SnowSlide: A simple routine for calculating gravitational snow transport

Abstract

Knowledge about lateral snow transport processes is essential for the description of the spatial distribution of snow and therefore for the distribution of water on the lands surface. While numerous snow hydrological models are accounting for wind induced snow transport, they are mostly neglecting gravitational snow transport processes. This leads to unrealistic calculations of snow cover distributions in high Alpine regions effecting the subsequent prediction of individual components of the water and energy cycles at the land surface. "SnowSlide" as presented here is a fast and parsimonious model component allowing for the calculation of gravitational snow transport processes in an integral way. The functionality and performance of SnowSlide is demonstrated a) for artificial land surfaces and b) for two winter periods at the Watzmann massif in south-east Germany. It is shown that the integration of SnowSlide into the snow-hydrological model "SnowModel" is significantly improving the prediction of spatially distributed snow patterns in high Alpine areas and therefore generating more realistic descriptions of Alpine water and energy balances. Copyright © 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.