A distributed cellular automata model to simulate potential future impacts of climate change on snow cover area

Snow dynamics in alpine systems play an important role in water resources management. One of the main variables that characterises the snowpack is snow cover area. In this paper, we present a novel methodology to assess the impact of climate change scenarios on snow cover area in alpine systems. The methodology calibrates and validates a distributed cellular automata (CA) model. Potential climate change scenarios can be generated to feed the CA model in order to assess the potential impact of climate change on snow cover area. The methodology has been applied to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in southern Spain, an area with a Mediterranean climate, which is valuable in terms of both its ecology and the tourism industry. Snow falls on the mountains from October to May, but this snow season may vary in the future due to climate change. We analysed the influence of elevation on the potential impact of climate change on the area covered by snow. The size of the potential changes associated with climate change increase with elevation in the case of temperature and decrease in the case of precipitation. These potential changes will modify snow dynamics, causing an important reduction in the area covered by snow (mean 60.4%) for the future horizon considered (2071-2100).