Dynamics of the Seasonal Snowcover in the Arctic

Abstract

Arctic snow cover is important to life on Earth from the microscale soil microarthropod population, to reindeer at the local scale and even the global scale through its impact on the global climate. There is a consensus that global warming will be enhanced towards the Arctic. This will influence the hydrology and snow cover in these regions, which in turn will provide a feedback to climate. There is still a lack of knowledge regarding the impacts to polar hydrology and snow cover; the gaps are even larger with respect to feedback mechanisms.

The objective of this study has been to improve the understanding and description of the dynamic processes of an Arctic snow cover. Here, the Arctic climate is studied from the first snow fall to the end of ablation in a series of nine publications grouped into three topics: "Snow Distribution", "Snowmelt and Energy Balance" and "Measurement Methods". The research is based on measurements and observations of climate, snow properties and snow distribution during the period 1992 to 2000 on the tundra in the vicinity of Ny-Ålesund at 78°55'N, 11°56'E at Svalbard, Norway.

Improvement of existing snowmelt models has been achieved by the implementation of energy balance calculations and improved description of the snow cover. Ground Penetrating Radar systems as a tool for snow surveying have been improved and used to measure and describe snow distributions over large areas. A snow drift model (SnowTran-3D) has been successfully tested for different scales and topography and was improved to better handle settling of the snow cover due to aging and melting.