Forest canopy reduces shortwave radiation and increases the incoming longwave radiation to snowpacks beneath forest canopies. Furthermore, the effect of forest canopy may be changed by complex topography. In this paper, we measured and simulated the incoming longwave radiation to snow beneath forest at different canopy openness in the west Tianshan Mountains, China(43°16'N, 84°24'E) during spring 2013. A sensitivity study was conducted to explore the way that terrain influenced the incoming longwave radiation to snow beneath forest canopies. In the simulation model, measurement datasets, including air temperature, incoming shortwave radiation above canopy, and longwave radiation enhanced by adjacent terrain, were applied to calculate the incoming longwave radiation to snow beneath forest canopy. The simulation results were consistent with the measurements on hourly scale and daily scale. The effect of longwave radiation enhanced by terrain was important than that of shortwave radiation above forest canopy with different openness except the 20% canopy openness. The longwave radiation enhanced due to adjacent terrain increases with the slope increase and temperature rise. When air temperature(or slope) is relatively low, thelongwave radiation enhanced by adjacent terrain is not sensitive to slope(or air temperature), but the sensitivity increases with the decrease of snow cover area on sunny slope. The effect of longwave radiation is especially sensitive when the snow cover on sunny slope melts completely. The effect of incoming shortwave radiation reflected by adjacent terrain on incoming longwave radiation to snow beneath forest canopies is more slight than that of the enhanced longwave radiation.
This study examines spatial and temporal changes in 16 extreme temperature indices at 37 weather stations in Xinjiang and their associations with changes in climate means during 1961-2008.Linear regression analyses reveal that significant increasing trends in temperature were observed over Xinjiang,with the rate of 0.13 °C/decade,0.24 °C/decade,and 0.52 °C/decade for annual mean temperature,annual maximum,and minimum temperature,respectively.Annual frequency of cool nights(days) has decreased by 2.45 days/decade(0.86 days/decade),whereas the frequency of warm nights(days) has increased by 4.85 days/decade(1.62 days/decade).Seasonally,the frequencies of summer warm nights and days are changing more rapidly than the corresponding frequencies for cool nights and days.However,normalization of the extreme and mean series shows that the rate of changes in extreme temperature events are generally less than those of mean temperatures,except for winter cold nights which are changing as rapidly as the winter mean minimum temperatures.These results indicate that there have been seasonally and diurnally asymmetric changes in extreme temperature events relative to recent increases in temperature means in Xinjiang.
Snowpack is a combination of several snow layers. Accordingly, snowpack natural metamorphism is composed of several stages. The aim of this study is to investigate the natural snow metamorphism at the snow layer unit. The field investigation was conducted at the Tianshan Station for Snow Cover and Avalanche Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences(43°16' N, 84°24' E, and 1,776 m a.s.l.), during the winter of 2010-2011. A complete metamorphic procedure and the corresponding microstructure of a target snow layer were tracked. The results indicate that: the ideal and complete metamorphic process and the corresponding predominant snow grain shape have 5 stages: 1) unstable kinetic metamorphism near the surface; 2) unstable kinetic metamorphism under pressure; 3) stable kinetic metamorphism; 4) equilibrium metamorphism; 5) wet snow metamorphism. Snow grain size sharply decreased in the surface stage, and then changed to continuously increase. Rapid increase of grain size occurred in the stable kinetic metamorphism and wet snow metamorphism stage. The characteristic length was introduced to represent the real sizes of depth hoar crystals. The snow grain circularity ratio had a variation of "rapid increase–slow decrease–slow increase", and the snow aggregations continuously increased with time. Snow density grew stepwise and remained steady from the stable kinetic to the equilibrium metamorphism stage. The differences in metamorphism extent and stages among snow layers, led to the characteristic layered structure of snowpack.
HONG WenWEI Wen-shouLIU Ming-zheLU HengHAN XiZHANG Yan-wei
In this paper, an analysis, with the simulation of PRECIS(Providing Regional Climate for Impact Studies), was made for future precipitation extremes, under SRES(Special Report on Emission Scenarios) A2 and B2 in IPCC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) AR4. The precipitation extremes were calculated and analyzed by ETCCDI(Climate Change Detection and Indices). The results show that:(1) In Present Scenario(1961–1900), PRECIS could capture the spatial pattern of precipitation in Xinjiang.(2) The simulated annual precipitation and seasonal precipitation in Xinjiang had a significantly positive trend and its variability had been deeply impacted by terrain. There was a strong association between increasing trend and the extreme precipitation's increase in frequency and intensity during 1961–2008. Under SRES A2 and B2, extreme precipitation indicated an increasing tendency at the end of the 21 st century. The extreme summer precipitation increased prominently in a year.(3) PRECIS's simulation under SRES A2 and B2 indicated increased frequency of heavy precipitation events and also enhancement in their intensity towards the end of the 21 st century. Both A2 and B2 scenarios show similar patterns of projected changes in precipitation extremes towards the end of the 21 st century. However, the magnitude of changes in B2 scenario was on the lower side. In case of extreme precipitation, variation between models can exceed both internal variability and variability of different SRES.
In this study, meteorological factors and snowmelt rate at an open site on sunny slope(OPS) and beneath forest canopy openness on shady slope(BFC) were measured using an automatic weather station and snow lysimeter during the snowmelt period in 2009, 2010 and 2013. The energy budget over snow surface was calculated according to these meteorological datasets. The analysis results indicated that the net shortwave radiation(K) and sensible heat flux(H) were energy sources, and the latent heat flux(LVE) was energy sinks of snow surfaces at all sites. The net longwave radiation(L) was energy sink at OPS and 80% BFC, but energy source at 20% BFC. The gain of K, H, and the loss of LVE at BFC were obviously lower than those at OPS. The L was the maximum difference of energy budget between snow surface at BFC and OPS. In warm and wet years, the most important factor of the energy budget variation at OPS was air humidity and the second mostimportant factor was air temperature. However, the ground surface temperature on the sunny slope was the most important factor for L and energy budget at BFC. With the increases in forest canopy openness and the slope of adjacent terrains, the influences of ground surface temperature on the sunny slope on L and the energy budget over snow surface at BFC increased, especially when the snow cover on the sunny slope melts completely.
