Measuring Wind Ventilation of Dense Surface Snow

Abstract:

Wind ventilation enhances exposure of suspended, canopy-captured and corniced snow to subsaturated air and can significantly increase sublimation rate. Although sublimation rate may be high for highly ventilated snow this snow regime represents a small fraction snow that resides in a basin potentially minimizing its influence on snow mass balance. In contrast, the vast majority of a seasonal snowpack typically resides as poorly ventilated surface snow. The sublimation rate of surface snow is often locally so small as to defy direct measurement but regionally pervasive enough that the integrated mass loss of frozen water across a basin may be significant on a seasonal basis. In a warming climate, sublimation rate increases even in subfreezing conditions because the equilibrium water vapor pressure over ice increases exponentially with temperature. To better understand the process of wintertime surface snow sublimation we need to quantify the depth to which turbulent and topographically driven pressure perturbations effect air exchange within the snowpack. Hypothetically, this active layer depth increases the effective ventilated snow surface area, enhancing sublimation above that given by a plane, impermeable snow surface. We designed and performed a novel set of field experiments at two sites in the Oregon Cascades during the 2014 winter season to examine the spectral attenuation of pressure perturbations with depth for dense snow as a function of turbulence intensity and snow permeability. We mounted a Campbell Scientific Irgason Integrated CO₂ and H₂O Open Path Gas Analyzer and 3-D Sonic Anemometer one meter above the snow to capture mean and turbulent wind forcing and placed outlets of four high precision ParoScientific 216B-102 pressure transducers at different depths to measure the depth-dependent pressure response to wind forcing. A GPS antenna captured data acquisition time with sufficient precision to synchronize a Campbell Scientific CR-3000 acquiring pressure data with a CR-1000 data logger acquiring winds at 20Hz. Snow permeability was measured both acoustically and empirically using measured grain size and density measurements. Wind perturbation and pressure correlations describe the functional dependence of above surface wind forcing on subsurface pressure perturbation response.