12/26/2011

Snow and Climate: Physical Processes, Surface Energy Exchange and Modeling Review

Snow and Climate: Physical Processes, Surface Energy Exchange and Modeling
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This is a serious treatment that greatly updates the previously published Handbook of Snow: Principles, Processes, Management and Use. Richard Armstrong (Univ. Colorado, Boulder) has devoted much effort to the study of snow. This book may be a bit intimidating to the average user, but systematic reading and use reveals of wealth of current knowledge applicable to transportation, recreation and climate change. The book is organized in five sections: 1) Introduction and the basic properties of snow, 2) Physical processes within snow cover, 3) Snow-atmosphere energy and mass balance, 4) Snow cover parameterization and modeling, 5) Snow-cover data, measurement, products and sources. Sixteen contributers from around the world bring current language and knowledge regarding snow. It is refreshing that the text uses SI measurements exclusively. In light of global climate change, the presence and absence of snow has greater importance in the form of water, economics, transportation, weather and climate characteristics and ecosystem maintenance.
Snow is one of the most unstable substances on Earth. It changes during evaporation into the atmosphere, to formation of ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere, to clouds, to precipitation, to long-term deposition on the ground. It is a substance that exists close to the triple-point of water: vapor, liquid and solid. Geothermal heat plays a key role in the transformation of snow from deposition on the ground to release into the atmosphere. There is a good discussion of metamorphism using current terms and understanding - equilibrium growth form, kinetic growth form, wet and dry snow, porosity, permeability, radiation, snow albedo and more. This is collective wisdom that requires a heavy dose of hands-on time and serious look at snow, reflection, discussion.
The discussion of snow-cover data measurement, products and sources is welcome for common understanding and systematic measurement of snow. While many states view the winter snow pack as "water towers in the sky" that slowly release their water and sustain farms and cities below, global climate change is putting this all askew. Snow surveyors, water agencies, irrigation districts, and countries make periodic observations of snow-cover. This text helps standardize the rhetoric and practices of snow observation.
A Snow model questionaire helps the reader understand specifically what is involved in observing, recording and making use of snow cover data.

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The extent and variability of seasonal snow cover are important parameters in the climate system, due to their effects on energy and moisture budgets, and because surface temperature is highly dependent on snow cover. In turn, snow cover trends serve as key indicators of climate change. Many distinct techniques have become available to study snow-climate relationships. Satellites provided the first capability for monitoring snow cover extent at continental and hemispheric scales, and there have been rapid advances in snow modeling physics to represent snow cover and snow processes in Global Climate Models (GCMs). These advances have changed the way we look at snow cover. The main goal of this book is to provide a synthesis of the prevailing state of snow-climate science that reflects this distinct perspective. This volume provides an excellent synthesis for researchers and advanced students.

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