The effects of land use change on snowcover and the resulting influences on weather and regional climate

The effects of land use change on snowcover and the resulting influences on weather and regional climate are being investigated using the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). A case study is performed using RAMS for a snow event that occurred on the southern U.S. plains in March 1988. A number of observations are available for this event from a snow breeze study. First, it is shown that RAMS can accurately reproduce these observations when it is initialized with the observed snowcover and present day vegetation distribution. Once this is demonstrated, the effect of running the same simulation with the natural vegetation is studied. The effect of this change on a number of variables, such as air temperature, precipitation, transpiration, snow melt rate, and sensible heat flux are examined. The hypothesis is that the rate of snow melt will be slower in regions where the vegetation is shorter, since not as much of the darker vegetation protrudes above the snow. The reduced snow melt rate will then lead to reduced boundary layer heat fluxes and air temperatures.