Homogenization of snow data for robust snow climatology in the Alps (Hom4Snow)

Like with any other climate time series there is a high probability that longterm snow series are affected by inhomogeneities through changes in either the station location, observer personal or measurement practices. Surprisingly, in contrast to temperature and precipitation there has been almost no effort so far to develop methods to adjust snow series, despite the sometimes obvious signal of an inhomogeneity. This is where our proposed research project aims to break new ground through developing innovative methods for the homogenization of longterm snow series and to demonstrate the impact of such adjustments on trends, climatologies and climate sensitivity. By doing so, the project intends to serve as a best practice study for the state of the art homogenisation of snow series as the basis for proper time series analysis. Finally, we also plan to derive robust snow-climate indicators from the homogenized data in order to produce a sound spatiotemperoral trend statistics.