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| Titel |
On the importance of sublimation to an alpine snow mass balance in the Canadian Rocky Mountains |
| VerfasserIn |
M. K. MacDonald, J. W. Pomeroy, A. Pietroniro |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1027-5606
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ; 14, no. 7 ; Nr. 14, no. 7 (2010-07-30), S.1401-1415 |
| Datensatznummer |
250012379
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/hess-14-1401-2010.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| A modelling study was undertaken to evaluate the contribution of sublimation
to an alpine snow mass balance in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Snow
redistribution and sublimation by wind, snowpack sublimation and snowmelt
were simulated for two winters over an alpine ridge transect located in the
Canada Rocky Mountains. The resulting snowcover regimes were compared to
those from manual snow surveys. Simulations were performed using physically
based blowing snow (PBSM) and snowpack ablation (SNOBAL) models. A
hydrological response unit (HRU)-based spatial discretization was used
rather than a more computationally expensive fully-distributed one. The HRUs
were set up to follow an aerodynamic sequence, whereby eroded snow was
transported from windswept, upwind HRUs to drift accumulating, downwind
HRUs. That snow redistribution by wind can be adequately simulated in
computationally efficient HRUs over this ridge has important implications
for representing snow transport in large-scale hydrology models and land
surface schemes. Alpine snow sublimation losses, in particular blowing snow
sublimation losses, were significant. Snow mass losses to sublimation as a
percentage of cumulative snowfall were estimated to be 20–32% with the
blowing snow sublimation loss amounting to 17–19% of cumulative snowfall.
This estimate is considered to be a conservative estimate of the blowing
snow sublimation loss in the Canadian Rocky Mountains because the study
transect is located in the low alpine zone where the topography is more
moderate than the high alpine zone and windflow separation was not observed.
An examination of the suitability of PBSM's sublimation estimates in this
environment and of the importance of estimating blowing snow sublimation on
the simulated snow accumulation regime was conducted by omitting sublimation
calculations. Snow accumulation in HRUs was overestimated by 30% when
neglecting blowing snow sublimation calculations. |
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