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Eastern Cascades Forest-Snow Observations 2019-2021


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Created: Dec 01, 2022 at 4:52 p.m.
Last updated: Jun 23, 2023 at 12:54 p.m.
DOI: 10.4211/hs.6127902b82674b8097ec3c372f14514f
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Sharing Status: Published
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Abstract

Forest thinning and gap creation are being implemented across the western United States of America (USA) to reduce wildfire and forest mortality risk as the climate warms. The Eastern Cascades in Washington, USA, is in a transitional zone between maritime and continental climate conditions and represents a data gap in observations describing the relationship between forest density and snowpack. We collected three years of snow observations across a range of forest densities to characterize how forest management efforts in this region may influence the magnitude and duration of snow storage. Observations indicate that peak snow storage magnitude in small gaps ranges from the same to over twice that observed in unburned forest plots in the Eastern Cascades. However, differences in snow duration are generally small. Across all Eastern Cascade sites and years, we observed a median difference of snow storage lasting 7 days longer in gaps as compared to nearby forest plots. A notable exception to this pattern occurred at one north-facing site, where snow lasted 30 days longer in the gap. These observations of similar snow storage duration in the Eastern Cascades are attributed to minimal differences in canopy snow interception processes between forests and gaps at some sites, and to higher ablation rates that counterbalance the higher snow accumulation in the gaps at other sites. At the north-facing site, more snow accumulated in the gap, and ablation rates in the open gap were similar to the shaded forest due to the aspect of the site. Thus, snow storage duration was much longer in the gap. Together, these data suggest that prescriptions to reduce forest density through thinning and creating gaps may increase the overall amount of snow storage by reducing loss due to sublimation and melting of canopy-intercepted snow. However, reducing forest density in the Eastern Cascades is unlikely to buffer climate-induced shortening of snow storage duration, with the possible exception of gap creation in north-facing forests. Lastly, these observations fill a spatial and climatic data gap and can be used to support hydrological modeling at spatial and temporal scales that are relevant to forest management decisions.

Subject Keywords

Coverage

Spatial

Coordinate System/Geographic Projection:
WGS 84 EPSG:4326
Coordinate Units:
Decimal degrees
North Latitude
48.0625°
East Longitude
-120.3305°
South Latitude
47.1440°
West Longitude
-121.6708°

Temporal

Start Date:
End Date:

Content

readme.txt

README - metadata, 22 June 2023 (SE Dickerson-Lange, susan@naturaldes.com)
Eastern Cascades Forest-Snow Observations 2019-2021

For background and methods see:
Dickerson-Lange et al. (2023) Forest gap effects on snow storage in the transitional climate of the Eastern Cascade Range, Washington, United States
Frontiers in Water
DOI 10.3389/frwa.2023.1115264

These data are provided freely and without warranty of any sort and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes.  Note that every effort was made to quality control the data but that field data always have some problems.

NA is used as the nodata flag

Snow Depth from Timelapse - processed daily snow depth data extracted manually from timelapse photos (contact S. Dickerson-Lange for original photos (susan@naturaldes.com))
Temperature Sensors - raw hourly temperature data and location metadata for ground and air temperature sensors (Hobos)
Processed Data - includes metrics from hemispherical photos (contact S. Dickerson-Lange for original photos (susan@naturaldes.com)), snow duration inferred from ground temperature, and aggregated temperature at sites and plots.

List of abbreviations/headers:
CER			Cle Elum Ridge
ECFS		East Cascade Forest Snow - all sites except CER
DJF			December-January-February
MA			March April
WYJD		Water Year Julian Day (i.e., October 1 = 1)
JD			Julian Day
StartWYJD	Start of "snow on", in WYJD
EndWYJD		Snow Disappearance Day, in WYJD
SCD			Snow Covered Days (inferred from ground temperature; see Dickerson-Lange et al. 2023)
Jan1SCD		Snow Covered Days since January 1
LocID		Location ID of the point observered every season; stays the same through the study period even though the recorder changes.  See GIS Data folder.
Recorder	Instrument ID of the temperature recorder/data logger; corresponds to the raw temperature datafiles.
Pole		Snow depth (cm, to nearest 5 cm) at a given observation pole
FSCA		fractional snow covered area, visually estimated
Canopy_Snow	binary snow presence or absence in the visible canopy
Analyst		initials of analyst who extracted metrics from timelapse cameras
Exposure	exposure setting on hemispherical photos; each location had 5 photos ranging from -2 to 2 in exposure setting.
Temp_		Temperature (degrees C) and the aggregation method from hourly observations to daily data.

Note that Point X and Point Y in locations (GIS Data) are in UTM Zone 10N

Credits

Funding Agencies

This resource was created using funding from the following sources:
Agency Name Award Title Award Number
Yakima Valley Community Fund

How to Cite

Dickerson-Lange, S. E., J. Lundquist, R. Gersonde, E. Howe, K. Patrick (2023). Eastern Cascades Forest-Snow Observations 2019-2021, HydroShare, https://doi.org/10.4211/hs.6127902b82674b8097ec3c372f14514f

This resource is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
CC-BY

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