Justin T. Martin Gregory T. Pederson David B. McWethy Spruce W. Schoenemann 2020 <p><span>In recent decades, Rocky Mountain accumulated snowpack levels have experienced rapid declines, yet long-term records of snowpack prior to the installation of snowpack observation stations in the early and mid 20th century are limited. To date, a small number of tree-ring based reconstructions of April 1 Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in the northern Rocky Mountains have extended modern records of snowpack variability to ∼1200 C.E. Carbonate isotope lake sediment records, provide an opportunity to further extend tree-ring based reconstructions through the Holocene, providing a millennial-scale temporal record that allows for an evaluation of multi-scale drivers of snowpack variability, from internal climate dynamics to orbital-scale forcings. Here we present a ∼2200 year preliminary reconstruction of northern Rockies snowpack based on δ</span>¹⁸<span>O measurements of sediment carbonates collected from Foy Lake, Montana. We explore the statistical calibration of lake sediment δ</span>¹⁸<span>O to an annually resolved snowpack reconstruction from tree rings, and develop an approach to assess and quantify potential sources of error in this reconstruction approach. The sediment-based snowpack reconstruction shows strong low-frequency variability in snowpack over the last two millennia with few snow droughts approaching the magnitude of recent snowpack declines. Given the growing availability of high-resolution, carbonate-rich lake sediment records, such reconstructions could help improve our understanding of how snowpack conditions varied under previous climatic events (mid-Holocene climate optimum ca. 9−6 ka), providing critical insights for anticipating future snowpack conditions.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1016/j.qsa.2020.100013 en Elsevier 2,200-Year tree-ring and lake-sediment based snowpack reconstruction for the northern Rocky Mountains highlights the historic magnitude of recent snow drought article