Claim: Dr. Gutzler said spring temperatures have an impact, too, with warmer air causing more snow to turn to vapor and essentially disappear.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: Warmer air holds more water vapor.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: Further examples include sea level rise, widespread melting of snow and land ice, increased heat content of the oceans, increased humidity, and the earlier timing of spring events, such as the flowering of plants.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: Because of this temperature difference, warmth and moisture are transported upward, condensing into vertically oriented clouds (see satellite picture) which produce snow showers.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: Moisture is removed by orographic lift, leaving drier, warmer air on the descending, leeward side.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 1
Passage: As the water vapor condenses into liquid, latent heat is released, which warms the air, causing it to become less dense than the surrounding, drier air.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: Warmer winter temperatures cause a decrease in snowpack, which can result in diminished water resources during summer.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: observed that snow cover exhibited the greatest influence on the Earth radiative balance in the spring (April to May) period when incoming solar radiation was greatest over snow-covered areas.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: Climate change may cause variations in both temperature and snowfall, resulting in changes in mass balance.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover should exhibit a decreasing trend to explain an observed increase in Northern Hemisphere spring air temperatures this century.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: The “climate forcing due to snow/ice albedo change is of the order of 1.0 W/m at middle- and high-latitude land areas in the Northern Hemisphere and over the Arctic Ocean.” The “soot effect on snow albedo may be responsible for a quarter of observed global warming.” “Soot deposition increases surface melt on ice masses, and the meltwater spurs multiple radiative and dynamical feedback processes that accelerate ice disintegration,” according to NASA scientists James Hansen and Larissa Nazarenko.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: While snow and ice act to insulate the surface from large energy losses in winter, they also act to retard warming in the spring and summer because of the large amount of energy required to melt ice (the latent heat of fusion, 3.34 x 105 J/kg at 0 °C).

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: The higher albedos for snow and ice cause rapid shifts in surface reflectivity in autumn and spring in high latitudes, but the overall climatic significance of this increase is spatially and temporally modulated by cloud cover.

Relevance (1 = gold evidence, 0 = mined hard negative): 0
Passage: Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates, between autumn and spring.