Snowmaking climatology in Austria and Germany
What? Statistical time series analysis of wet bulb temperatures in the Austrian and German Alps. Why? Assess long term trends and variability and how they relate to snow making conditions based on threshold values.
Summary: In general, the amount of days with conditions favourable for snow making is decreasing due to rising (wet bulb) temperatures. The magnitude of longer term trends tends to be small compared to interannual variability. This means that there is a lot of “weather noise” around the longer term, climatic trend of reduced days with good snow making conditions. Changes vary with season, elevation, and local topography and micro climate. For operational forecasts and future projections, micrometeorological conditions and specifics of individual resort operations should be taken into account. Climate change and rising temperatures clearly affect how ski resorts are able to operate. However, the short-term specifics of whether or not a skiable base of techinal snow can be produced in a time frame useful for resort operations are often determined by small scale effects like local cold pools, temperature inversions, and the layout of a given resort’s groomed terrain.
This was part of a FFG Collective Research Program grant, 2014-2018, PI: A. Fischer. Key publication:
Hartl, L., Fischer, A., & Olefs, M. (2018). Analysis of past changes in wet bulb temperature in relation to snow making conditions based on long term observations Austria and Germany. Global and Planetary Change, 167, 123-136, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2018.05.011
Time series of monthly snow making days (based on wet bulb temperature thresholds) for all assessed stations, colour coded by increasing altitude, 21 year running mean, centred moving average.
Snow density parametrisation
What? Analysis of multi-station high resolution autmatic snow depth measurements. Why? Improvement of snow density parametrisations and assessment of measurement undercatch.
Summary: Common snow density parameterisations often overestimate new snow density. Some can reproduce the range of observed densities but do not capture the observed variability. Parameterisation of new snow density is complicated, particularly for high temporal resolutions (more difficult for hourly than daily data). Snow density is important for obtaining snow water equivalent from snow height, among other things, and lots operational applications would benefit from improved density parameterisation.