Discipline: Mathematics & Statistics
Subcategory: STEM Research
Eduardo Montoya - California State University, Bakersfield
Co-Author(s): Wendy Meiring, University of California, Santa Barbara; Jeff Dozier, University of California, Santa Barbara
Snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range is an important source of water for California. Snows water equivalent (SWE) seasonal pattern, over each water-year, exhibits variation in both the magnitude and timing of important snowpack features. Daily snow pillow SWE measurements dramatically increased the time frequency of in-situ measurements of the snow accumulation and melt continuous processes, compared to earlier manual snow course measurements. Here, we extract the dominant modes of variability in the daily snow pillow SWE measurements to reveal important features of the timing and magnitude of events in the annual progression of snow accumulation and melt processes in the Sierra Nevada. We then examine the association of these features with atmospheric and oceanic conditions. This study is important to the cryospheric field, and leads immediately to directions for further investigations.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): NSF Grant HRD-1547784
Faculty Advisor: None Listed,
NSF Affiliation: CREST