Snowmelt

Longwave radiation is received by the snowpack from many sources, including ozone, carbon dioxide, and water vapor present in all levels of the atmosphere.

Latent temperature flux is the energy removed from or delivered to the snowpack which accompanies the mass transfers of evaporation, sublimation, or condensation.

The snow does not melt slower gradually with distance from the trunk, but rather creates a wall surrounding snow-free ground around it.

They can emerge earlier inside these circles, what gives them more time before development of tree canopy foliage cutting off significant portion of the light.

[4] The snow melts earlier in forest also for example on microtopographic mounds (small elevations) or in wet places like edges of creeks or in seeps.

Colder temperatures downstream can also potentially lead to freezing of water as it flows north, thus augmenting the ice dam problem.

In order to determine whether the earlier disappearance of spring snow cover in northern Alaska is related to global warming versus an appearance of a more natural, continual cycle of the climate, further study and monitoring is necessary.

A study of the mountains in the western United States show a region wide decline in spring snow-pack since the mid-1900s, dominated by loss at low elevations where winter temperatures are near freezing.