Snow‐packing as a potential harmful factor on <i>Picea abies, Pinus sylvestris</i> and <i>Betula pubescens</i> at high altitude in northern Finland

Jalkanen, Risto; Konocpka, B.

doi:10.1111/j.1439-0329.1998.tb01191.x

Cited by 27 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…According to Ahti (1978), riming occurs in northern Finland regularly at heights over 200 metres above sea level and above 500 metres the riming is already very intense. This accords with the conclusion of Jalkanen and Konôpka (1998) that the weight of crown snow loads in Lapland increases linearly with the terrain elevation. It is further argued that tree breakage under extreme snow loading is the major limiting factor at timberline in northern Finland (Marchand 1987).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…In general, forests at high altitudes accumulate the heaviest snow loads (e.g., Jalkanen and Konôpka 1998;Jalkanen and Mattila 2000). Already Heikinheimo (1920) noticed that forests damaged by snow in Finland are mainly located at over 300 metres above sea level.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Finland, stand quality of 2.3% of the productive forest land was reduced due to snow damage, according to a survey conducted by the Finnish Forest Research Institute from 1986-1994(Sevola 1999. Individual trees may carry a snow pack of more than three times the weight of the tree (Jalkanen and Konôpka 1998). In addition to forest damage, snow, rime and hoarfrost (deposit of ice crystals on objects exposed to the free air at temperatures below freezing) accretion on power lines causes problems in power transmission (Lahti et al 1997;Bonelli et al 2011), which can lead to great economic losses (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Modelling crown snow loads in Finland: a comparison of two methods

Lehtonen¹,

Hoppula²,

Pirinen³

et al. 2014

Silva Fenn.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Modelling crown snow loads in Finland: a comparison of two methodsLehtonen I., Hoppula P., Pirinen P., Gregow H. (2014). Modelling crown snow loads in Finland: a comparison of two methods. Silva Fennica vol. 48 no. 3 article id 1120. 30 p. Highlights• A new method to model crown snow loads is presented and compared with a previously published simpler method.• The heaviest crown snow loads in Finland are found to typically occur in the eastern parts of the country.• The relative importance of different snow load types varies between different regions of Finland. AbstractThe spatial occurrence of heavy crown snow loads in Finland between 1961 and 2010 is studied by using for the first time a model that classifies the snow load into four different types: rime, dry snow, wet snow and frozen snow. In producing this climatology, we used meteorological observations made at 29 locations across Finland. The model performance is evaluated against classified daily images of canopy snow cover and with the help of two short case studies. The results are further compared to those achieved with a simpler method used in previous studies. The heaviest crown snow loads are found to occur typically in eastern Finland. The new method reveals that this holds not only for the total snow loads but also for the different snow load types, although there are certain differences in their geographical occurrence. The greatest benefit achieved with the new method is the inclusion of rime accretion. The forests most prone to heavy riming are those located on tree-covered hills in northern Finland, but as the terrain elevation affects riming efficiency greatly, these small-scale variations in the snow load amounts could not be described in this study in great detail. Moreover, the results are more inaccurate in northern Finland where variations in the terrain elevation are greater than elsewhere. Otherwise, the largest uncertainties in this study are related to wind speed measurements and possibly partly because of that, we were not able to detect any significant trends in the crown snow-load amounts over the study period.

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Modelling crown snow loads in Finland: a comparison of two methods

Lehtonen¹,

Hoppula²,

Pirinen³

et al. 2014

Silva Fenn.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The higher light indices at this northern catchment are probably an effect of the tree structure. Spruces at this latitude typically have short branches, as an effect of natural selection for individuals with short sturdy branches that do not break when covered with large amounts of snow (Geburek et al 2008;Jalkanen and Konocpka 1998). This crown architecture forms a more open and light forest compared to spruce forests at the three southerly catchments which have much wider crowns.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understorey Vegetation Stability and Dynamics in Unmanaged Boreal Forests Along a Deposition Gradient in Sweden

Grandin

2011

AMBIO

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aims of this study were to investigate spatial patterns and temporal changes in understorey vegetation at four forest catchments forming a depositional gradient. Inventories of the bottom and field layers were carried out in the 1990s and repeated after 5-14 years, depending on catchment. It was hypothesized that changes and patterns in ground vegetation would be related to changes and patterns in N and S deposition. The data were analyzed using Ellenberg indices and multivariate methods. All catchments showed temporal changes in species composition. Analyses of the bottom layer were confounded by a change of field staff, but after accounting for this observer effect, differences in species composition between the catchments remained. Within catchments, the changes in species composition were unrelated to N or S deposition. Relationships between environmental factors, expressed as Ellenberg indices, and compositional patterns differed between catchments although Ellenberg indices showed small temporal changes.

show abstract

“…The heaviest snow loads tend to accumulate on forests at high altitudes (e.g. Jalkanen and Konôpka, 1998), largely because rime accumulation is most efficient in places located above the surrounding terrain (Makkonen and Ahti, 1995), but also because of the orographic addition to precipitation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heavy snow loads in Finnish forests respond regionally asymmetrically to projected climate change

Lehtonen

Kämäräinen

Gregow

et al. 2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. This study examined the impacts of projected climate change on heavy snow loads on Finnish forests, where snow-induced forest damage occurs frequently. For snowload calculations, we used daily data from five global climate models under representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, statistically downscaled onto a high-resolution grid using a quantile-mapping method. Our results suggest that projected climate warming results in regionally asymmetric response on heavy snow loads in Finnish forests. In eastern and northern Finland, the annual maximum snow loads on tree crowns were projected to increase during the present century, as opposed to southern and western parts of the country. The change was rather similar both for heavy rime loads and wet snow loads, as well as for frozen snow loads. Only the heaviest dry snow loads were projected to decrease over almost the whole of Finland. Our results are aligned with previous snowfall projections, typically indicating increasing heavy snowfalls over the areas with mean temperature below −8 • C. In spite of some uncertainties related to our results, we conclude that the risk for snow-induced forest damage is likely to increase in the future in the eastern and northern parts of Finland, i.e. in the areas experiencing the coldest winters in the country. The increase is partly due to the increase in wet snow hazards but also due to more favourable conditions for rime accumulation in a future climate that is more humid but still cold enough.

show abstract

Snow‐packing as a potential harmful factor on Picea abies, Pinus sylvestris and Betula pubescens at high altitude in northern Finland

Cited by 27 publications

References 4 publications

Modelling crown snow loads in Finland: a comparison of two methods

Modelling crown snow loads in Finland: a comparison of two methods

Understorey Vegetation Stability and Dynamics in Unmanaged Boreal Forests Along a Deposition Gradient in Sweden

Heavy snow loads in Finnish forests respond regionally asymmetrically to projected climate change

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About