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Snow also affects wildlife migration, hibernation, and survival. Some animals have evolved to use snow as camouflage. This is most apparent in the Arctic, but with the Arctic warming two to three times the rate of the rest of the planet, animals like the snowshoe hares, which are white during winter and brown during summer, are more easily susceptible to predators because snow is melting earlier while many hares are still wearing their white coats.

Some animals have adapted to coexist with the cold. Deer, elk, bison, and other grazing animals use their hooves and muzzles to clear snow away from plants they need to eat to survive. To help retain warmth throughout the winter, they also grow thicker, shaggier coats, which they shed in the spring when the weather becomes warm again.

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The pika, another Rocky Mountain native, dries little bundles of hay in the fall, then brings this food under the snow to spend the winter. The Arctic fox, which must deal with the cold, snowy conditions of the Arctic all year, grows thick fur all the way down to the bottoms of its paws. It has a stocky body, short legs, and small ears, all of which conserve body temperature.

Some animals cope with the cold season by building in a protective den or burrow and going into a deep, long sleep, a process called hibernation. Bears and groundhogs, for instance, build up fat reserves in the fall, so they can survive hibernating through the snowy winter months, usually not waking again until spring.

Some animals simply leave snowy, cold regions during the toughest seasons. Arctic terns, for example, spend the Northern Hemisphere summer in the Arctic, and then migrate to Antarctica for the Southern Hemisphere summer, traveling about 39,000 kilometers (24,000 miles) round-trip each year. Migration can also happen over shorter distances: Deer and elk in the Rocky Mountains of the United States tend to migrate down into valleys during the winter.

Because many cities rely on snowmelt to replenish reservoirs and water supplies, water managers try to assess the amount of water that a winter's snowpack might produce. To measure snow water equivalent, researchers, and watershed experts use a variety of instruments and methods. The resulting measurements enable water managers to estimate how much water will be available to downstream cities after the spring snowmelt.

People living in alpine and Arctic areas have long needed to travel in deep snow, so they invented various forms of equipment that permitted them to glide or walk without sinking into the snowpack. Many of the winter sports people enjoy now, such as snowshoeing and skiing, originated from these practical inventions.

As snow removal efforts progressed, protests against salt commenced, supported both by environmentalists and motorists whose cars were being corroded by years of winter salt use. Environmental experts discovered in the late 1960s that salt use was corroding cars, damaging roadside plant life, polluting water supplies (including drinking water supplies), and killing fish in streams. Cities that continued to use salt invested in improved salt spreaders designed with more efficient spreading gauges.

Snowbelt cities like Buffalo and Syracuse in New York are among the snowiest cities in the United States, but others also receive significant amounts of snowfall. Salt Lake City, Utah, Anchorage, Alaska, and Denver, Colorado, have each received 2.5 meters (8 feet) or more in their record high seasons. These record highs are for cities only; remote mountain areas and smaller towns have received higher snowfall amounts. Paradise Ranger Station in Washington State and Thompson Pass, Alaska, regularly receive more than 12.5 meters (42 feet) of snow each winter. Sites along the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada Mountains also receive between 10 and 20 meters (30 to 70 feet) in a season.

How do plants survive the icy cold of snow and winter? Unlike animals, which can often leave, hibernate, or otherwise escape a harsh environment, plants cannot. Plants must stay where they are rooted and adapt to the surrounding conditions. One of the most difficult aspects of cold, wintery places is that most water is frozen, and plants cannot take up ice.

Deciduous plants handle the lack of water by shedding their leaves, which tend to evaporate water into the air. During cold winter months, most deciduous plants drop their leaves and go dormant. Evergreen plants keep their foliage, but their leaves and needles have a thick, waxy coating to reduce water loss.

Changes in climate can affect how much snow falls. It can also influence the timing of the winter snow season. Between 1966 and 2010, the amount of snow that covered land and sea ice each year decreased over many Northern Hemisphere regions, especially during the spring snowmelt season. A study published in 2012 also noted an acceleration of the decline rate after 2003.

In terms of spatial extent, seasonal snow cover is the largest single component of the cryosphere and has an average winter maximum area of 46 million square kilometers (17.8 million square miles), about 98 percent of which is located in the Northern Hemisphere.

Snow totals and snow extents measured in 2015 and 2016 fit the larger pattern of declining trends, based on a study analyzing the 2015 to 2016 US snow report. That winter, most parts of the contiguous United States showed below-average seasonal totals. The one exception was the mid-Atlantic, which received most of its snow in a single blizzard in late January 2016. Throughout the Northern Hemisphere, 2016 snow cover extent ranked twelfth lowest out of the 47-year average.

Warm periods of spring-like weather during winter may also cause rainfall instead of snowfall, or force unusual melting during a normally cold season. Warmer spring weather in Alaska and in the Canadian Arctic areas has caused more frequent melting and refreezing of snow, as well as more frequent rainfall. This extra water may seem beneficial for vegetation, and consequently for grazing animals. But nighttime temperatures during the Arctic springtime are still low enough to freeze the rain and melted snow, which either seals the ground beneath into a sheet of ice or tops the snow with an impenetrable ice crust. Musk oxen, caribou, and reindeer evolved to sweep snow off to graze, but they cannot break through thick ice. Often unable to travel and eat, they die by the tens of thousands. The consequences ripple to the Indigenous communities that depend on these animals for food and/or economic security.

Ski resorts located in temperate mountain ranges, like those located in western North America, New Zealand, and the European Alps, already experience winter temperatures that are only slightly below freezing, and even a small increase in air temperature may shorten the ski season, or cause complete ski area closures. In fact, Bolivia's only ski resort, located on Chacaltaya Glacier, closed in 2009 after the glacier retreated for two decades, then disappeared altogether. The ski resort in Whistler, British Columbia spans a significant elevation difference, and while the summit is likely to remain snowy during ski season, conditions at the base are increasingly likely to be rainy. In addition to air temperature, humidity can be an important climate factor for ski-resort snow. For example, snow making is more feasible at ski resorts in drier climates (such as Colorado) than at ski resorts in wetter climates (such as the Pacific Northwest), especially when temperatures are near the freezing point.

Jackson Hole is an enchanting wedding venue, regardless of th eseason. The breathtaking mountain vistas, whether adorned with wildflowers in the summer or blanketed in snow during the winter, create a truyl magical setting for exchanging vows and saying "I do with a view".

An increase in shrub abundance would have important implications for regional climate in the Arctic. In summer, changes in energy partitioning between the shrub canopy and the ground could lead to changes in shading and active layer thickness. In winter, shrubs and snow would interact in several ways. Because the Arctic is windy and snow-covered 9 months of the year, snow drifted by the wind is trapped by shrubs. In this paper we show that an increase in shrubs could augment the depth of snow on the ground, both locally and generally, in part by diminishing winter water losses caused by wind-driven sublimation. We also show that when the snow depth in and around shrubs is increased, higher subnivian temperatures result. We suggest that at these higher temperatures, more winter decomposition and nutrient mineralization may occur, producing more favorable conditions for the growth of shrubs. In this paper we point out the existence and the potential importance of these winter biogeophysical linkages, and suggest that they play a role in the general response of the tundra to climate change.

Sublimation of blowing snow returns between 10% and 25% of the total winter snowfall to the atmosphere in the Arctic (Pomeroy and Gray 1995; Liston and Sturm 1998), with similar amounts returned from the Antarctic ice sheets (King et al. 1996; Van den Broeke 1997; Galle 1998; Bintanja 1998). Snow grains that are saltating or in suspension during wind transport suffer rapid rates of sublimation, but the rates for quiescent grains are much lower. One direct consequence of an increase in shrubs, whether associated with climate warming or other causes, would be to increase the snow-holding capacity of the Arctic landscape. This would immobilize more snow during the winter and diminish the amount of sublimation, increasing the depth of snow on the ground, without any change in winter precipitation. A similar effect is well known in agriculture where wind barriers and crop stubble are used to augment the amount of winter snowfall available for groundwater recharge (Pomeroy and Gray 1995; chapter 7). 2351a5e196