CLIMATE change makes the snow in the western US melt a little bit earlier each year. Yet we may have underestimated how early the mountains will thaw in future.
If atmospheric temperatures rise by 3 to 5 °C by the year 2100, most models predict spring snowmelt will start about a month earlier than today. Sara Rauscher, at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, and colleagues built an updated model that included detailed data about where snow lies. This showed that in some regions a two-month shift is more likely (Geophysical Research Letters, ).
Such…
