The permeability of a melting snow cover

Colbeck, S. C.; Anderson, Eric A.

doi:10.1029/wr018i004p00904

Cited by 91 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Table 2 We also applied the model to our field data, and the results are shown in Figure 9a. Here we used measured bulk density, the average daily melt rate, and an intrinsic permeability of 2.3 x 10 -9 m 2, a value measured at CSSL for snow having a comparable density [Colbeck and Anderson, 1982]. We again used 4% for S i and 3% for n. We found that we can fit the data well using the same values for ½ and •/as those used in our column experiment.…”

Section: S = 1 -S-•-•-' (9)supporting

confidence: 51%

Isotopic evolution of a seasonal snowpack and its melt

Taylor¹,

Feng²,

Kirchner³

et al. 2001

Water Resources Research

224

267

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Abstract. The study of isotopic variation in snowmelt from seasonal snowpacks is useful for understanding snowmelt processes and is important for accurate hydrograph separation of spring runoff. However, the complex and variable nature of processes within a snowpack has precluded a quantitative link between the isotopic composition of the original snow and its melt. This work studies the isotopic composition of new snow and its modification by snow metamorphism and melting. To distinguish individual snowstorms, we applied solutions of rare earth elements to the snow surface between storms. The snowmelt was isotopically less variable than the snowpack, which in turn was less variable than the new snow, reflecting isotopic redistribution during metamorphism and melting.

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Section: S = 1 -S-•-•-' (9)supporting

confidence: 51%

Isotopic evolution of a seasonal snowpack and its melt

Taylor¹,

Feng²,

Kirchner³

et al. 2001

Water Resources Research

224

267

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…More sophisticated models (ex, SNTHERM, Jordan, 1991;CLM, Dai et al, 2003;SAST, Jin et al, 1999b) simulate snowpack in multilayer and changes in snow properties within each layers (Anderson, 1976;Colbeck and Anderson, 1982;Jordan, 1991;Arons and Colbeck, 1995) are estimated, which are useful in some applications. However, the only piece of information required for climate study and hydrologic prediction is the snowskin temperature, because the temperature gradient between the snow surface and atmosphere drives the turbulent fluxes (Dickinson et al, 1993;Luce and Tarboton, 2001).…”

Section: R Sultana Et Al: Evaluating the Utah Energy Balance (Ueb) mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Utah Energy Balance (UEB) snow model in the Noah land-surface model

Sultana

Hsu

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Noah (version 2.7.1), the community landsurface model (LSM) of National Centers for Environmental Predictions-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR), which is widely used to describe the landsurface processes either in stand-alone or in coupled landatmospheric model systems, is recognized to underestimate snow-water equivalent (SWE). Noah's SWE bias can be attributed to its simple snow sub-model, which does not effectively describe the physical processes during snow accumulation and melt period. To improve SWE simulation in the Noah LSM, the Utah Energy Balance (UEB) snow model is implemented in Noah to test alternate snow surface temperature and snowmelt outflow schemes. Snow surface temperature was estimated using the force-restore method and snowmelt event is regulated by accounting for the internal energy of the snowpack. The modified Noah's SWE simulations are compared with the SWE observed at California's NRCS SNOTEL stations for 7 water years: 2002-2008, while the model's snow surface temperature is verified with observed surface-temperature data at an observation site in Utah. The experiments show that modification in Noah's snow process substantially reduced SWE estimation bias while keeping the simplicity of the Noah LSM. The results suggest that the model did not benefit from the alternate temperature representation but primary improvement can be attributed to the substituted snowmelt process.

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“…Some snowmelt models use finite difference solutions of the heat equation (Anderson, 1976;Dickinson et al, 1993;Flerchinger and Saxton, 1989;Jordan, 1991;Yen, 1967). Possible inaccuracies in modeling the internal snowpack properties could lead to errors in estimating the snowpack and snow surface temperature (Colbeck and Anderson, 1982). Models such as CROCUS (Vionnet et al, 2012) have made considerable progress in representing the detail of within snow processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling the snow surface temperature with a one-layer energy balance snowmelt model

You

Tarboton

Luce

2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Snow surface temperature is a key control on and result of dynamically coupled energy exchanges at the snow surface. The snow surface temperature is the result of the balance between external forcing (incoming radiation) and energy exchanges above the surface that depend on surface temperature (outgoing longwave radiation and turbulent fluxes) and the transport of energy into the snow by conduction and meltwater influx. Because of the strong insulating properties of snow, thermal gradients in snow packs are large and nonlinear, a fact that has led many to advocate multiple layer snowmelt models over single layer models. In an effort to keep snowmelt modeling simple and parsimonious, the Utah Energy Balance (UEB) snowmelt model used only one layer but allowed the snow surface temperature to be different from the snow average temperature by using an equilibrium gradient parameterization based on the surface energy balance. Although this procedure was considered an improvement over the ordinary single layer snowmelt models, it still resulted in discrepancies between modeled and measured snowpack energy contents. In this paper we evaluate the equilibrium gradient approach, the force-restore approach, and a modified force-restore approach when they are integrated as part of a complete energy and mass balance snowmelt model. The force-restore and modified forcerestore approaches have not been incorporated into the UEB in early versions, even though Luce and Tartoton have done work in calculating the energy components using these approaches. In addition, we evaluate a scheme for representing the penetration of a refreezing front in cold periods following melt. We introduce a method to adjust effective conductivity to account for the presence of ground near to a shallow snow surface. These parameterizations were tested against data from the Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, CA, Utah State University experimental farm, UT, and subnivean snow laboratory at Niwot Ridge, CO. These tests compare modeled and measured snow surface temperature, snow energy content, snow water equivalent, and snowmelt outflow. We found that with these refinements the model is able to better represent the snowpack energy balance and internal energy content while still retaining a parsimonious one layer format.

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The permeability of a melting snow cover

Cited by 91 publications

References 8 publications

Isotopic evolution of a seasonal snowpack and its melt

Isotopic evolution of a seasonal snowpack and its melt

Evaluating the Utah Energy Balance (UEB) snow model in the Noah land-surface model

Modeling the snow surface temperature with a one-layer energy balance snowmelt model

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