DECEMBER 2006 LISTON AND ELDER 1259 A Distributed Snow-Evolution Modeling System (SnowModel)

• Main Authors: Glen E. Liston, Kelly Elder
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: taiga; Tundra
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.365.424; http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2006_liston_g001.pdf

SnowModel is a spatially distributed snow-evolution modeling system designed for application in landscapes, climates, and conditions where snow occurs. It is an aggregation of four submodels: MicroMet defines meteorological forcing conditions, EnBal calculates surface energy exchanges, SnowPack simulates snow depth and water-equivalent evolution, and SnowTran-3D accounts for snow redistribution by wind. Since each of these submodels was originally developed and tested for nonforested conditions, details describing modifications made to the submodels for forested areas are provided. SnowModel was created to run on grid increments of 1 to 200 m and temporal increments of 10 min to 1 day. It can also be applied using much larger grid increments, if the inherent loss in high-resolution (subgrid) information is acceptable. Simulated processes include snow accumulation; blowing-snow redistribution and sublimation; forest canopy interception, unloading, and sublimation; snow-density evolution; and snowpack melt. Conceptually, SnowModel includes the first-order physics required to simulate snow evolution within each of the global snow classes (i.e., ice, tundra, taiga, alpine/mountain, prairie, maritime, and ephemeral). The required model inputs are 1) temporally varying fields of precipitation, wind speed and direction, air temperature, and relative humidity obtained from meteorological stations and/or an atmospheric model located