Wind tunnel experiments to quantify the effect of aeolian snow transport on the surface snow microstructure

Abstract. The evolution of the surface snow microstructure under the influence of wind during precipitation events is hardly understood but crucial for polar and alpine snowpacks. Available statistical models are solely parameterized from field data where conditions are difficult to control. Controlled experiments which exemplify the physical processes underlying the evolution of density or specific surface area (SSA) of surface snow under windy conditions are virtually non-existent. As a remedy, we conducted experiments in a cold laboratory using a ring-shaped wind tunnel with an infinite fetch to systematically investigate wind-induced microstructure modifications under controlled atmospheric, flow and snow conditions and to identify the relevant processes. Airborne snow particles are characterized by high-speed imaging, while deposited snow is characterized by density and SSA measurements. We used a single snow type (dendritic fresh snow) for simulating different precipitation intensities, varied wind speeds at a height of 0.4 m from 3 to 7 m s−1 (for fixed temperature) and varied temperatures from −24 to −2 °C (for fixed wind speed). The measured airborne impact trajectories confirm the consistency of our coefficient of restitution with large-scale saltation, rendering the setup suitable for realistically studying interactions between airborne and deposited snow. Increasing wind speeds resulted in intensified densification and stronger SSA decreases. The most drastic snow density and SSA changes in deposited snow are observed close to the melting point. Our measured densification rates as a function of wind speed show clear deviations from existing statistical models but can be re-parameterized through our data. This study, as a first of its kind, exemplifies a rich nonlinear interplay between airborne and deposited snow particles, which is discussed in view of a multitude of involved processes, i.e., airborne metamorphism, cohesion, particle separation and fragmentation.