SnowClim Model and Dataset

The SnowClim Model and Dataset address the need for climate and snow data products that are based on physical principles, that are simulated at high spatial resolution, and that cover large geographic domains.

The SnowClim Model is a physics-based snow model that incorporates key energy balance processes necessary for capturing snowpack spatiotemporal variability, including under future climate scenarios, while optimizing computational efficiency throughout several empirical simplifications. The model code can be downloaded or run in the cloud using MATLAB Online through HydroShare.

The SnowClim Dataset consists of climate forcing data for and snow outputs from the SnowClim Model. Climate forcing data was downscaled from 4 km climate data from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model (Rasmussen and Liu, 2017) to ~210 m across the contiguous western United States. Climate forcings were downscaled from WRF directly for a present day (2000-2013) period and a thirteen year pseudo global warming scenario reflecting conditions between 2071-2100 under RCP 8.5. Climate forcings were prepared for a third time period by perturbing present-day downscaled climate data by the multi-model mean from CMIP5 to reflect conditions under pre-industrial conditions (1850-1879).

Additional details regarding the SnowClim model physics, model calibration, climate data downscaling, model application to the western US, and model performance are available in:
Lute, A.C., Abatzoglou, J.T., and T. Link. “SnowClim v1.0: high resolution snow model and data for the Western United States.”Submitted to Geoscientific Model Development.