Snow properties at the forest–tundra ecotone: predominance of water vapor fluxes even in deep, moderately cold snowpacks

The forest–tundra ecotone is a large circumpolar transition zone between the Arctic tundra and the boreal forest, where snow properties are spatially variable due to changing vegetation. The extent of this biome through all circumpolar regions influences the climate. In the forest–tundra ecotone nea...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Cryosphere
Main Authors: G. Lackner, F. Domine, D. F. Nadeau, M. Lafaysse, M. Dumont
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-3357-2022
https://doaj.org/article/8a3c44a330034d16869a74da08fd85a2
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Summary:The forest–tundra ecotone is a large circumpolar transition zone between the Arctic tundra and the boreal forest, where snow properties are spatially variable due to changing vegetation. The extent of this biome through all circumpolar regions influences the climate. In the forest–tundra ecotone near Umiujaq in northeastern Canada ( <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mn mathvariant="normal">56</mn><msup><mi/><mo>∘</mo></msup><msup><mn mathvariant="normal">33</mn><mo>′</mo></msup><msup><mn mathvariant="normal">31</mn><mrow><mo>′′</mo></mrow></msup></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="51pt" height="11pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="f1db1439419f1c115d33170bc9fc3b0e"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="tc-16-3357-2022-ie00001.svg" width="51pt" height="11pt" src="tc-16-3357-2022-ie00001.png"/></svg:svg> N, <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M2" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mn mathvariant="normal">76</mn><msup><mi/><mo>∘</mo></msup><msup><mn mathvariant="normal">28</mn><mo>′</mo></msup><msup><mn mathvariant="normal">56</mn><mrow><mo>′′</mo></mrow></msup></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="51pt" height="11pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="5933117e795b4e341763bad4c5c10a2e"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="tc-16-3357-2022-ie00002.svg" width="51pt" height="11pt" src="tc-16-3357-2022-ie00002.png"/></svg:svg> W), we contrast the snow properties between two sites, TUNDRA (located in a low-shrub tundra) and ...