Seasonal and annual Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent (12-month running average), with a simple linear trend line. The declining trend in spring and summer that is expected from earlier and stronger melting in a warming world overwhelms the smaller increasing trend from increased precipitation in fall and winter, leading to a total decline in snow extent of 1.3 million square kilometers from 1972 to 2010, or 34,000 square kilometers decline per year on average. Data are from the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab's Snow Extent Climate Data Record. Monthly and weekly data (subsetted by continent) are available in table format.
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