Summary
Reasonably simple yet realistic modelling schemes simulating the heat and mass balance within a snow pack are required to provide the necessary boundary conditions for meteorological and hydrological models. An improvement to a one-layer snow energy balance model (UEB, Tarboton etal., 1995) is proposed to better simulate snow surface and snow pack temperatures and, as a result, snowmelt. The modified scheme is assessed against measured snow data from the WINTEX field campaign during spring 1997 in northern Finland, and compared with results from a complex multi-layer snow energy balance scheme. The results show that separation of a one-layer representation into two snow layers and a soil layer enables a more realistic simulation of soil and snow temperatures as well as of the snow surface temperature. The two-layer and the multi-layer snow schemes yielded comparable results for internal processes in the snow whenever the simulation was carried out under similar boundary forcing. The modified scheme is proposed for use as a sub-scheme in meteorological or hydrological models, or as a tool for simulating spatially-variable snowmelt and the surface energy balance during seasonal snow cover.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Received November 18, 1999 Revised June 17, 2000
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Koivusalo, H., Heikinheimo, M. & Karvonen, T. Test of a simple two-layer parameterisation to simulate the energy balance and temperature of a snow pack. Theor Appl Climatol 70, 65–79 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s007040170006
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s007040170006