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| Titel |
Energy and mass balance at the snow surface on a warm temperate mountain |
| VerfasserIn |
Rotem Sade, Alon Rimmer, Michael (Iggy) Litaor, Alex Furman |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2014
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 16 (2014) |
| Datensatznummer |
250087209
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2014-1234.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Snowmelt is an important water source in warm temperate mountains, where natural fresh
water sources are often scarce, and vapor losses from the snow-surface can greatly limit water
availability. Therefore, understanding of key processes of snow dynamics in such
environment is highly important. To achieve this end, we estimated the energy and mass
balance of the snowpack on Mt. Hermon, Israel (35o50’E, 33o25’N), using a snow model.
The forcing variables for the simulations were collected in two meteorological
stations located along altitudinal gradient at 1,640 and 1,960m. We simulated
the snowpack energy and mass balance during the winter of 2010/11 in a Deep
Snowpack (DSP; maximum depth of 7m), and in a karstic depression known as the
‘Bulan’, where both windswept locations and lee-side (DSP) locations were simulated.
The calibration of the model for the DSP was done using snow water equivalent
(SWE) data, collected by snow-surveys. The simulation of the Bulan was calibrated
against melting cycles that were measured with time-lapse cameras. Using a step
function to describe wind speed over the DSP we showed that the turbulent fluxes
were influenced by changes in snowpack height. The turbulent fluxes were the
dominant ones at the snow surface on this warm temperate mountain site. During winter
time, vapor losses varied between 46 to 82 % of the total ablation. Consequently,
latent heat flux consumed much of the available energy at the snow-surface, greatly
limiting melting rate to 1 mm day-1. During spring time, vapor flux was positive,
enhancing condensation and resulting in an average melting flux of 86 mm day-1. The
simulation of the ‘Bulan’ showed that the variation in the vapor flux with time
created a variation in space of the available water at the bottom of the snowpack. |
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