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Snow flurries

Light snow showers, usually of an intermittent nature with no measurable accumulation.

Snow, quality of

1. The ratio of heat of melting of snow, in calories per gram to the 80 calories per gram for melting pure ice at 0 degrees C. 2. Percentage by weight which is ice.

Snowline

The general altitude to which the continuous snow cover of high mountains retreats in summer, chiefly controlled by the depth of the winter snowfall and by the temperature of the summer.

Snowline, temporary

A line sometimes drawn on a weather map during the winter showing the southern limit of the snow cover.

Social Costs

Private costs plus external costs.

Sodbuster

A program created by Title 12 of the Food Security Act of 1985 designed to discourage the plowing up of erosion-prone grasslands for use as cropland. If such highly erodible land is used for crop production without proper conservation measures as laid out in a conservation plan, a producer may lose eligibility to participate in farm programs. Sodbuster provisions remain in effect under the FAIR Act of 1996.

Soil

Complex mixture of inorganic minerals (i.e., mostly clay, silt, and sand), decaying organic matter, water, air, and living organisms.

Soil carbon

A major component of the terrestrial biosphere pool in the carbon cycle. The amount of carbon in the soil is a function of the historical vegetative cover and productivity, which in turn is dependent in part upon climatic variables.

Soil conservation district

A legal subdivision of state government, with a locally elected governing body, responsible for developing and carrying out a program of soil and water conservation within a geographic boundary, usually coinciding with county lines. The nearly 3,000 districts in the United States have varying names — soil conservation districts, soil and water conservation districts, natural resources districts, resource districts, resource conservation districts.

Soil loss tolerance (T value)

For a specific soil, the maximum average annual soil loss expressed as tons per acre per year that will permit current production levels to be maintained economically and indefinitely. T values range from 2 to 5 tons per acre per year. According to the 1992 national resources inventory, about 63 million acres of highly erodible cropland are still eroding at more than their T value, including 21 million acres that are still eroding at three times T.

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