According to current computer models, snow cover should have been decreasing year-on-year since the mid-20th century. The models make this claim because of global warming. They also predict that this trend will continue and even accelerate. They suggest that soon many countries will no longer experience snow.
But, what has actually happened to snow cover?
In this video, we compare the claims of the computer models to the observed historical records. We find the models got it wrong for all four seasons.
Relevant links:
For the relevant discussion on snow cover in the IPCC’s latest (2021) assessment report, see Section 2.3.2.2 “Terrestrial Snow Cover” in Chapter 2 of Working Group 1’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6): https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-2/
The paper by Connolly et al. discussed in the video is as follows: R. Connolly, M. Connolly, W. Soon, D.R. Legates, R.G. Cionco and V. M. Velasco Herrera (2019). “Northern hemisphere snow-cover trends (1967-2018): A comparison between climate models and observations”. Geosciences, 9(3), 135. Link here: https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9030135