Climate change is occurring faster than predicted across the Snowy Mountains, but little research is being funded by governments and universities to track its impact, scientists say.
CSIRO climate modelling predicts an 8 per cent decline in rain and snowfall across the mountains by 2020, with an average temperature rise of up to 1 degree.
Under this ''worst-case'' trend, temperature would rise by 2.6 degrees by 2050, with a 97 per cent loss of snow cover lasting at least two months.
But studies of snow records by NSW parks scientist Ken Green show average snow depths in some areas are already tracking at, or close to, levels predicted for 2020.
''We've arrived roughly a decade before we were supposed to get there,'' he said.
The earliest scientific studies warning of the impacts of climate change on the Snowy Mountains were published around 25 years ago. But there has been no co-ordinated national research effort to assess the environmental, economic or social effects on a region that attracts more than three million tourists a year.
Dr Green's research on climate change and declining snow depths was largely conducted, analysed and written up for journal publication in his spare time.
''There tends not to be a lot of interest in the ecology of snow in Australia because we have so little of it. Snow cover on the mainland last about two months, and falls over an area that's less than 0.02 per cent of the continent.''
This is the third in a series of special reports by
Science and Environment Reporter Rosslyn Beeby. Read the full story in todays' Canberra Times