Snow spikes (penitentes) in the dry Andes, but not on Europa: a defense of Lliboutry's classic paper
Tall, spiky snow structures (penitentes) occur high in subtropical mountains, in the form of blades oriented east-west and tilted toward the noontime sun. By trapping sunlight, they cause a reduction of albedo by ~0.3 relative to flat snow. The formation of penitentes, explained by Lliboutry in 1954...
Published in: | Annals of Glaciology |
---|---|
Main Author: | |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Cambridge University Press
2022
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2023.12 https://doaj.org/article/4ef551591fa04a639e66579cc2616a3f |
id |
ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:4ef551591fa04a639e66579cc2616a3f |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:4ef551591fa04a639e66579cc2616a3f 2023-11-12T04:01:26+01:00 Snow spikes (penitentes) in the dry Andes, but not on Europa: a defense of Lliboutry's classic paper Stephen G. Warren 2022-09-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2023.12 https://doaj.org/article/4ef551591fa04a639e66579cc2616a3f EN eng Cambridge University Press https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0260305523000125/type/journal_article https://doaj.org/toc/0260-3055 https://doaj.org/toc/1727-5644 doi:10.1017/aog.2023.12 0260-3055 1727-5644 https://doaj.org/article/4ef551591fa04a639e66579cc2616a3f Annals of Glaciology, Vol 63, Pp 62-66 (2022) Albedo Europa ice penitentes snow sublimation surface roughness Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999 article 2022 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2023.12 2023-10-15T00:35:59Z Tall, spiky snow structures (penitentes) occur high in subtropical mountains, in the form of blades oriented east-west and tilted toward the noontime sun. By trapping sunlight, they cause a reduction of albedo by ~0.3 relative to flat snow. The formation of penitentes, explained by Lliboutry in 1954, requires weather conditions allowing the troughs to deepen rapidly by melting while the peaks remain dry and cold by sublimation, losing little mass, because of the 8.5-fold difference in latent heats. Lliboutry's explanation has been misrepresented in some recent publications. A concern has been raised that in the low latitudes of Jupiter's moon Europa, the ice surface may have developed penitentes, which would pose a hazard to a lander. They would require a different mechanism of formation, because Europa is too cold for melting to occur. If penitentes are present on Europa, they cannot be resolved by the coarse-resolution satellite images available now, but the high albedo of Europa (~0.7 at visible wavelengths) argues against the existence of such extreme roughness. Article in Journal/Newspaper Annals of Glaciology Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Annals of Glaciology 1 5 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Albedo Europa ice penitentes snow sublimation surface roughness Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999 |
spellingShingle |
Albedo Europa ice penitentes snow sublimation surface roughness Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999 Stephen G. Warren Snow spikes (penitentes) in the dry Andes, but not on Europa: a defense of Lliboutry's classic paper |
topic_facet |
Albedo Europa ice penitentes snow sublimation surface roughness Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999 |
description |
Tall, spiky snow structures (penitentes) occur high in subtropical mountains, in the form of blades oriented east-west and tilted toward the noontime sun. By trapping sunlight, they cause a reduction of albedo by ~0.3 relative to flat snow. The formation of penitentes, explained by Lliboutry in 1954, requires weather conditions allowing the troughs to deepen rapidly by melting while the peaks remain dry and cold by sublimation, losing little mass, because of the 8.5-fold difference in latent heats. Lliboutry's explanation has been misrepresented in some recent publications. A concern has been raised that in the low latitudes of Jupiter's moon Europa, the ice surface may have developed penitentes, which would pose a hazard to a lander. They would require a different mechanism of formation, because Europa is too cold for melting to occur. If penitentes are present on Europa, they cannot be resolved by the coarse-resolution satellite images available now, but the high albedo of Europa (~0.7 at visible wavelengths) argues against the existence of such extreme roughness. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Stephen G. Warren |
author_facet |
Stephen G. Warren |
author_sort |
Stephen G. Warren |
title |
Snow spikes (penitentes) in the dry Andes, but not on Europa: a defense of Lliboutry's classic paper |
title_short |
Snow spikes (penitentes) in the dry Andes, but not on Europa: a defense of Lliboutry's classic paper |
title_full |
Snow spikes (penitentes) in the dry Andes, but not on Europa: a defense of Lliboutry's classic paper |
title_fullStr |
Snow spikes (penitentes) in the dry Andes, but not on Europa: a defense of Lliboutry's classic paper |
title_full_unstemmed |
Snow spikes (penitentes) in the dry Andes, but not on Europa: a defense of Lliboutry's classic paper |
title_sort |
snow spikes (penitentes) in the dry andes, but not on europa: a defense of lliboutry's classic paper |
publisher |
Cambridge University Press |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2023.12 https://doaj.org/article/4ef551591fa04a639e66579cc2616a3f |
genre |
Annals of Glaciology |
genre_facet |
Annals of Glaciology |
op_source |
Annals of Glaciology, Vol 63, Pp 62-66 (2022) |
op_relation |
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0260305523000125/type/journal_article https://doaj.org/toc/0260-3055 https://doaj.org/toc/1727-5644 doi:10.1017/aog.2023.12 0260-3055 1727-5644 https://doaj.org/article/4ef551591fa04a639e66579cc2616a3f |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2023.12 |
container_title |
Annals of Glaciology |
container_start_page |
1 |
op_container_end_page |
5 |
_version_ |
1782332557712424960 |