State of the ground : Climatology and changes during the past 69 years over northern eurasia for a rarely used measure of snow cover and frozen land

Abstract Significant climatic changes over northern Eurasia during the twentieth century are revealed in numerous variables including those affecting and characterizing the state of the cryosphere. In addition to commonly used in situ observations of snow cover such as snow depth and snow courses, synoptic archives in the former Soviet Union contain regular daily and semidaily reports about the state of the ground in the area surrounding the station. Information about frozen, dry, wet, ponded, and snow-covered land, and in the case of snow-covered land, about the characteristics of snow cover, is available in these reports. A new Global Synoptic Data Network (GSDN) consisting of 2100 stations within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union created jointly by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and Russian Institute for Hydrometeorological Information (RIHMI) was used to assess the climatology of snow cover, frozen and unfrozen ground reports, and their temporal variability for the period from 1936 t...

[1]  Richard R. Heim,et al.  Recent Variations of Snow Cover and Snowfall in North America and Their Relation to Precipitation and Temperature Variations , 1993 .

[2]  R. E. Livezey,et al.  Statistical Field Significance and its Determination by Monte Carlo Techniques , 1983 .

[3]  John S. Kimball,et al.  Radar remote sensing proposed for monitoring freeze‐thaw transitions in boreal regions , 1999 .

[4]  D. Robinson,et al.  Global Snow Cover Monitoring: An Update , 1993 .

[5]  B. Ramsay,et al.  The interactive multisensor snow and ice mapping system , 1998 .

[6]  K. Vinnikov,et al.  Empirical Data on Contemporary Global Climate Changes (Temperature and Precipitation) , 1990 .

[7]  I. Fung.  A greener north , 1997, Nature.

[8]  S. Frolking,et al.  Radar remote sensing of the spring thaw transition across a boreal landscape , 2004 .

[9]  Assessing Surface–Atmosphere Interactions Using Former Soviet Union Standard Meteorological Network Data. Part II: Cloud and Snow Cover Effects , 1997 .

[10]  Edward G. Josberger,et al.  Analysis of Ground-Measured and Passive-Microwave-Derived Snow Depth Variations in Midwinter across the Northern Great Plains , 2005 .

[11]  H. Ye.  Quasi-Biennial and Quasi-Decadal Variations in Snow Accumulation over Northern Eurasia and Their Connections to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans , 2001 .

[12]  D. Easterling,et al.  Trends in Intense Precipitation in the Climate Record , 2005 .

[13]  H. Ye,et al.  The Changes in Russian Winter Snow Accumulation during 1936–83 and Its Spatial Patterns , 1998 .

[14]  C. Tucker,et al.  Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991 , 1997, Nature.

[15]  A. H. Thiessen.  PRECIPITATION AVERAGES FOR LARGE AREAS , 1911 .

[16]  G. Stenchikov,et al.  Changes of Snow Cover, Temperature, and Radiative Heat Balance over the Northern Hemisphere , 1994 .

[17]  Roger A. Pielke,et al.  Vegetation, water, humans and the climate; a new perspective on an interactive system , 2004 .

[18]  I. Polyakov,et al.  Variability and Trends of Air Temperature and Pressure in the Maritime Arctic, 1875–2000 , 2003 .

[19]  Data on Present-Day Precipitation Changes in the Extratropical Part of the Northern Hemisphere , 1991 .

[20]  V. Kattsov,et al.  Twentieth-Century Trends of Arctic Precipitation from Observational Data and a Climate Model Simulation , 2000 .

[21]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  Averaging of Meteorological Fields , 1997 .

[22]  David R. Easterling,et al.  Contemporary Changes of the Hydrological Cycle over the Contiguous United States: Trends Derived from In Situ Observations , 2004 .

[23]  T. V. Ommen,et al.  Observed climate variability and change , 2002 .

[24]  David A. Robinson,et al.  Seasonal Variability of Northern Hemisphere Snow Extent Using Visible Satellite Data , 2000 .

[25]  P. Jones,et al.  Hemispheric and Large-Scale Surface Air Temperature Variations: An Extensive Revision and an Update to 2001. , 2003 .

[26]  Ross D. Brown,et al.  Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover Variability and Change, 1915-97. , 2000 .

[27]  J. Eyles,et al.  The Utility of In‐Depth Interviews for Studying the Meaning of Environmental Risk , 1999 .