H., Katz, R.W., Nicholls, N. (eds). (2009) Teleconnections Linking Worldwide Climate Anomalies: Scientific Basis and Societal Impact. Cambridge University Press, New York.
[5] Helsel, D.R., Hirsch, R.M. (1992) Statistical Methods in Water Resources. Studies in Environmental Science, Amsterdam, 522.
[6] Hurrell, J.W. (1995) Decadal Trends in the North Atlantic Oscillation: regional temperatures and precipitation. Science, (269), 676–679.
[7] Irannezhad, M., Chen, D., Kløve, B. (2015b). Interannual Variations and Trends in Surface Air Temperature in Finland in Relation to Atmospheric Circulation Patterns, 1961–2011. Int. J. Climatol., (35), 3078–3092.
[8] Irannezhad, M., Marttila, H., Chen, D., Kløve, B. (2016a) Century-long Variability and Trends in Daily Precipitation Characteristics at Three Finnish Stations. Adv. Clim. Chang. Res., (7), 54–69.
[9] Irannezhad, M., Marttila, H., Kløve, B. (2014) Long-term Variations and Trends in Precipitation in Finland. Int. J. Climatol., (34), 3139–3153.
[10] Irannezhad, M., Ronkanen, A.-K., Kiani, S., Chen, D., Kløve, B. (2017) Long-term Variability and Trends in Annual Snowfall/Total Precipitation Ratio in Finland and the Role of Atmospheric Circulation Patterns. Cold Reg. Sci. Technol., (143), 23–31.
[11] Irannezhad, M., Ronkanen, A.-K., Kløve, B. (2015a) Effects of Climate Variability and Change on Snowpack Hydrological Processes in Finland. Cold Reg. Sci. Technol., (118), 14–29.
[12] Irannezhad, M., Ronkanen, A.-K., Kløve, B. (2016b) Wintertime Climate Factors Controlling Snow Resource Decline in Finland. Int. J. Climatol., (36), 110–131.
[13] Jaagus, J. (2006) Climatic Changes in Estonia during the Second Half of the 20th Century in Relationship with Changes in Large-scale Atmospheric Circulation. Theor. Appl. Climatol., (83), 77–88.
[14] Kendall, M.G. (1975) Rank Correlation Methods. Griffin, London.
[15] Mann, H.B. (1945) Nonparametric Tests against Trend. Econometrica, (13), 245–259.
[16] Mikkonen, S., Laine, M., Mäkelä, H.M., Gregow, H., Tuomenvirta, H., Lahtinen, M., Laaksonen, A. (2015) Trends in the Average Temperature in Finland, 1847–2013. Stoch. Env. Res. Risk A., (29), 1521–1529.
[17] Mote, P.W., Hamlet, A.F., Clark, M.P., Lettenmaier, D.P. (2005) Declining Mountain Snowpack in Western North America. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., (86), 39–49.
[18] Okkonen, J., Kløve, B. (2010) A Conceptual and Statistical Approach for the Analysis of Climate Impact on Groundwater Table Fluctuation Patterns in Cold Conditions. J. Hydrol., (388), 1–12.
[19] Pirinen, P., Simola, H., Aalto, J., Kaukoranta, J.-P., Karlsson, P., Ruuhela, R. (2012) Tilastoja Suomen Ilmastosta 1981–2010 [Climatological statistics of Finland 1981–2010]. Reports 2012.1, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki (in Finnish and English).
[20] Pohl, S., Marsh, P., Bonsal, B.R. (2007) Modeling the Impact of Climate Change on Runoff and Annual Water Balance of an Arctic Headwater Basin. Arctic, (60), 173–186.
[21] Sen, P.K. (1968) Estimates of the Regression Coefficient Based on Kendall’s tau. J. Am. Stat. Assoc., (63), 1379–1389.
[22] Serreze, M.C., Walsh, J.E., Chapin, F.S. III., Osterkamp, T., Dyurgerov, M., Romanovsky, V., Oechel, W.C., Morison, J., Zhang, T., Barry, R.G. (2000) Observational Evidence of Recent Change in the Northern High-latitude Environment. Clim. Change, (46), 159–207.
[23] Sturm, M., Holmgren, J., Liston, G.E. (1995) A Seasonal Snow Cover Classification System for Local to Global Applications. J. Clim., (8), 1261–1283.
[24] Thompson, D.W.J., Wallace, J. M. (1998) The Arctic Oscillation Signature in the Wintertime Geopotential Height and Temperature Fields. Geophys. Res. Lett., 25(9), 1297–1300.
[25] Wang, D., Wang, C., Yang, X., Lu, J. (2005) Winter Northern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature Variability Associated with the Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation. Geophys. Res. Lett., (32), L16706.
[26] Wilson, D., Hisdal, H., Lawrence, D. (2010) Has Streamflow Changed in the Nordic Countries? — Recent Trends and Comparisons to Hydrological Projections. J. Hydrol., (394), 334–346.

Citing this article:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License