Where Have Our Winters Gone?

Changes in winter hydrology, ecology and biogeochemistry are focus of session at American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference.
If you’re planning to skate on a frozen lake or river this winter, ski on a snowy slope, or, when spring arrives, depend on snowmelt to refill your water supply, you may need to think twice.
Winter as a “species” may have evolved to be less like the winters we remember. The change has consequences for summer, too, including plants’ flowering times.
Scientists will present results on how winter is changing and why it matters at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference, taking place in San Francisco from Dec. 3 to 7, 2012.
When Winter Changes: Hydrological, Ecological, and Biogeochemical Responses (Session B21I) takes place on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012.
Session conveners include Heidi Steltzer of Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo.; Michael Weintraub of the University of Toledo; Molly Brown of NASA; and Mark Williams of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded much of the research results being presented at the session.
Subjects to be addressed include: hydrological and ecological implications of radiative forcing by dust in snow; phenological and ecological consequences of changes in winter snowpack in the Colorado Rocky Mountains; and when snow melts early: unusual alpine plant life histories during the summer of 2012.
Other presentations will look at insects, fires and climate change: implications for snow cover, water resources and ecosystem recovery in western North America; climate effects on groundwater storage, hydrochemistry and residence time in geologically variable, snowmelt-dominated mountain catchments in Colorado’s Front Range; and the response of aboveground plant productivity to earlier snowmelt and summer warming in an arctic ecosystem.
“Wherever winter occurs, it is likely changing now or projected to change in the future,” says Steltzer. “That will affect us all.”
Among the session’s highlights are talks on snowmelt-dependent water supplies, and mountain ecosystems out of sync.
Read full press release story at NSF.gov