Trends in snow persistence at the Central Pyrenees derived from 40 years of Landsat satellite images

An accurate quantification of the spatiotemporal dynamics of seasonal snow is essential for understanding and predicting the impacts of climate change on mountain regions and their feedback on global climate. This is especially critical in southernmost Mediterranean mountains such as the Pyrenees, where the extent of seasonally snow-covered zones (or persistent snow areas) are expected to decrease more abruptly than other mountain regions of the world. Here we use 40 years of Landsat satellite images (from 1984 to 2023) to study the trend in snow surface area and snow persistence (the fraction of time that the snow remains on the ground) across different spatial scales (from catchment to region) within the Central Pyrenees, Spain. In addition, snow surface data has been correlated with altitude and incident solar radiation to understand the role of topography on driving snow persistence distribution patterns.