Climate change is causing the snow cover to shrink in many places, research shows. And it will get worse

DENVER (AP) - River basins around the world that were once regularly covered in snow are increasingly seeing their snowpack shrink and climate change is to blame, a new study shows.

"Many of the world's most densely populated basins are on the brink of rapid snowfall," concluded the study of snow amounts since 1981 in the Wednesday journal Nature.

That's because the study found a key threshold for the future of snowpacks in the Northern Hemisphere: 17.6 degrees (-8 degrees Celsius). In places where the winter temperature is colder on average, the snow pack often survives because it is cold ...