C31C-0324:
SAGE 2014: Grain size variability across the Sunlight Absorption on the Greenland ice sheet Experiment (SAGE) traverse route
Wednesday, 17 December 2014
Zoe Courville, CRREL, Hanover, NH, United States, Chris Polashenski, Organization Not Listed, Washington, DC, United States, Florent Domine, Laval University, Quebec City, QC, Canada, Michael Howard Bergin, Georgia Inst Tech, Atlanta, GA, United States, Justin Chen, Hanover High School, Hanover, NH, United States, Lauren Farnsworth, Dept. Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, United States, Carolyn Stwertka, Thayer School of Engineering,Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, United States, Michael C. Stewart, Earth Systems Research Center, EOS/UNH, Durham, NH, United States and Jack E Dibb, Univ New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States
Abstract:
In 2014, researchers from the US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Region Research and Engineering Laboratory, Dartmouth College, the University of New Hampshire, Georgia Tech, University of Wisconsin, University of Michigan, and NASA-Langley completed the second year of a ground-based traverse of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Samples from 67 locations were extracted from shallow snow pits and analyzed for trace elements, black carbon (see Polashenski et al. and Dibb et al. in session C004: Aerosols and the Cryosphere), and snow grain size (in terms of specific surface area) at depths comprising at least the previous year’s worth of snow accumulation at each site. In addition, surface characteristics of the snow including albedo, surface roughness and meteorological forcing were determined. Here, we present the spatial distribution of grain size reported as specific surface area determined from field measurements using the Takuvik International Laboratory DUal Frequency Integrating Sphere for Snow Specific area measurement (DUFISSS) instrument and from laboratory-based stereology and micro-CT measurements from snow samples that were preserved and shipped back to the lab. Grain sizes from 2014 are compared to 2013 results at coincident locations and comparable depths, and compared to the intervening year’s worth of meteorological data from Automated Weather Stations (AWSs) assembled by the SAGE field team at four locations along the 2013 and 2014 routes.
