Estimation of the snow surface temperature

Abstract

Calculations of snow surface temperature have been attempted using a simple heat balance model and also a sophisticated model considering the physical processes within a snow-cover. Comparison of snow surface temperatures calculated using these two models shows that the heat balance for entire snow cover season can be estimated using the simple model with the accuracy of 10Wm^-2. This is confirmed by the observation of snow surface temperature at Mosiri, Hokkaido. Moreover, it is found that the snow surface temperature is mainly dependent on the net long wave radiation, sensible heat and latent heat, and not on incident solar radiation. While the conductive heat suppresses sudden changes of the surface temperature, it makes only small contribution to the average surface temperature. A method to estimate the snow surface temperature has been proposed using this characteristic.