Characteristics of heat balance during the snowmelt season in Ny-Alesund, Spitsbergen Island (scientific paper)

• Main Authors: Hironori Nakabayashi, Yuji Kodama, Yukari Takeuchi, Toshihiro Ozeki, Nobuyoshi Ishikawa
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Japan Weather Association 1996
• Subjects: Ny-Ålesund; Memoirs of National Institute of Polar Research; Ny Ålesund; Polar Research; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=2289; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00002289/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=2289&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

Heat balance observations were carried out at Ny-Ålesund, Spitsbergen Island during the snowmelt seasons in 1993 and 1994 in order to understand characteristics of heat balance at high latitude by comparing heat balance components at the snow surface before and after snowmelt initiation. In the snowmelt period, air temperature was higher than that in the pre-snowmelt period. Mean air temperature in the snowmelt period was about +3∿4℃, and daily minimum temperature never fell below 0℃. Water vapor pressure was also higher than that in the pre-period. Albedo of the snow surface was relatively high, and remained higher than 0.65 even in the snowmelt period. The main snowmelt heat source was net radiation in both years. Net radiation in the snowmelt period was about 20Wm^<-2> larger than that in the pre-snowmelt period; however, the shortwave radiation budget was almost constant. Heat loss by the longwave radiation budget in the snowmelt period was less than that in the pre-period and consequently net radiation increased. The reason for the decrease of heat loss by the longwave radiation budget was the increase of atmospheric radiation accompanied by a decrease in solar radiation.