Snowfall and snowmelt estimates for modern and last glacial conditions within the Owens Valley, California

We estimate monthly snowfall, snowmelt, and resulting snowpack for a two-dimensional solution domain which includes California's Owens Valley. A statically-based local climate model computes monthly temperature and precipitation for a 160 by 290 km domain at a 2 km grid cell spacing for last glacial maximum (LGM) and present boundary conditions. The fraction of monthly precipitation that falls as snow is computed as the double integral of a bivariate normal distribution in temperature and log precipitation. We use the methodology of Martinec et al (1983) to compute monthly snowmelt. The snow model computes monthly snowfall, snowmelt, and resulting snowpack at each grid cell, and it estimates the densification of perennial snowpack and its transformation into gracial ice when appropriate. The model proceeds year-by-year until monthly snow and ice total equilibrate.