The energy balance of snow and partially snow covered areas in western Greenland

• Published in: International Journal of Climatology
• Main Authors: Harding, R. J., Johnson, R. C., Soegaard, H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1995
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; albedo
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.3370150910; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fjoc.3370150910; https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/joc.3370150910

Abstract Surface meteorology and flux data are presented from five sites in a transect crossing a 100‐km‐wide coastal region of west Greenland. The sites cover a variety of Arctic types: snow covered, bog and arid. The measurements show a comparatively small variation of the driving variables: solar radiation, wind and humidity, but a large variation in the net radiation and surface fluxes. The net radiation is much reduced in the snow covered areas because of the high albedo, ameliorated to some extent by a reduced longwave emission. The turbulent fluxes are also small over the snow covered areas, an effect of the smooth surface and low surface temperature. The sensible heat flux at these sites is downward. The evaporation fluxes in the snow‐free areas are strongly affected by the availability of soil‐water, thus in the arid, eastern site the evaporation is small. Simple flux‐gradient equations appear to be able to describe the surface fluxes adequately, especially considering the comparatively large error in these types of data. The relevance of these data to the parameterization of Arctic surfaces in global models is discussed.