Snow Cover Analysis of Turkey comparing to Historical Climate Scenarios of CMIP5 and CMIP6 protocols

Profound changes have been observed in the precipitation pattern of Turkey due to climate change during the last decade. This variation in precipitation pattern affects the amount of snow cover and the temporal and spatial distribution of snow. In addition, significant variability was observed in the initial time of snowmelt that water resources, especially groundwater, might be adversely affected. On the other hand, this adverse effect in snow cover is also crucial for Turkey's winter sports tourism. For this reason, the study aims to analyze the historical simulation results of climate models (MIROC5 and MIROC6; CanESM2 and CanESM5; and GISS-E2-H and GISS-E2-1-H) based on CMIP5 and CMIP6 protocols depending on snow cover variables and compare the consistency of these models with observations. Probability distribution functions of surface snow area fraction and snowfall flux variables over ten-year periods were analyzed. In addition, the frost days index (ECAFD), Ice days index (ECAID), and very cold days (ECATX10P) index were also analyzed. As a preliminary result, it was found that the snow cover values of the CMIP6 protocol climate models were more consistent with the observations.