Turbulence in the Strongly Heterogeneous Near-Surface Boundary Layer over Patchy Snow

Abstract

The near-surface boundary layer above patchy snow cover in mountainous terrain is characterized by a highly complex interplay of various flows on multiple scales. In this study, we present data from a comprehensive field campaign that cover a period of 21 days of the ablation season in an alpine valley, from continuous snow cover until complete melt out. We recorded near-surface eddy covariance data at different heights and investigated spectral decompositions. The topographic setting led to the categorisation of flows into up and down valley flows, with a down valley Föhn event in the middle of the observation period. Our findings reveal that the snow cover fraction is a major driver for the structure and dynamics of the atmospheric layer adjacent to the snow surface. With bare ground emerging, stable internal boundary layers (SIBL) developed over the snow. As the snow coverage decreased, the depth of the SIBL decreased below 1 m and spectra of air temperature variance showed a transition towards turbulent time scales, which were caused by the intermittent advection of shallow plumes of warm air over the snow surface. The intermittent advection could also be observed visually with high spatio-temporal resolution measurements using a thermal infrared camera. While the shallow advection only affected the lowest measurement level at 0.3 m, the measurements above at 1 m, 2 m, and 3 m indicate that the distribution of eddy size and, thus, the turbulence structure, did not distinctly change with height.