Forest Canopy Density Effects on Snowpack across the Climate Gradients of the Western United States Mountain Ranges
Abstract
Disentangling the effect of canopy density from the effect of climate on snowpack dynamics is a grand challenge from field studies alone due to the underlying linkage between canopy density and climate, combined with lacking observations across the climate gradients. Thus, there is a limited understanding to date of how variations in canopy density can affect snow processes under a range of climate conditions. To address this knowledge gap, this study uses a physics-based modeling approach to evaluate the sensitivity of snowpack dynamics to variations in canopy density across the climate gradients of the Western U.S. as represented by 228 Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) sites. Within the model, we uniformly parameterize the canopy across sites to represent an idealized forest with high, medium, and low canopy density, respectively. The results illustrate that the effect of canopy density on the amount and duration of under-canopy snowpack is sensitive to climatological winter precipitation and temperature. Snowpack in the low-density forest has a similar or slightly lower peak SWE and generally lasts longer than the open under all climate conditions. As canopy density increases, greatest decrease in peak SWE is found in wet/warm and dry/cold climates, where snowpack also shifts from lasting longer in the forest to snow lasting longer in the open. The modeling results presented here provide a clear organizing framework in prioritizing sites to better understand the effect of forest management activities on snow processes that vary substantially by climate, and to support higher resolution modeling of canopy snow modeling.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFM.C12A..05S