CSMonitor: A new study has documented the decline of snowpack in the Rocky Mountains over the past eight centuries.
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A blend of natural climate swings and global warming appears to be driving a long-term decline in snowpack along the Rocky Mountains rarely seen in the past 800 years.
In the process, and perhaps more important for the future, the dominant driver behind available snowpack along the continental spine appears to be shifting from precipitation to temperature, according to a study published Friday in the journal Science.
If this shift holds, the study’s team adds, it could represent a change that would accelerate the loss of the West’s natural freshwater reservoirs – if long-term average temperatures continue to rise with increasing levels of industrial greenhouse gases, as most climate scientists are convinced they will.
