What would Hawaii be like without snow? The question might confuse a tourist. But it’s a real concern.

Scientists believe that climate change could bring an end to the picturesque snowfalls on the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa by 2100, according to a story in the Hawaii Tribune Herald.

Chunxi Zhang, a University of Hawaii-Manoa researcher, and his team reported in the journal Earth’s Future that a warming atmosphere would bring more rain in some areas, less in others, and less snow in general.

There’s some irony in this. Sensors atop Mauna Loa, set up about 60 years ago, provided some of the earliest hard evidence that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are steadily increasing. Would that those warnings were heeded sooner.