Arctic could see more rain than snow in 30 years, study suggests - CBC.ca

There could be more rainfall than snow in the Arctic in as little as 30 years because of the world's changing climate, according to a new study that predicts the transition will happen decades earlier than previously anticipated.

The change is expected to happen sometime between 2050 and 2080, says research led by the University of Manitoba and published in the journal Nature Communications. Previously, the transition to a rain-dominated Arctic was expected to happen somewhere between 2070 and 2090. .

Lead author Michelle McCrystall, a postdoctoral fellow at the university's Centre for Earth Observation Science, said more than 50 per cent of precipitation in the Arctic falling as rain instead of snow will have "global implications" and a "very direct impact" on Indigenous people throughout the Arctic.

McCrystall said the 2050 to 2080 range in which the transition could happen reflects the variability of all the data that was used, but the average points to it happening, more specifically, around the year 2070. .

McCrystall said more rain in the Arctic would also lead to more rain-on-snow events — when rain falls onto an existing snowpack and freezes, forming ice layers either on the snow or within it — which would be "very damaging" for foraging mammals like reindeer, caribou and muskox. .

Moore said he's not surprised the Arctic will see more rainfall in the future, but he is surprised when the researchers predict the transition to more rain than snow is going to happen. .

Meier and McCrystall both said an increase in Arctic rainfall would contribute to rising sea levels, particularly because it will cause more glaciers along the coast of Greenland to fall into the water. 

McCrystall said that increase in carbon creates a negative impact, because carbon emissions contribute to the further warming of the atmosphere. 

The research team, which also included members from University College London, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Lapland and the University of Exeter, said that if the world is able to remain below 1.5 C of global warming, the transition to a rainfall-dominated precipitation might not happen in some Arctic regions.