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ASSESSMENT OF THE LONG TERM VARIABILITY OF THE SNOW COVER IN THE VITOSHA MOUNTAIN
Abstract
Snow cover is an important factor in mountainous regions regarding water resources, vegetation and economic issues for the ski and spa resorts. Snow is also an indicator of the fluctuating climate, resulting from the change in the regime of winter precipitation and air temperature. This study is focused on the changes in the regime of the snow cover in the Vitosha mountain. The monthly values of number of days with snow cover, seasonal maximums and monthly averages of the snow cover from 5 meteorological stations with altitudes ranging from about 800 up to almost 3000 m a.s.l. are used in the study. The main period of investigation is 1935-2017. This time frame spans three reference climatological periods – 1931-1960, 1961-1990 and 1991-2020. However, not all of stations have the full 82 years of records but 4 of them have data sets longer than 50 years. Statistical analysis is performed in order to assess the variability and possible differences in the investigated snow cover parameters from long-term data series for the three climatological periods. Statistically significant decreasing tendencies in the snow cover duration and seasonal maxima have been discovered for the highest regions of the mountain (above 1800) but surprisingly only slightly decreasing trends in these characteristics have been found for the altitudes beneath. An attempt to estimate a vertical gradient for the surveyed snow parameters, based on the common time period (1955-1989), has been also made. This investigation is part of a common project for investigation of the current variability of the snow cover and winter precipitations in the mountain regions of Austria and Bulgaria and is funded by the Bulgarian National Science Fund and the Austria's Agency for Education and Internationalisation in the call of the bilateral program Scientific and Technological Cooperation between both countries.
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References7
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