The interaction between drifting snow and atmospheric turbulence

Abstract

This paper presents a modelling study of the influence of suspended snow on turbulence in the atmospheric surface layer. Turbulence is diminished in drifting and blowing snow, since part of the turbulent energy is used to keep the particles in suspension. This decrease in turbulence directly affects the vertical turbulent fluxes of momentum and snow particles (and other scalars), and can effectively be simulated by introducing an appropriate Richardson number to account for the stability effects of the stably stratified air-snow mixture. We use a one-dimensional model of the atmospheric surface layer in which the Reynolds stress and turbulent suspended snow flux are parameterized in terms of their mean vertical gradients (first-order closure). The model calculates steady-state vertical profiles of mean wind speed, suspended snow mass in 16 size classes and stability parameters. Using the model, the influence of snowdrifting on the wind-speed profile is quantified for various values of the initial friction Velocity (which determines the steepness of the initial wind-speed profile). It will be demonstrated why the roughness length appears to increase when snowdrifting occurs. Finally, we present a parameterization of the effects of snowdrifting on atmospheric stability which can be used in data analyses as a first-order approximation.