SNOW ACCUMULATION HIGHER THAN THOUGHT.

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There is a lot more snow piling up in the mountains of North America than anyone knew, according to a study published in Geophysical Research Letters, as scientists have revised an estimate of snow volume for the entire continent, having discovered that snow accumulation in a typical year is 50% higher than previously thought.

Researchers at Ohio State University, Columbus, place the yearly estimate at about 1,200 cubic miles of snow accumulation. If spread evenly across the surface of the continent from Canada to Mexico, the snow would measure a little over 7.5 inches deep.

Most of the snow accumulates atop the Canadian Rockies and 10 other mountain ranges. While these mountains compose just one-quarter of the continent's land area, they hold 60% of the snow.

"There's a lot more snow in the mountains than we previously thought," says lead author Melissa Wrzesien, doctoral student in earth science. 'That suggests that mountain snow plays a much larger role in the continental water budget than we knew."

It currently is impossible to measure directly how much water is on the planet, maintains Michael Durand, associate...