Figure 3

First row: Dry-season snow cover anomalies over the period 1986–2017/8. Second row: the same as in the first row but excluding El Niño years. (a,b) Tropical latitudes (18°S–23°); (c,d) Extratropical latitudes (23°S–34°); and (e,f) Mid-latitudes (34°S–40°). The linear regression trendline is shown in each plot. The trend is shown in the upper right corner of each plot as well as the mean of the dry-season snow cover extent computed over the base period 1986–2005 (this was the reference value used for computing the anomalies and trends). Our findings are based on a total of 1952 Landsat images acquired under cloudless conditions over the period 1986–2017 from latitude 18°S to latitude 33°S, and over the period 1986–2018 from latitude 33°S to latitude 40°S. Note that due to the fewer Landsat scenes available for some zones at mid-latitudes (34°–40°S), anomalies over the period 1991–1996 were neither included in plots (e,f) nor used for computing the trends in this area. The plots were generated by using PYTHON’s Matplotlib Library⁶⁸.