Improving Snow Measurement Technology to Better Parameterise Cold Regions Hydrometeorology Models

Marmot Creek Research Basin, in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada constitutes a long term cold regions hydrometeorological observatory with over 45 years of intensive observations in alpine and forested zones. Recently, novel combinations of measurement technology to snow have been deployed in Marmot Creek to advance the understanding of snow processes and to improve hydrometeorological models of streamflow and atmospheric variables. One advance has been the development and application of portable acoustic reflectometry to measure the density and structure of seasonal snowpacks using an audible sound wave. This has permitted the non-invasive measurement of snow water equivalent for both stationary and snow survey applications. Another advance has been the use of oblique time-lapse digital photography which is corrected for elevation and view angle from a LiDAR DEM to produce daily orthogonal snow covered area images of the alpine zone. These images are used to calculate snowcovered area and to develop and test improved snowcover melt and depletion algorithms. Deployment of 3-axis ultrasonic anemometers and fast hygrometers with collection of 10 Hz data and full correction for non-stationarity, axis rotation and other effects has shown that horizontal turbulence is often advected into mountain clearings and causes failure of traditional bulk transfer calculations of latent and sensible heat. For forest snow a hanging, weighed spruce tree and hanging, weighed sub-canopy troughs are used to capture intercepted snow load and unloaded snow fluxes respectively. These quantities provide the information needed to test detailed models of the snow interception and unloading processes. To quantify variations in sub-canopy energy for snowmelt, infrared imaging radiometers and narrow beam radiometers are used to measure thermal radiation exitance from needles, stems and trunks in forests of varying structure. These measurements are being used to develop improved models of longwave radiation transfer between forests and snow. Improved algorithms resulting from this application of field technology are being used to update a modular, object-oriented computer simulation of the cold regions hydrological cycle, the Cold Regions Hydrological Model, CRHM. CRHM can be easily and frequently updated as improved algorithms become available and used to test the sensitivity of snow hydrology calculations to these improvements.