Alaskan snow more than doubles
Snowfall in central Alaska has more than doubled since the mid 1800s, said a study Tuesday which pointed the finger at global warming.
Two ice cores drilled into Mount Hunter in the Denali National Park, revealed a 117-percent increase in wintertime snowfall in south-central Alaska since about 1840, researchers wrote in the journal Scientific Reports. Summer snow also increased, by nearly 50 percent.
Scientific models predict that global precipitation -- rain or snow -- would increase by as much as two percent per degree of global warming. Warmer air holds more moisture.
This accounted for some, but not most, of the Denali snowfall increase, the team said.
They found another contributor: the strengthening of a low-pressure system called the Aleutian Low in the Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast, driven by warmer tropical oceans. The Aleutian Low brings a northward flow of warm, moist air to Alaska.
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