Global Snow Drought Data Set

AghaKouchak, Amir

Global Snow Drought Data Set

Posted on 2020-11-02 - 05:05 authored by Laurie S. Huning

This collection contains information about snow droughts (or deficits in snow water equivalent, SWE) and their characteristics (e.g., duration and intensity) across the globe. The snow drought information is derived using SWE from a global reanalysis over 1980-2018, which was standardized using methods described in Huning and AghaKouchak (2020a). We provide the 3-month standardized snow drought index (SWEI) fields used to characterize and monitor snow droughts in the NetCDF4 (classic) format. Changes in snow drought characteristics for seven study regions around the world: the western United States, Europe, Hindu Kush and Central Asia, greater Himalayas, eastern Russia, extratropical Andes, and Patagonia are also provided in an ASCII file.

For more information about the standardized SWE index (SWEI) and the regions listed above, refer to Huning and AghaKouchak (2020a).

This collection provides one SWEI file for each study year. The following data flags/codes are used in the SWEI files:

FillValue: 9.9692e+36 (No data, i.e., missing value.)

MissingValue: Same as FillValue

NoSnowPermValue: -999 (No SWEI value is ever assigned to the grid cell. Refer to Huning and AghaKouchak (2020a).)

NoSnowTempValue: -888 (SWEI value not assigned to the grid cell during this time of the year. Refer to Huning and AghaKouchak (2020a).)

The ASCII file summarizes the change in snow drought characteristics for seven study regions around the world: the western United States, Europe, Hindu Kush and Central Asia, greater Himalayas, eastern Russia, extratropical Andes, and Patagonia. Each row in the file contains information for one of these regions. The first column lists the names of the regions. Columns 2-4 contain information related to the change in 1) total duration of snow droughts, 2) average duration of snow droughts, and 3) exceedance probability of snow drought intensity. A positive (negative) change indicates that an increase (decrease) in the respective variable occurred during the latter half of years in the period 1980-2018. Percent changes are given for both the total and average snow drought durations as the difference normalized by the value of the variable from the first half of the time period. The exceedance probability refers to the chance that the drought intensity (i.e., strength or severity of drought conditions) is greater than the average intensity from the first half of the record. Changes in the probabilities are provided as differences.

As a condition of using data from this collection, you must cite this data set/collection and the corresponding publication:

1) Huning, L.S., and AghaKouchak, A. (2020b): Global Snow Drought Data Set, figshare, Collection, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5055179.

2) Huning, L.S., and AghaKouchak, A. (2020a): Global Snow Drought Hot Spots and Characteristics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(33), 19753-19759, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1915921117.