Snowpatch nomenclature and definitions for a changing climate

Long-lying snow (snowpatches) has come under increased scrutiny for its role in alpine and high latitude environments, and as a marker of climate change. Multiple disciplines researching different aspects over many decades has led to an inconsistent and conflicting nomenclature and definitions, impeding cross-disciplinary collaboration and understanding. Scientific endeavour increasingly involves researcher collaboration, success relying on an agreed shared terminology and ontology. We present a rationalisation and simplification of the existing nomenclature and terminology, advocating wider cross-disciplinary adoption of the word snowpatch, defining a snowpatch from residual snowpack by its effect on its local environment. We advocate longevity as the most effective means to discriminate snowpatches of different types, proposing novel limits for the established qualifiers seasonal, semi-perennial and perennial, providing a clearer discrimination between them, permitting better quantification and tracking over time, and enabling greater insights into climate driven changes in snowpatch dependent vegetation communities, nivation processes and local hydrology.