![]() Mark Serreze, an Arctic climate scientist and the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center who was not involved in the new study, said Young’s findings are in line with what scientists have been measuring and expecting. He also took into account other factors, such as cloud cover data. Young said he compared the average seasonal and annual snow cover, and took steps such as averaging multiple years and looking only at change that wasn’t random so he could take a more conservative approach to the data and ensure anomalies did not skew it. The findings in the latest study from Young are based on analysis of data from NASA’s Terra satellite, which has observed global snow cover almost daily since 2000. ![]() ![]() Related : Last winter, haunting signs of climate change were everywhere It can upend weather systems and trigger effects that aren’t yet understood. It can devastate industries spanning from maple syrup to skiing, make pond hockey and ice fishing a thing of the past. Besides contributing to additional warming, decline in snowpack can wreak ecological havoc - forcing beloved species to expand their ranges northward in search of cooler temperatures and bringing pests, like ticks, to areas that did not used to have them. The list of what’s at stake goes on and on. “For me, as a climate scientist, when I see a winter like that, it’s a harbinger of what’s to come if we don’t act now.”īurakowski is part of an alliance of scientists working with the advocacy group Protect Our Winters, which promotes policies aimed at staving off climate-warming emissions while trying to turn lovers of the outdoors into climate voters. “This past winter in particular - 2022 to ‘23 - was devastatingly low snowpack for a lot of the southern part of the Northeast,” said Burakowski, who was not involved in the new study. “What this paper shows is that that cooling effect is disappearing.”Įlizabeth Burakowski, a climate scientist focusing on snow and climate at the University of New Hampshire, said the study’s findings ring particularly true given the lack of snow this year. “The Earth is about 17 percent covered in snow and ice, and that has a really strong cooling effect on our climate,” he said. ![]() What it amounts to, Young said, is a tipping point. ![]()
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