Figure 5: Annual maximum snow water equivalent and per cent change.
From: Large near-term projected snowpack loss over the western United States
(a) The black curve is for the CanESM2 ALL ensemble mean and shading is the 5–95% range. The ALL ensemble uses RCP8.5 forcing extensions after 2005. The red curve is the simulation with the greatest loss in annual maximum snow water equivalent (SWEmax) between 2013 and 2038. The blue curve is the simulation with the largest gain over the same 2013 to 2038 period. All values are 5-year averages plotted on the central year. (b) Per cent change in SWEmax between the periods centred on 2013 and 2038 under different radiative forcing scenarios. Results in orange are from the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble (Supplementary Table 1). CMIP5 results are based on the analysis of one ensemble member (r1i1p1) from each CMIP5 model for which there exists a historical simulation with ALL forcing and a corresponding RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and/or RCP8.5 extension. The box-and-whiskers plots show ensemble-mean SWEmax values, the 95% uncertainty ranges on the ensemble-mean values, and the minimum-to-maximum ranges. All values in this figure are for area averages of SWEmax at elevations greater than 1,500 m and north of 30°N and south of 50°N.
