Pollution could be causing less snowfall

Urban air pollution might be reducing rainfall in parts of California while trimming mountain snowfall that supplies much of the state’s drinking and irrigation water and hydroelectric power, a Stanford University professor’s study shows.

Researchers at the University of Nevada’s Desert Research Institute reported similar findings earlier this year by measuring snow from actual winter storms in the Rocky Mountains. Pollution-contaminated clouds produced half as much snow, and what fell contained 25 percent less water and had as little as half the mass of its pristine counterpart, the study found.