Sublimation over seasonal snowpack at the southeastern edge of a desert in central Eurasia

Abstract

Abstract:The Gurbantonggut Desert, China, is an ideal site for study of sublimation from the snowpack because there are sparse vegetation and simple topography, and the wind speed is not large enough to blow snow into the atmosphere from the snowpack. Daily sublimation was measured by manual snow lysimeters at 8:00, and an automatic weather station was deployed at the top of a stout longitudinal dune chain at the southeastern edge of the desert. It is shown that on a daily scale, there was an extremely significant no-intercept linear relationship between the measured sublimation and that calculated by the bulk aerodynamic method, although the former was only 83.8% of the latter. It is also demonstrated that À10 C and 2 m/s were the thresholds where the sublimation varied with the air temperature and the wind speed. When these two thresholds were exceeded, the sublimation accelerated. However, the air temperature and the wind speed at 2 m above the ground averaged À17.2 C and 1.3 m/s, respectively, and the percentages of the time when the air temperature was below À10C and the wind speed was below 2 m/s were 76.9% and 85.1%, respectively. As a result, the rate of sublimation was quite low most of the time, and the thin snowpack remained in a quasi-static state until the melt stage started.

Energy balance and snowmelt drivers of a marginal subalpine snowpack

“…The SHEBA algorithm uses the stratification corrections of Paulson (1970) in unstable conditions and Grachev, Andreas, Fairall, Guest, and Persson (2007) in stable conditions. T s was measured radiometrically (Raleigh, Landry, Hayashi, Quinton, & Lundquist, 2013), whereas q s was calculated by assuming a relative humidity of 100% at the surface (Sexstone et al, 2016;Zhou et al, 2012).…”

“…There has been considerable research into snowpack energetics in colder continental climates (e.g., Burns et al, 2014;Cline, 1997;Helgason & Pomeroy, 2012;Hood, Williams, & Cline, 1999;Molotch et al, 2007;Pohl, Marsh, & Liston, 2006;Reba, Link, Marks, & Pomeroy, 2009;Sexstone, Clow, Stannard, & Fassnacht, 2016;Zhou, Zheng, Zhou, Dai, & Li, 2012). A number of studies have also taken place in maritime regions, including the Sierra Nevada and the Pacific Northwest of the United States (e.g., Jepsen, Molotch, Williams, Rittger, & Sickman, 2012;Marks, Kimball, Tingey, & Link, 1998;Mazurkiewicz, Callery, & McDonnell, 2008;Wayand, Lundquist, & Clark, 2015).…”

Patterns of biomass allocation in Haloxylon persicum woodlands and their understory herbaceous layer along a groundwater depth gradient

“…The current study was carried out in the southern part of the Gurbantonggut Desert, near the Fukang Station of Desert Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (44°17 0 N, 87°56 0 E, 475 m above sea level). In this region, the air temperature ranges from a minimum of À42.2°C in winter to a maximum of 44.2°C in summer, with an annual mean temperature of 6.6°C (Zhou et al, 2012). Annual mean precipitation is 70-180 mm, and annual pan evaporation is around 1000 mm.…”

Root distribution of Nitraria sibirica with seasonally varying water sources in a desert habitat

“…Mean annual precipitation is 160 mm, which is fairly equally distributed throughout the year; annual pan evaporation is about 2000 mm. In the hot dry summer, the highest temperature is over 35 °C, but during the winter, the average snow depth is 0.2-0.3 m, with stable snow cover lasting for 100-150 day (Zhou et al 2012). The soil type at this site is saline-alkali with high salinity, and the shallow soil is extremely dry because of the high pan evaporation.…”