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research article

Wind tunnel observations of weak and strong snow saltation dynamics

Paterna, E.  
•
Crivelli, P.
•
Lehning, M.  
2017
Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface

Theoretical considerations suggest that saltation dynamics is dominated by either aerodynamic entrainment or by a combination of ejection and rebound at a given time and location. Calling these two regimes weak and strong saltation, respectively, we have investigated high-resolution snow mass flux measurements by shadowgraphy in a cold wind tunnel to determine whether these two regimes can be experimentally reproduced. In this contribution, we first suggest that aerodynamic entrainment should lead to a negative correlation in the growth rates of horizontal versus vertical mass fluxes, while for the ejection regime, a positive correlation is plausible. Based on this criterion, we find evidence of weak and strong saltation in our data. Weak saltation is characterized by smaller peaks of horizontal mass flux; however, these peaks have a higher growth rate and therefore are typically narrow. The larger peaks are associated with strong saltation, are wider, and their frequency of occurrence increases with increasing overall saltation mass flux.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1002/2016Jf004111
Web of Science ID

WOS:000412930400002

Author(s)
Paterna, E.  
Crivelli, P.
Lehning, M.  
Date Issued

2017

Publisher

Amer Geophysical Union

Published in
Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface
Volume

122

Issue

9

Start page

1589

End page

1604

Subjects

sediment transport

•

snow

•

wind tunnel

•

image analysis

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
CRYOS  
Available on Infoscience
November 8, 2017
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/142072
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