About half of the loss of average annual snowpack in the American West is attributable to 122 fossil fuel companies and cement producers, according to a new study.

In a paper in Nature’s Communications Earth and Environment journal, the study’s authors wrote that climate change has reduced critical annual snowfall by about a third and decreased the region’s streamflow by about 13 percent, according to an article on the study in Inside Climate News.

The study relied on greenhouse gas emissions tied to fossil fuels compiled by Carbon Majors, a project of InfluenceMap. The study’s authors subtracted these emissions from total emissions from 2014 to 2024 and determined their role in reducing rain and snow across the mostly arid West.