Abstract
This paper describes the results of snow drift measurements made on a slope near Mizuho Camp where katabatic winds prevail.
A handy collector, that is, a chest with ten drawers, was devised, to measure the amount of drifting snow under severe conditions in. Antarctica. Called a drawer-type collector, it has a collection efficiency of about 0.23 and measures mass fluxes at ten levels up to 1 m above the snow surface at one time.
A maximum total drift transport was obtained at each place by integrating the measured and extrapolated mass fluxes from the lowest level to the height of 10m, as given by the following empirical formula: log Qmax=0.2U1-0.12 where Qmax (gm-1 s-1) is the maximum total drift transport across a unit width of 1 m per unit time, and U1 (ms-1) is the wind speed at a 1-m height above the snow surface.
Using the distribution of wind speed and the relative frequencies of occurrence of drifting and blowing snow at Mizuho Camp (70°42.6'S, 44°18.9'E, 2, 230m above mean sea level) and its vicinity, the actual amount of snow transported across a cross-slope line of 1km in width was obtained, which was about 1×109kg km-1 a-1.
