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The 30-year simulations of seasonal snow cover in 22 physically based models driven with bias-corrected meteorological reanalyses are examined at four sites with long records of snow observations. Annual snow cover durations differ widely between models, but interannual variations are strongly correlated because of the common driving data. No significant trends are observed in starting dates for seasonal snow cover, but there are significant trends towards snow cover ending earlier at two of the sites in observations and most of the models. A simplified model with just two parameters controlling solar radiation and sensible heat contributions to snowmelt spans the ranges of snow cover durations and trends. This model predicts that sites where snow persists beyond annual peaks in solar radiation and air temperature will experience rapid decreases in snow cover duration with warming as snow begins to melt earlier and at times of year with more energy available for melting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce and provide access to daily (1960–2017) and hourly (1993–2017) datasets of snow and meteorological data measured at the Col de Porte site, 1325 m a.s.l., Chartreuse, France. Site metadata and ancillary measurements such as soil properties and masks of the incident solar radiation are also provided. Weekly snow profiles are made available from September 1993 to March 2018. A detailed study of the uncertainties originating from both measurement errors and spatial variability within the measurement site is provided for several variables. We show that the estimates of the ratio of diffuse-to-total shortwave broadband irradiance is affected by an uncertainty of ±0.21 (no unit). The estimated root mean square deviation, which mainly represents spatial variability, is ±10 cm for snow depth, ±25 kg m -2 for the water equivalent of snow cover (SWE), and ±1 K for soil temperature (±0.4 K during the snow season). The daily dataset can be used to quantify the effect of climate change at this site, with a decrease of the mean snow depth (1 December to 30 April) of 39 cm from the 1960–1990 period to the 1990–2017 period (40 % of the mean snow depth for 1960–1990) and an increase in temperature of +0.90 K for the same periods. Finally, we show that the daily and hourly datasets are useful and appropriate for driving and evaluating a snowpack model over such a long period. The data are placed on the repository of the Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (OSUG) data centre: 10.17178/CRYOBSCLIM.CDP.2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce and provide access to a daily (1960-2017) and hourly (1993-2017) dataset of snow and meteorological data measured at the Col de Porte site, 1325 m a.s.l, Charteuse, France. Site metadata and ancillary measurements such as soil properties and masks of the incident solar radiation are also provided. Weekly snow profiles are made available from September 1993 to April 2015. A detailed study of the uncertainties originating from both measurements errors and spatial variability within the measurement site is provided for several variables. We show that the estimates of the ratio of diffuse to total shortwave broadband irradiance is affected by an uncertainty of ± 0.21. The estimated root mean squared deviation, that can be mainly attributed to spatial variability, is ± 10 cm for snow depth, ± 25 kg m-2 for snow water and ± 1 K for soil temperature (± 0.4 K during the snow season). The daily dataset can be used to quantify the effect of climate change at this site with a reduction of the mean snow depth (Dec. 1st to April 30th of 39 cm from 1960-1990 to 1990-2017 and an increase in temperature of + 0.90 K for the same periods. Finally, we show that the daily and hourly datasets are useful and appropriate for driving and evaluating a snowpack model over such a long period. The data are placed on the repository of the Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (OSUG) datacenter: https://doi.org/10.17178/CRYOBSCLIM.CDP.2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]