Historical and Projected Decadal Average Monthly Snowfall Equivalent and the Ratio of Snowfall Equivalent to Precipitation 771m CMIP5/AR5/CRU TS3.1

These files include climatological summaries of downscaled historical and projected decadal average monthly snowfall (i.e. snow-water) equivalent (SWE) in millimeters, the ratio of snowfall equivalent to precipitation, and future change in snowfall for October-March at 771-meter spatial resolution across the state of Alaska.

Data are for summary October to March Alaska climatologies for:

1) historical and future snowfall equivalent (SWE), produced by multiplying snow-day fraction by decadal average monthly precipitation and summing over 6 months from October to March to estimate the total SWE on April 1.

2) historical and future ratio of SWE to precipitation (SFEtoP), SFEtoP is the ratio of October to March total SWE to October to March total precipitation is calculated as total SWE / total precipitation (expressed as percent, 0-100).

3) future change in snowfall equivalent relative to historical (\"dSWE\"), calculated as (SWE future – SWE historical) / SWE historical (no units, multiply by 100 to obtain percent).

The historical reference period is 1970-1999, (file name “H70.99”), calculated from downscaled CRU TS 3.1 data

Future climatologies (both RCP 4.5 and 8.5) are for:
- 2020s (2010-2039)
- 2050s (2040-2069)
- 2080s (2070-2099)

across 5 GCMs: NCAR-CCSM4, GFDL-CM3, GISS-E2-R, IPSL-CM5, and MRI-CGCM3 as well as a 5-model mean (“5MM”).

Following Elsner et al. (2010), <0.1 is rain dominated, 0.1 < SFE:P < 0.4 is transitional, and >0.4 is snow dominated. Only calculated for historical reference climatology 1970-1999 and three future climatologies: 2010-2039, 2040-2069, and 2070-2090, with each climatology representing the mean of three decadal averages from the available decadal grids.

Snow fraction data used can be found here:

http://ckan.snap.uaf.edu/dataset/projected-decadal-averages-of-monthly-snow-day-fraction-771m-cmip5-ar5

http://ckan.snap.uaf.edu/dataset/historical-decadal-averages-of-monthly-snow-day-fraction-771m-cru-ts3-0-3-1

Precipitation data used can be found here:

http://ckan.snap.uaf.edu/dataset/projected-monthly-and-derived-precipitation-products-771m-cmip5-ar5

http://ckan.snap.uaf.edu/dataset/historical-monthly-and-derived-precipitation-products-771m-cru-ts

* Note: In Littell et al. 2018, \"SWE\" is referred to as \"SFE\", and \"SFEtoP\" as \"SFE:P\"