The paper's summary states:

Snow is critical in sustaining human life. It provides water and plays a key role in the climate through its unrivaled power to cool the Earth. It is also changing rapidly. To date, a full financial evaluation of the importance of snow in our lives has not been made, but computations here and elsewhere indicate it is on the order of trillions of dollars. Against this value, the current costs of scientific research are trivial. We provide a strong rationale and guidelines for accelerated snow research that will allow society to make major impending decisions related to snow resources on the soundest base and best scientific knowledge.

Want to learn more? Check out the full paper at Water Resources Research.