Unusual retreat and advance of polar air mass over Mt. Chokai based on 8000-hour temperature records beneath the very deep snow cover from two memory-type thermometers during 1986/87

• Main Author: Iwao Tsuchiya
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Agriculture, Kagawa University 1989
• Subjects: Haru; Polar meteorology and glaciology; Proceedings of the NIPR Symposium on Polar Meteorology and Glaciology
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=3577; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00003577/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=3577&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

Before the snowfall season of 1986,two high-resolution memory-type thermometers were placed at a location in the snow patch vegetation zone in Mt. Chokai, Japan. They were collected after the snow-melting in summer of 1987 to obtain the temperature records of bottom snow and sub-surface ground beneath the very deep snow cover. In the two series of temperature records for 8000 hours, an abrupt change of temperature was recognized as an influence of a stormy warm weather event called "Haru (spring) Ichiban (the first time)". These two thermometers have recorded the indications of an unusual retreat and advance of polar air mass beneath the deep snow of ten or more meters during the late winter season. A transient heat transfer by snow-melt water due to an unusual warm event is a major factor in the abrupt snow temperature change.