https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-143-2020

Schirmer, M. and Pomeroy, J. W.: Processes governing snow ablation in alpine terrain – detailed measurements from the Canadian Rockies, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 143–157, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-143-2020, 2020.

The spatial distribution of snow water equivalent (SWE) and melt are important for estimating areal melt rates and snow-cover depletion (SCD) dynamics but are rarely measured in detail during the late ablation period. This study contributes results from high-resolution observations made using large numbers of sequential aerial photographs taken from an unmanned aerial vehicle on an alpine ridge in the Fortress Mountain Snow Laboratory in the Canadian Rocky Mountains from May to July in 2015. Using structure-from-motion and thresholding techniques, spatial maps of snow depth, snow cover and differences in snow depth (dHS) during ablation were generated in very high resolution as proxies for spatial SWE, spatial ablation rates and SCD. The results indicate that the initial distribution of snow depth was highly variable due to overwinter snow redistribution; thus, the subsequent distribution of dHS was also variable due to albedo, slope/aspect and other unaccountable differences. However, the initial distribution of snow depth was 5 times more variable than that of the subsequent dHS values, which varied by a factor of 2 between the north and south aspects. dHS patterns were somewhat spatially persistent over time but had an insubstantial impact on SCD curves, which were overwhelmingly governed by the initial distribution of snow depth. The reason for this is that only a weak spatial correlation developed between the initial snow depth and dHS. Previous research has shown that spatial correlations between SWE and ablation rates can strongly influence SCD curves. Reasons for the lack of a correlation in this study area were analysed and a generalisation to other regions was discussed. The following questions were posed: what is needed for a large spatial correlation between initial snow depth and dHS? When should snow depth and dHS be taken into account to correctly model SCD? The findings of this study suggest that hydrological and atmospheric models need to incorporate realistic distributions of SWE, melt energy and cold content; therefore, they must account for realistic correlations (i.e. not too large or too small) between SWE and melt in order to accurately model SCD.

The spatial distribution of snow water equivalent (SWE) and melt are important for hydrological applications in alpine terrain. We measured the spatial distribution of melt using a drone in very high resolution and could relate melt to topographic characteristics. Interestingly, melt and SWE were not related spatially, which influences the speed of areal melt out. We could explain this by melt varying over larger distances than SWE.

INARCH

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-143-2020