Snow cover as a morphogenic agent determining ground climate, landforms and runoff in the Valdecebollas massif, Cantabrian Mountains

Abstract

Snowfalls are important meteorological events affecting the physical environment of the Cantabrian Mountains. This work analyzes the effects of snow on several elements such as relief, landforms, ground climate and snowmelt waters. The ground thermal regime and associated parameters were studied using temperature data loggers and satellite images and were described in combination with observed geomorphological processes and landforms. A geomorphological map was drawn up and trends in climate patterns and runoff were calculated. Ground temperature monitoring in warm years is not optimal, though allow to know the limit conditions for developing cold processes. Results show that geomorphological processes are not significant and that solifluction deriving from snowmelt, is the only active process in years without freeze or with thick snow cover. Snowfall evolution in recent decades in correlation with flow water and climate features provide the certainty that snow distribution also affects efficacy in runoff generation and moves the flow peak in rivers due to early snowmelt.

Chronology of geomorphological changes in a cantabrian mountain valley over the last 20,000 years.

“…This indicates that there was still freezing in winter and solifluidal movements linked to the saturation of ground after the snow melt. This reinforce the idea Cantabrian Mountains are characterized by a nival morphogenesis (Nossin, 1959;González-Trueba and Serrano, 2010;Santos-González, 2011;Pellitero, 2014;Pisabarro, 2020), which remained in the Early-Holocene in the north of the Iberian Peninsula associated with westerly winds (Baldini et al, 2019).…”

Rainfall and water yield in Macizo del Caroig, Eastern Iberian Peninsula. Event runoff at plot scale during a rare flash flood at the Barranco de Benacancil

“…Tillage induces the degradation of the soils in different regions of the world and induced the highest runoff discharges and also quick overland flow. Chalise et al, (2019;2020) found this in Nepal, in eastern Spain, Takken et al, (2001) in the loess belt in Europe, and Tullberg et al, (2001) in Australia.…”

“…The runoff generated in the slopes is highly dependent on the weather types such as Rodrigo- demonstrated. Recently, approaches to show the spatio-temporal changes of floods generation confirms the relevance of the runoff generated at pedon and slope scale (Contreras et al, 2021), and snow is relevant on mountainous areas (Pisabarro, 2020) and were the runoff connectivity and soil losses are encouraged by the trails (Salesa and Cerdà, 2019).…”

Subnival Processes and Subnival Sedimentation Mechanisms, the Pamir-Alay Mts., Tajikistan

“…Nival and glacial forms as well as their relations have been discussed for several decades, both in the field of terminology and of distinguishing the genesis mechanisms of forms, for example, [1,[5][6][7][8][9][10]. Although the occurrence of snow patches and nival processes, nowadays, is highly variable in time and space, for example [11,12], the manifestations of nivation can be treated as a geoindicator of environmental conditions in mountains with different climates [13][14][15][16]. An overview of the terminology by Hedding [17] indicates a very wide variety of terms, not just names, but also landform differentiations.…”

“…The variety of these forms is also evidenced by the large range of criteria used for the delineation of these forms, defined by Shakesby [18] and subsequently discussed by Hedding and Sumner [19] and Hedding [20]. The formation of pronival ramparts has been defined, for example [3,4,21], and the genesis of such forms has been described [2,9,22], together with the forming and functioning of nival niches [23][24][25][26][27][28] and nival slopes [12,29]. In addition, snow-push mechanisms near snow patches have been recognized [30].…”