Global Annual Snow Accumulation by Months

The compilation of observed mean monthly snow accumulations for the globe was taken from a variety of climatological sources and formats. They were reformatted to fit the global 4 latitude by 5 longitude grid of the RAND coupled two-level oceanic and two-level atmospheric general circulation model (...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Schutz, Charles, Bregman, L. D.
Other Authors: RAND CORP SANTA MONICA CA
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 1988
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA216896
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA216896
Description
Summary:The compilation of observed mean monthly snow accumulations for the globe was taken from a variety of climatological sources and formats. They were reformatted to fit the global 4 latitude by 5 longitude grid of the RAND coupled two-level oceanic and two-level atmospheric general circulation model (GCM). The results are presented in the form of machine-analyzed isopleths on global maps, global grid-point tabulations, and global means. These products were used at RAND to initialize GCM calculations, to facilitate comparisons with global integrations from the GCM, and as the global climatological summary. The snow- accumulation data given here were derived from observed data from various sources, presented in a variety of formats. Most of the monthly measurements were from scheduled snow-depth observations made in the Northern Hemisphere that were published before 1976. These data were gathered and developed into monthly climatologies, expressing conditions representative of the last day of each month, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL). To supplement the CRREL summaries, a pseudoclimatology of monthly snow accumulations was developed at RAND for the 4 latitude by 5 longitude grid points through the data-sparse areas of China, Greenland, the Arctic basin, and the Antarctic. (sdw)