Preliminary Results of a Comparison Study Between Two Independent Snow Networks in North-Western Italian Alps (Piemonte Region)

Abstract

The snow represents a fundamental resource for hydro-power generation, irrigation, domestic and industrial water supply. The knowledge of behaviour and trends of this meteorological variable is very important for the human society and mountain system. Thus, climatologists are increasingly interested in studying changes in the intensity, frequency, duration and spatial distribution of snowfall and snow depth. Unfortunately, long instrumental climate records are usually affected by non-climatic changes (inhomogeneities), which compromise the quality of these studies. In order to analyse non-climatic biases, such as the influence of position or instrument changes due, for example, to the transition from manual to automatic measurements, we have compared the parallel measurements. The presence of two independent climate networks offers the opportunity to study the data inhomogeneity of snow records. The analyses highlight higher measured values in manned gauges respect to automatic stations. The major differences have been recorded at the beginning of the winter season, in October and April.