Abstract
Spanish latitudes and meteorological conditions cause the snow phenomena to mainly take place in mountainous areas, playing a key role in water resource management, with the Pyrenees as one of the most important and best monitored areas. Based on the most significant dataset of snow density (SDEN) in the Spanish Pyrenees for on-site manual samples and automatic measurements, in this study, single and multiple linear regression models are evaluated that relate SDEN with intra-annual time dependence and other drivers such as the seasonal accumulated precipitation, 7-day average temperatures, snow depth (SD) and elevation. The seasonal accumulated precipitation presented a more dominant influence than daily precipitation, usually being the second most dominant SDEN driver, followed by temperature. Average temperatures showed the best fitting to SDEN. The results showed similar densification rates ranging widely from 0.7 × 103 kg/L/day to 2 × 103 kg/L/day without showing a spatial pattern. The densification rate for the set of manual samples was set to 1.2 kg/L/day, very similar to the set of automatic measurements (1.3 kg/L/day). The results increase knowledge on SDEN in the Pyrenees. The SDEN regression models that are given in this work may allow us, in the future, to estimate SDEN, and consequently Snow Water Equivalent (SWE), using an economical and extensive SD and meteorological network, although the high spatial variability that has been found must be regarded. Estimating a relationship between SDEN and several climate drivers enables us to take into account the impact of climate variability on SDEN.
Highlights
Snow in Spain plays a key role in water resource management and occurs essentially in mountainous areas due to Spanish latitudes and meteorological conditions [1,2,3,4,5]
snow density (SDEN) Statistics Table 3 shows a summary of the SDEN statistics obtained by on-site manual data for two annual periods, winter or early season and spring or late season (21 March–30 June)
The Izas TNM showed similar SDEN values compared with previous works, with 0.2 and 0.3 kg/L during the first months and increasing to 0.6 kg/L at the end of the season [30]
Summary
Snow in Spain plays a key role in water resource management and occurs essentially in mountainous areas due to Spanish latitudes and meteorological conditions [1,2,3,4,5]. From the different parameters defining snow-related phenomena, snow density (SDEN) relates snow depths (SDs) with the snow water equivalent (SWE). Since SD measurements are much more frequent than the available SWE data, better knowledge and parameterization of SDEN will enable the achievement of a more accurate estimation of the SWE based on SD measurements. As wind data become more available, hydrological models can determine a more accurate estimation of forced-convection snowmelt and snow transport, for which SDEN is needed. SDEN is a complex parameter that can vary temporally, spatially and even within the snowpack profile in the vertical direction
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