As the climate warms, a larger proportion of precipitation is likely to take the form of rain and less as snow. The snow that does still accumulate on mountains during winter will subsequently melt faster in the spring, increasing peak discharge and flood risk.
Amilcare Porporato and his colleagues at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, used a model to calculate how seasonal temperature affects snow accumulation, melting and mountain run-off. In the model, peak discharge increases to a maximum in a warming environment despite reduced snowpack, and then drops off as less and less snow accumulates in winter.
In the real world, climate-change-driven alterations in the timing and volume of mountain snowmelt could increase the risk of both flooding and summer droughts in the catchment areas of meltwater-fed rivers.
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Melting to the max. Nature 470, 439 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/470439b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/470439b
