Monitoring Snow and Seasonal Processes

The timing of lake ice formation depends on winds and temperatures, among other things. Frozen lakes facilitate wildlife movement.

Processes such as snowpack accumulation and melt, lake ice formation and breakup, and vegetation growth and senescence are sensitive to climatic conditions and linked to many important ecological processes. For example, the timing of stream discharge is closely linked to snow-covered area of a catchment, snow depth, snow water equivalent, and snow season. Snowmelt dates also influence the timing of leaf-out, and both snowpack and green-up influence wildlife movement at the start of the growing season. Spatial variation in snow and growing season length is strongly influenced by gradients of latitude, elevation, and proximity to the ocean. Variation in lake ice affects lake temperatures and water levels, and largely controls human and wildlife travel routes over the course of the winter.

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  Arctic Network

  Snowpack

  Seasonal snow, river and lake ice, and long-term glacial ice are dominant ecosystem influences in Arctic parklands.

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  Central Alaska Network

  Snowpack

  Snowpack has a major influence on hydrology, vegetation, and faunal communities.

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  Rocky Mountain Network

  Snow Chemistry

  As snowpack accumulates during the winter, chemicals deposited from the atmosphere are stored until snowmelt begins in spring.

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  Southwest Alaska Network

  Seasonal Processes

  We monitor the patterns of freeze-up and break-up of lake ice of the major lakes in Southwest Alaska.

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  Southwest Alaska Network

  Rain-on-snow

  Wet snow and the icing that frequently follow wintertime rain-on-snow events affect high-latitude ecosystems in multiple ways.