Publications associées à Evaluation of modelled snow depth and snow water equivalent at three contrasting sites in Switzerland using SNOWPACK simulations driven by different meteorological data input

Good enough: Intermediate complexity atmospheric models improve the representation of processes affecting seasonal snow

Snow plays a crucial role in processes regulating ecosystems, the climate, and human development. Mountain snowpack in particular has great relevance for downstream communities. Knowledge about the distribution and properties of the snowpack thus help in p ...

EPFL2024

A seasonal snowpack model forced with dynamically downscaled forcing data resolves hydrologically relevant accumulation patterns

Michael Lehning, Tobias Jonas, Dylan Stewart Reynolds

The Mountain snowpack stores months of winter precipitation at high elevations, supplying snowmelt to lowland areas in drier seasons for agriculture and human consumption worldwide. Accurate seasonal predictions of the snowpack are thus of great importance ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Snowfall deposition in mountainous terrain: a statistical downscaling scheme from high-resolution model data on simulated topographies

Michael Lehning

One of the primary causes of non-uniform snowfall deposition on the ground in mountainous regions is the preferential deposition of snow, which results from the interaction of near-surface winds with topography and snow particles. However, producing high-r ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Intermediate complexity atmospheric modeling in complex terrain: is it right?

Michael Lehning, Dylan Stewart Reynolds, Michael Haugeneder

Dynamic downscaling of atmospheric forcing data to the hectometer resolution has shown increases in accuracy for landsurface models, but at great computational cost. Here we present a validation of a novel intermediate complexity atmospheric model, HICAR, ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Influence of sun cups on surface albedo of wet Alpine snowpack

Michael Lehning, Mathias Thierry Pierre Bavay, Francesca Carletti

In high elevation Alpine areas, characterised by high snow accumulation and radiation-driven melt processes, the formation of peculiar ablation features called sun cups can be observed. Sun cups likely influence the energy and mass balance of the wet snowp ...

2024

Turbulence and Heat exchange in the Near-Surface Boundary Layer over Patchy Snow

Michael Haugeneder

The atmospheric layer adjacent to the earth's surface is of crucial importance for weather models due to the exchange of energy between the surface and the atmosphere. This exchange is dependent on the various surface properties and influences the state of ...

EPFL2024

Impact of intercepted and sub-canopy snow microstructure on snowpack response to rain-on-snow events under a boreal canopy

Michael Lehning, Daniel Nadeau, Nander Wever, Adrien Michel, Benjamin Bouchard

Rain-on-snow events can cause severe flooding in snow-dominated regions. These are expected to become more frequent in the future as climate change shifts the precipitation from snowfall to rainfall. However, little is known about how winter rainfall inter ...

2024

Assessing the simulation of snowfall at Dumont d'Urville, Antarctica, during the YOPP-SH special observing campaign

Alexis Berne, Etienne Gabriel Henri Vignon

The performance of a set of atmospheric models and meteorological reanalyses in the representation of precipitation days in Antarctica is assessed using ground-based observations such as a precipitation gauge and a Micro Rain Radar during the Year Of Polar ...

WILEY2023

An empirical model to calculate snow depth from daily snow water equivalent: SWE2HS 1.0

Tobias Jonas, Adrien Michel

Many methods exist to model snow densification in order to calculate the depth of a single snow layer or the depth of the total snow cover from its mass. Most of these densification models need to be tightly integrated with an accumulation and melt model a ...

COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH2023

CRYOWRF—Model Evaluation and the Effect of Blowing Snow on the Antarctic Surface Mass Balance

Michael Lehning, Varun Sharma, Franziska Gerber

The surface mass balance (SMB) of large polar ice sheets and of snow and ice surfaces in general are incompletely understood because of the complexity of processes involved. One such process, drifting and blowing snow, has only been considered in a very si ...

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION2023

Assessing sublimation during snow transport and sublimation effects on the isotopic composition of water vapor

Armin Sigmund

Sublimation influences the water storage in snow covers and glaciers, which is important for water use and projections of the sea level rise. Yet, it is challenging to quantify sublimation for large areas or in conditions of snow transport. In-situ measure ...

EPFL2023

Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Snow on Central Arctic Sea Ice and its Implications

David Nicholas Wagner

This thesis presents a comprehensive investigation of the interaction between precipitation and wind-induced erosion and deposition of snow on Arctic sea ice. The study uses observations from the 2019-2020 MOSAiC expedition and makes use of the 3D snow cov ...

EPFL2023

Weather Impacts on Indoor Radon Short-Term Measurements in Switzerland

Joan Rey

Radon is a natural and radioactively well-known carcinogenic indoor air pollutant. Since 2020, a radon short-term proactive methodology has been proposed by Swiss authorities, which aims to evaluate the probability of overpassing the national reference val ...

MDPI2023

Combining Weather Station Data and Short-Term LiDAR Deployment to Estimate Wind Energy Potential with Machine Learning: A Case Study from the Swiss Alps

Michael Lehning, Wolf Hendrik Huwald, Franziska Gerber, Jérôme François Sylvain Dujardin, Fanny Kristianti

Wind energy potential in complex terrain is still poorly understood and difficult to quantify. With Switzerland’s current efforts to shift to renewable energy resources, it is now becoming even more crucial to investigate the hidden potential of wind energ ...

2023

Snow Loss Into Leads in Arctic Sea Ice: Minimal in Typical Wintertime Conditions, but High During a Warm and Windy Snowfall Event

Marc Schneebeli Zeugin, Julia Schmale, Markus Frey

The amount of snow on Arctic sea ice impacts the ice mass budget. Wind redistribution of snow into open water in leads is hypothesized to cause significant wintertime snow loss. However, there are no direct measurements of snow loss into Arctic leads. We m ...

2023

The role of secondary ice production in mixed-phase clouds

Paraskevi Georgakaki

Clouds are omnipresent in the Earth's atmosphere. Their phase composition significantly modulates their interaction with solar and terrestrial radiation, as well as precipitation formation. Particularly for clouds containing both phases, known as mixed-pha ...

EPFL2023

Snow transport in extreme environments: from small to large scale modeling

Daniela Brito Melo

The cold regions on Earth, such as the polar and high mountain regions, are snow covered for at least a part of the year. These snow-covered surfaces are highly dynamic, particularly under the influence of strong winds. The aeolian or wind-driven transport ...

EPFL2023

Arctic warming by abundant fine sea salt aerosols from blowing snow

Xin Yang, Jian Wang, Julia Schmale, Nora Bergner, Markus Frey

The Arctic warms nearly four times faster than the global average, and aerosols play an increasingly important role in Arctic climate change. In the Arctic, sea salt is a major aerosol component in terms of mass concentration during winter and spring. Howe ...

2023

Convection of snow: when and why does it happen?

Michael Lehning, Mahdi Jafari

Convection of water vapor in snowpacks is supposed to have a major impact on snow density and microstructure profiles with strong implications for the thermal regime and snow stability. However, the process has never been directly measured and only recentl ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2023

Evaluation of 30 urban land surface models in the Urban-PLUMBER project: Phase 1 results

Matthias Roth, Gabriele Manoli

Accurately predicting weather and climate in cities is critical for safeguarding human health and strengthening urban resilience. Multimodel evaluations can lead to model improvements; however, there have been no major intercomparisons of urban-focussed la ...

Wiley2023