The Simulated Impact of the Snow Albedo Feedback on the Large-Scale Mountain–Plain Circulation East of the Colorado Rocky Mountains

AbstractThe Front Range Mountain-plain Circulation (FRMC) is a large-scale diurnally driven wind system that occurs east of the Colorado Rocky Mountains in the United States and affects the weather both in the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains. As the climate warms, the snow albedo feedback will amplify the warming response in the Rocky Mountains during the spring, increasing the thermal contrast that drives the FRMC. In this study, we perform a 7-year pseudo global warming (PGW) regional climate change experiment along with an idealized PGW “fixed albedo” experiment to test the sensitivity of the FRMC to the snow albedo feedback (SAF). We find a mean increase in the springtime FRMC strength in the PGW experiment that is primarily driven by the snow albedo feedback. Furthermore, inter-annual variability of changes in FRMC strength is strongly influenced by inter-annual variability in the SAF. An additional case study experiment configured with a much higher resolution is performed to examine the fine-scale...