Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover
Abstract. The representation of snow processes in most large-scale hydrological and climate models is known to introduce considerable uncertainty into the predictions and projections of water availability. During the critical snowmelt period, the main challenge in snow modeling is that net radiation...
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Copernicus Publications under license by EGU – European Geosciences Union GmbH
2022
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10852/100958 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4319-2022 |
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ftoslouniv:oai:www.duo.uio.no:10852/100958 2023-05-15T18:32:09+02:00 Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover ENEngelskEnglishUnderstanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover Van Der Valk, Luuk D. Teuling, Adriaan J. Girod, Luc Pirk, Norbert Stoffer, Robin Van Heerwaarden, Chiel C. 2022-12-07T08:51:48Z http://hdl.handle.net/10852/100958 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4319-2022 EN eng Copernicus Publications under license by EGU – European Geosciences Union GmbH Van Der Valk, Luuk D. Teuling, Adriaan J. Girod, Luc Pirk, Norbert Stoffer, Robin Van Heerwaarden, Chiel C. . Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover. The Cryosphere. 2022, 16(10), 4319-4341 http://hdl.handle.net/10852/100958 2089803 info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.jtitle=The Cryosphere&rft.volume=16&rft.spage=4319&rft.date=2022 The Cryosphere 16 10 4319 4341 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4319-2022 Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY 1994-0416 Journal article Tidsskriftartikkel Peer reviewed PublishedVersion 2022 ftoslouniv https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4319-2022 2023-03-08T23:36:47Z Abstract. The representation of snow processes in most large-scale hydrological and climate models is known to introduce considerable uncertainty into the predictions and projections of water availability. During the critical snowmelt period, the main challenge in snow modeling is that net radiation is spatially highly variable for a patchy snow cover, resulting in large horizontal differences in temperatures and heat fluxes. When a wind blows over such a system, these differences can drive advection of sensible and latent heat from the snow-free areas to the snow patches, potentially enhancing the melt rates at the leading edge and increasing the variability of subgrid melt rates. To get more insight into these processes, we examine the melt along the upwind and downwind edges of a 50 m long snow patch in the Finseelvi catchment, Norway, and try to explain the observed behavior with idealized simulations of heat fluxes and air movement over patchy snow. The melt of the snow patch was monitored from 11 June until 15 June 2019 by making use of height maps obtained through the photogrammetric structure-from-motion principle. A vertical melt of 23 ± 2.0 cm was observed at the upwind edge over the course of the field campaign, whereas the downwind edge melted only 3 ± 0.4 cm. When comparing this with meteorological measurements, we estimate the turbulent heat fluxes to be responsible for 60 % to 80 % of the upwind melt, of which a significant part is caused by the latent heat flux. The melt at the downwind edge approximately matches the melt occurring due to net radiation. To better understand the dominant processes, we represented this behavior in idealized direct numerical simulations, which are based on the measurements on a single snow patch by Harder et al. (2017) and resemble a flat, patchy snow cover with typical snow patch sizes of 15, 30, and 60 m. Using these simulations, we found that the reduction of the vertical temperature gradient over the snow patch was the main cause of the reductions in vertical ... Article in Journal/Newspaper The Cryosphere Universitet i Oslo: Digitale utgivelser ved UiO (DUO) Norway The Cryosphere 16 10 4319 4341 |
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Open Polar |
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Universitet i Oslo: Digitale utgivelser ved UiO (DUO) |
op_collection_id |
ftoslouniv |
language |
English |
description |
Abstract. The representation of snow processes in most large-scale hydrological and climate models is known to introduce considerable uncertainty into the predictions and projections of water availability. During the critical snowmelt period, the main challenge in snow modeling is that net radiation is spatially highly variable for a patchy snow cover, resulting in large horizontal differences in temperatures and heat fluxes. When a wind blows over such a system, these differences can drive advection of sensible and latent heat from the snow-free areas to the snow patches, potentially enhancing the melt rates at the leading edge and increasing the variability of subgrid melt rates. To get more insight into these processes, we examine the melt along the upwind and downwind edges of a 50 m long snow patch in the Finseelvi catchment, Norway, and try to explain the observed behavior with idealized simulations of heat fluxes and air movement over patchy snow. The melt of the snow patch was monitored from 11 June until 15 June 2019 by making use of height maps obtained through the photogrammetric structure-from-motion principle. A vertical melt of 23 ± 2.0 cm was observed at the upwind edge over the course of the field campaign, whereas the downwind edge melted only 3 ± 0.4 cm. When comparing this with meteorological measurements, we estimate the turbulent heat fluxes to be responsible for 60 % to 80 % of the upwind melt, of which a significant part is caused by the latent heat flux. The melt at the downwind edge approximately matches the melt occurring due to net radiation. To better understand the dominant processes, we represented this behavior in idealized direct numerical simulations, which are based on the measurements on a single snow patch by Harder et al. (2017) and resemble a flat, patchy snow cover with typical snow patch sizes of 15, 30, and 60 m. Using these simulations, we found that the reduction of the vertical temperature gradient over the snow patch was the main cause of the reductions in vertical ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Van Der Valk, Luuk D. Teuling, Adriaan J. Girod, Luc Pirk, Norbert Stoffer, Robin Van Heerwaarden, Chiel C. |
spellingShingle |
Van Der Valk, Luuk D. Teuling, Adriaan J. Girod, Luc Pirk, Norbert Stoffer, Robin Van Heerwaarden, Chiel C. Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover |
author_facet |
Van Der Valk, Luuk D. Teuling, Adriaan J. Girod, Luc Pirk, Norbert Stoffer, Robin Van Heerwaarden, Chiel C. |
author_sort |
Van Der Valk, Luuk D. |
title |
Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover |
title_short |
Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover |
title_full |
Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover |
title_fullStr |
Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover |
title_full_unstemmed |
Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover |
title_sort |
understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications under license by EGU – European Geosciences Union GmbH |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10852/100958 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4319-2022 |
geographic |
Norway |
geographic_facet |
Norway |
genre |
The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
The Cryosphere |
op_source |
1994-0416 |
op_relation |
Van Der Valk, Luuk D. Teuling, Adriaan J. Girod, Luc Pirk, Norbert Stoffer, Robin Van Heerwaarden, Chiel C. . Understanding wind-driven melt of patchy snow cover. The Cryosphere. 2022, 16(10), 4319-4341 http://hdl.handle.net/10852/100958 2089803 info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.jtitle=The Cryosphere&rft.volume=16&rft.spage=4319&rft.date=2022 The Cryosphere 16 10 4319 4341 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4319-2022 |
op_rights |
Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4319-2022 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
10 |
container_start_page |
4319 |
op_container_end_page |
4341 |
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1766216203847598080 |