Publications

Eythorsson, D; Gardarsson, SM; Gunnarsson, A; Sveinsson, OGB (2023). Observed and predicted trends in Icelandic snow conditions for the period1930-2100. CRYOSPHERE, 17(1), 51-62.

Abstract
This study presents an estimate of historical snowconditions in Iceland and a projection of these conditions, given differentemission scenarios. Historical snow conditions were estimated using in situobservations from manned meteorological stations over the period 1930-2021and by remotely sensed observations from the MODIS instruments over theperiod 2001-2021. Historical and future climate conditions, as described by each of the 21 general circulation models (GCM) from the 5thiteration of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) as containedin the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) Global Daily Downscaled Projections (GDDP)dataset, were used to simulate snow conditions in Iceland over the period1950-2100 under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) RCP4.5 andRCP8.5 with the SNOW-17 model. The results show an increase in the averageannual snow cover frequency (SCF) over the historical record detected bothin the in situ (1930-2021) and remotely sensed data (2001-2021). Averageannual snow depth measurements also revealed an increasing trend over thehistorical record. Simulated snow conditions show a substantial decrease inboth snow water equivalent (SWE) and SCF over the period 1950-2100, a trendmore pronounced under RCP8.5 as compared to RCP4.5.

DOI:
10.5194/tc-17-51-2023

ISSN:
1994-0424