Repository logo

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
  1. Home
  2. Academic and Research Output
  3. Journal articles
  4. Thermal diffusivity of seasonal snow determined from temperature profiles
 
research article

Thermal diffusivity of seasonal snow determined from temperature profiles

Oldroyd, Holly Jayne  
•
Higgins, Chad  
•
Huwald, Hendrik  
Show more
2013
Advances in Water Resources

Thermal diffusivity of snow is an important thermodynamic property associated with key hydrological phenomena such as snow melt and heat and water vapor exchange with the atmosphere. Direct determination of snow thermal diffusivity requires coupled point measurements of thermal conductivity and density, which continually change due to snow metamorphism. Traditional methods for determining these two quantities are generally limited by temporal resolution. In this study we present a method to determine the thermal diffusivity of snow with high temporal resolution using snow temperature profile measurements. High resolution (between 2.5 and 10 cm at 1 min) temperature measurements from the seasonal snow pack at the Plaine-Morte glacier in Switzerland are used as initial conditions and Neumann (heat flux) boundary conditions to numerically solve the one-dimensional heat equation and iteratively optimize for thermal diffusivity. The implementation of Neumann boundary conditions and a ttest, ensuring statistical significance between solutions of varied thermal diffusivity, are important to help constrain thermal diffusivity such that spurious high and low values as seen with Dirichlet (temperature) boundary conditions are reduced. The results show that time resolved thermal diffusivity can be determined from temperature measurements of seasonal snow and support density-based empirical parameterizations for thermal conductivity.

  • Files
  • Details
  • Metrics
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name

Oldroyd_et_al_AWR_2013.pdf

Access type

openaccess

Size

1.76 MB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (MD5)

e276b61ed9d16d36506258d809ff8949

Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
  • Contact
  • infoscience@epfl.ch

  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on X
  • Follow us on Youtube
AccessibilityLegal noticePrivacy policyCookie settingsEnd User AgreementGet helpFeedback

Infoscience is a service managed and provided by the Library and IT Services of EPFL. © EPFL, tous droits réservés