I think this is strongly related to what is happening in the Laptev and ESS this year (and the record-breaking heat YTD in Northern Siberia). We have seen a signal for a snowier Himalayas in recent years however we have been unable to verify whether it is noise or actually accurate, as many of the websites whose data we use for SWE / extent is not accessible beyond what we have recorded here on ASIF. There has been much speculation that I certainly agreed with that the Himalayan data may have been wrong or incorrect.
I took a look at June-July (to date -- 6/1-7/12) temp anomalies since and including 2010. One of these years is not like the others across Eurasia, in fact, the temperature anomalies in the Himalayas this year are downright frigid and ranging up to 8C below normal in peak summertime -- I can't imagine that is doing wonders for snow levels, and I would also imagine all that extra remaining +SWE in the highest altitudes of the Plateau / ranges is helping to seed the worsening summer rainfall event over Western China as incoming airmasses move overtop the mountains.
At the same time as the increased precipitation in this region is driving more year-round depth and extent in the Himalayas this year, it is having another major impact. I would wager the excess albedo at such low latitudes is having a profound impact on polar heat transport and is likely to dramatically accelerate the process. Such widespread temperature departures comport to negative -500MB anomalies which basically means there is an increasingly less temporary area of polar vorticity atop the Himalayas now gaining relative strength to the primary gyre in the Arctic.
As we see more heat accumulate in the Indian Ocean and this is transported northwards, more snows fall in the high Himalayas, dragging down the snow line, and INCREASING the efficiency of the heat transport as we head deeper into the year. Basically, as we see more snow linger in high elevations and low latitudes, the enhanced baroclinic gradient is going to send more and more of the surrounding continental and oceanic heat (ever-more amplified by our ever-rising GHGs) northward into the primary polar cell, ultimately destroying it earlier and earlier each and every year. The other anomalous patches of continental snowfall in North America are having the same impact, IMO, and while the impact shifts regionally year over year it is now seemingly WORSENING as a whole which is becoming a driving contributor to Arctic amplification.
For the time of year, Eurasian SWE is apparently now a month behind normal... which comports very well with the anomaly map. While 200KM^3 of volume may not sound like a lot, when it is distributed atop the mid/low-latitudes at peak insolation.... that is a lot of disparity now relative to the old regime, especially with all the albedo loss in the Arctic! (PS, the +200KM^3 of volume is apparently worth about a million extra KM^2 in area!)
Also -- oren -- please feel free to move this to "snowfall" but I felt this was very relevant and a definite cause of our predicament in the High Arctic this year / will be a major contributing factor in warming up north moving forward.
PPS: July to date in particular has been.... surprisingly frigid (
)... in Arctic-adjacent Siberia. A whole lot of good that cold is doing for the ice....
<I will let it stay this time, but normally such long discussions which are mostly about something else would best be served in a more relevant thread, in this case the "snow" thread. O>