Winter snowfall and its temporal variability are important factorsin the development of water management strategies forsnow-dominated regions. For example, mountain regions of Europerely on snow for recreation, and on snowmelt for water supply andhydropower. It is still unclear whether in these regions the snowregime is undergoing any major significant change. Moreover, snowinterannual variability depends on different climatic variables,such as precipitation and temperature, and their interplay withatmospheric and pressure conditions. This paper uses the EASEGrid weekly snow cover and Ice Extent database from the NationalSnow and Ice Data Center to assess the possible existence oftrends in snow cover across Europe. This database provides arepresentation of snow cover fields in Europe for the period1972–2006 and is used here to construct snow cover indices, bothin time and space. These indices allow us to investigate thehistorical spatial and temporal variability of European snow coverfields, and to relate them to the modes of climate variabilitythat are known to affect the European climate. We find that boththe spatial and temporal variability of snow cover are stronglyrelated to the Arctic Oscillation during wintertime. In the otherseasons, weaker correlation appears between snow cover and theother patterns of climate variability, such as the East Atlantic,the East Atlantic West Russia, the North Atlantic Oscillation, thePolar Pattern and the Scandinavian Pattern.
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