Estimation of snow sublimation under a high-speed wind condition in alpine region watershed

Estimation of snow sublimation under a high-speed wind condition in alpine region watershed

Sichuan Daxue Xuebao (Gongcheng Kexue Ban)/Journal of Sichuan University (Engineering Science Edition)

A probabilistic method was promoted to estimate the total snow sublimation (snow surface sublimation and blowing snow sublimation) in the Binggou Watershed, Northwest of China. The efficiency of this method was validated by the field observation data of snow loss. In this paper, data such as air temperature, snow depth and snow surface albedo were collected for snow property analyzing. The results indicated that sublimation accounted for 189.6% and 164.7% of the total month precipitation in January and February respectively. However, this percentage decreased to 71.8% in March and to only 3.5% in April. Analysis in this paper also suggested that snow sublimation changed periodically along with snowpack property and meteorological conditions varying; and that high-speed wind accelerated snow sublimation and redistributed snowpack, however this influence was reduced as air temperature increasing and snowmelt process occurred. In addition, the results also indicated that the intensive snow particles in drifting conditions increased upward long-wave radiation to a maximum limitation (280 W/m2) with enhanced wind speed.