Warm-air entrainment and advection during alpine blowing snow events
Blowing snow transport has considerable impact on the hydrological cycle in alpine regions both through the redistribution of the seasonal snowpack and through sublimation back into the atmosphere. Alpine energy and mass balances are typically modeled with time-averaged approximations of sensible an...
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2020
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2795-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/2795/2020/tc-14-2795-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/f7036065217747c793da0a5baa6aaba5 |
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fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:f7036065217747c793da0a5baa6aaba5 2023-05-15T18:32:18+02:00 Warm-air entrainment and advection during alpine blowing snow events N. O. Aksamit J. W. Pomeroy 2020-09-01 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2795-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/2795/2020/tc-14-2795-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/f7036065217747c793da0a5baa6aaba5 en eng Copernicus Publications doi:10.5194/tc-14-2795-2020 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/2795/2020/tc-14-2795-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/f7036065217747c793da0a5baa6aaba5 undefined The Cryosphere, Vol 14, Pp 2795-2807 (2020) geo envir Journal Article https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_6501/ 2020 fttriple https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2795-2020 2023-01-22T19:28:45Z Blowing snow transport has considerable impact on the hydrological cycle in alpine regions both through the redistribution of the seasonal snowpack and through sublimation back into the atmosphere. Alpine energy and mass balances are typically modeled with time-averaged approximations of sensible and latent heat fluxes. This oversimplifies nonstationary turbulent mixing in complex terrain and may overlook important exchange processes for hydrometeorological prediction. To determine if specific turbulent motions are responsible for warm- and dry-air advection during blowing snow events, quadrant analysis and variable interval time averaging was used to investigate turbulent time series from the Fortress Mountain Snow Laboratory alpine study site in the Canadian Rockies, Alberta, Canada, during the winter of 2015–2016. By analyzing wind velocity and sonic temperature time series with concurrent blowing snow, such turbulent motions were found to supply substantial sensible heat to near-surface wind flows. These motions were responsible for temperature fluctuations of up to 1 ∘C, a considerable change for energy balance estimation. A simple scaling relationship was derived that related the frequency of dominant downdraft and updraft events to their duration and local variance. This allows for the first parameterization of entrained or advected energy for time-averaged representations of blowing snow sublimation and suggests that advection can strongly reduce thermodynamic feedbacks between blowing snow sublimation and the near-surface atmosphere. The downdraft and updraft scaling relationship described herein provides a significant step towards a more physically based blowing snow sublimation model with more realistic mixing of atmospheric heat. Additionally, calculations of return frequencies and event durations provide a field-measurement context for recent findings of nonstationarity impacts on sublimation rates. Article in Journal/Newspaper The Cryosphere Unknown Canada The Fortress ENVELOPE(160.917,160.917,-77.300,-77.300) The Cryosphere 14 9 2795 2807 |
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English |
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geo envir |
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geo envir N. O. Aksamit J. W. Pomeroy Warm-air entrainment and advection during alpine blowing snow events |
topic_facet |
geo envir |
description |
Blowing snow transport has considerable impact on the hydrological cycle in alpine regions both through the redistribution of the seasonal snowpack and through sublimation back into the atmosphere. Alpine energy and mass balances are typically modeled with time-averaged approximations of sensible and latent heat fluxes. This oversimplifies nonstationary turbulent mixing in complex terrain and may overlook important exchange processes for hydrometeorological prediction. To determine if specific turbulent motions are responsible for warm- and dry-air advection during blowing snow events, quadrant analysis and variable interval time averaging was used to investigate turbulent time series from the Fortress Mountain Snow Laboratory alpine study site in the Canadian Rockies, Alberta, Canada, during the winter of 2015–2016. By analyzing wind velocity and sonic temperature time series with concurrent blowing snow, such turbulent motions were found to supply substantial sensible heat to near-surface wind flows. These motions were responsible for temperature fluctuations of up to 1 ∘C, a considerable change for energy balance estimation. A simple scaling relationship was derived that related the frequency of dominant downdraft and updraft events to their duration and local variance. This allows for the first parameterization of entrained or advected energy for time-averaged representations of blowing snow sublimation and suggests that advection can strongly reduce thermodynamic feedbacks between blowing snow sublimation and the near-surface atmosphere. The downdraft and updraft scaling relationship described herein provides a significant step towards a more physically based blowing snow sublimation model with more realistic mixing of atmospheric heat. Additionally, calculations of return frequencies and event durations provide a field-measurement context for recent findings of nonstationarity impacts on sublimation rates. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
N. O. Aksamit J. W. Pomeroy |
author_facet |
N. O. Aksamit J. W. Pomeroy |
author_sort |
N. O. Aksamit |
title |
Warm-air entrainment and advection during alpine blowing snow events |
title_short |
Warm-air entrainment and advection during alpine blowing snow events |
title_full |
Warm-air entrainment and advection during alpine blowing snow events |
title_fullStr |
Warm-air entrainment and advection during alpine blowing snow events |
title_full_unstemmed |
Warm-air entrainment and advection during alpine blowing snow events |
title_sort |
warm-air entrainment and advection during alpine blowing snow events |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2795-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/2795/2020/tc-14-2795-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/f7036065217747c793da0a5baa6aaba5 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(160.917,160.917,-77.300,-77.300) |
geographic |
Canada The Fortress |
geographic_facet |
Canada The Fortress |
genre |
The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 14, Pp 2795-2807 (2020) |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-14-2795-2020 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/2795/2020/tc-14-2795-2020.pdf https://doaj.org/article/f7036065217747c793da0a5baa6aaba5 |
op_rights |
undefined |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2795-2020 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
2795 |
op_container_end_page |
2807 |
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1766216395314429952 |