1. Surface energy balance! Climate models
Past and future European snow conditions as represented by the EURO-CORDEX ensemble
Claas Teichmann Sven Kotlarski Katharina Bülow Christian Steger 3
1 Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), Hamburg 2 Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss, Zurich 3 Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich
Water resource
Recreation & tourism
Natural hazards
Ecology …
Surface energy balance! Climate models

2. European snow cover already declined in the past
European snow cover already declined in the past. How will it evolve in the future?
+2°C
+4°C
+6°C
+8°C
+1°C
-1°C
-2°C
Projected winter temperature change by end of Century
(no mitigation)
+20%
+40%
-40%
-20%
Projected winter precipitation change by end of Century
(no mitigation)
less snowfall / snow cover
more snowfall / snow cover ?

3. Snow Cover Change - Simulated winter surface snow water equivalent - Non-mitigation scenario
Today
Mid-Century
End-Century

4. Snow Cover Change Alps - Simulated winter surface snow water equivalent - Non-mitigation scenario
Almost complete loss at low elevations
Relative loss diminishes with elevation
Similar results for Scandinavia
High model agreement m m m m
-60 to -90 %
-65 to -90 %
-60 to -85 %
-40 to -70 %
Higher elevations ?

5. Method Analyzing an ensemble of 42 regional climate model experiments
Offline forcing of snow cover models
Snow cover as part of climate model’s land surface scheme
Fully interactive snow cover
Large domains
Potentially biased atmospheric forcing
Coarse resolution
Global climate models
Regional climate models
100 – 200 km
12 km Alps: up to ~3000m

6. Application in practice: Snow Cover Projections as a Climate Service
Important media coverage
Information already used in climate adaptation context