The sensitivity of runoff generation to spatial snowpack uniformity in an alpine watershed: Green Lakes Valley, Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research Station

Badger, A.M., Bjarke, N., Molotch, N.P., and Livneh, B. 2021 . The sensitivity of runoff generation to spatial snowpack uniformity in an alpine watershed: Green Lakes Valley, Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research Station. Hydrological Processes e14331. Available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hyp.14331

Snow restribution by wind is common at Niwot Ridge, as seen in this photo of the annual Niwot Ridge Snow Survey. Photo credit: Jane Smith

Abstract

Seasonal water storage in high-elevation alpine catchments are critical sources of water for mountainous regions like the western U.S. The spatial distribution of snow in these topographically complex catchments is primarily governed by orography, solar radiation, and wind redistribution. While the effect of solar shading is relatively consistent from year-to-year, the redistribution of snow due to wind is more variable—capable of producing snowpacks that have varying degrees of uniformity across these hydrologically-important catchments. A reasonable hypothesis is that a warmer climate will cause snowfall to become more dense (i.e. wetter and heavier), possibly leading to less wind redistribution and thus produce a more uniformly distributed snowpack across the landscape. In this study, we investigate the role of increasingly uniform spatial snowpack distributions on streamflow generation in the Green Lakes Valley Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research station, within the headwaters of the Boulder Creek watershed in Colorado. A set of idealized hydrologic simulation experiments driven by reconstructed snowpacks spanning 2001–2014 show that more a more uniform spatial snowpack distribution leads to an earlier melt-out of 31 days on average and tends to produce less total streamflow, with maximum decreases as large as 7.5%. Isolating the role of snowpack heterogeneity from melt-season precipitation, we find that snowpack uniformity reduces total streamflow by as much as 13.2%. Reductions in streamflow are largely explained by greater exposure to solar radiation in the uniformly distributed case relative to a more heterogeneous snowpack, with this exposure driving shifts towards earlier snowmelt and changes in soil water storage. Overall, we find that the runoff efficiency from shallower snowpacks is more sensitive to the effects of uniformity than deeper snowpacks, which has potential implications for a warming climate where shallower snowpacks and enhanced sensitivities may be present.