A Quantitative Approach to Evaluating the Effects of Snow Cover on Cold Airmass Temperatures across the U.S. Great Plains

Abstract

Abstract Over the past two decades a greater emphasis has been placed on the accuracy of the representation of snow cover–atmosphere interactions in weather and climate prediction models. Much of the attention centered upon snow cover is a result of concerns associated with anthropogenic and natural causes of potential changes in the global environment that may be intensified by the snow cover climatology. As a predictive tool, the importance of the interactions between snow cover and the overlying atmosphere is recognized in areas ranging from daily and seasonal surface air temperature forecasts, to anomalies in large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. Within this study the effects of snow cover on surface air temperatures within cold air masses moving across the U.S. Great Plains in winter were investigated. Through the adaptation of a one-dimensional snowpack model, the thermal characteristics of the core of a cold air mass were derived from the equation governing the heat balance between the surf...