University of Manitoba publishes end-of-snow prediction – Are you interested in that?

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

As Russia’s Arctic towns grapple with a sudden early hard freeze, and Northern Europe Struggling with extreme temperatures, climate scientists have announced that rain will dominate Arctic snow events by 2060.

Rain to replace snow in Arctic as climate warms, study finds

Climate models suggest the transition will happen decades faster than previously thought, with ‘deep’ implications.

Damian Carrington
Environmental Editor@dpcarrington Wednesday, December 1, 2021, 03.00 AEDT

Rain will replace snow as the most common precipitation in the Arctic as the climate crisis heats up the planet’s northern ice cap, according to the study.

Today, more snow falls in the Arctic than rain. But this would reverse, the study found, with all of the region’s land and virtually all of its seas receiving more rain than snow before the end of the century if the world warmed by 3C. The commitment of countries at the recent Cop26 summit can keep temperature rise is still pathetic 2.4C, but only if these promises are met.

Even if the increase in global temperature is kept at 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2 degrees Celsius, the Greenland and Norwegian Sea areas will still have predominant rainfall. Scientists were shocked in August when Rain falls on top of Greenland’s giant ice caprecorded for the first time.

The study, using the latest climate models, shows the transition from snow to rain will happen decades faster than previously estimated, with autumn showing the strongest seasonal changes. For example, they found that the central Arctic will become rain-predominant in the fall in 2060 or 2070 if carbon emissions are not cut, rather than in 2090 as predicted by previous models there.

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“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay there,” said Michelle McCrystall at the University of Manitoba in Canada, who led the new study. “You may think the Arctic is far away from your daily life, but in reality, the temperature there has warmed to the point of [it] would have an impact further south.

“In the heart of the Arctic, where you might imagine snowfall for the entire fall period, we actually see an earlier transition to precipitation. That will have huge consequences. The fact that the Arctic has very strong snowfall is really important for everything in that region and also for the global climate, because it reflects a lot of sunlight.”

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/enosystem/2021/nov/30/rain-replace-snow-arctic-climate-heats-study

Summary of the study;

New climate models show that Arctic precipitation is increasing faster and more heavily than previously expected

Michelle R. McCrystall, Julienne Stroeve, Mark Serreze, Bruce C. Forbes & James A. Screen

Nature Communications episode 12, Number of posts: 6765 (2021) Quote this article

abstract

As the Arctic continues to warm faster than the rest of the planet, evidence suggests the region is undergoing unprecedented environmental change. The hydrological cycle is projected to intensify throughout the twenty-first century, with an increase in evaporation due to the expansion of open water areas and more precipitation. The latest projections from the sixth phase of the Paired Model Linked Comparison Project (CMIP6) indicate that by 2100, there will be faster Arctic warming and sea ice loss than projected foretell, and therefore, larger and faster changes in the hydrologic cycle. Precipitation (precipitation) in the Arctic increases more rapidly in CMIP6 than in CMIP5 due to greater global warming and transport of moisture from the poles, greater Arctic amplification and loss of sea ice, as well as increased precipitation sensitivity. rain on Arctic warming. The transition from the snowy to the rainy Arctic predominates in summer and autumn is forecast to occur decades earlier and at a lower level of global warming, likely below 1.5°C , with profound climate, ecological and socioeconomic impacts.

Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27031-y

You might think that climate modelers are quite courageous to make such a radical prediction, given the long-term Holocene temperature decline, the history of predictions “ends snow” failed, temperature in Antarctica decreased over a long period and was statistically significant, and some recent snowy northern winters, but there seems to be a common view among climate modelers that models are more important than data.

As John Mitchell, MET British scientific research team leader once explained, “People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very helpful.”