The sublimation of falling snow over the Mackenzie River Basin

Abstract

The sublimation of falling snow may be an important component of the atmospheric water budget of the Mackenzie River Basin and many parts of the Arctic. To investigate this issue, a simple sublimation model is used along with surface precipitation observations and sonde data obtained during the autumn 1994 Beaufort and Arctic Storms Experiment (BASE). Model results are then compared with actual precipitation measurements at Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, sites in Northern Canada, to approximate mass loss due to sublimation. The sublimation results are found to vary in concert with cloud base height, precipitation intensity aloft and the nature of the precipitation. Atmospheric conditions are furthermore examined over a wide range of the Arctic, especially the Mackenzie River Basin, to assess to what degree the results can be generalized. The presence of a relatively dry near-surface layer, a favourable environment for sublimation, is a key feature of most sites during the early autumn storm period. Estimates of sublimational mass losses are found over Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk using sonde derived cloud base heights and temperature and humidity profiles. Sublimation losses for such sites are found to be of the order of 40–60%, which shows that sublimation is indeed a significant process over the Mackenzie Basin and needs to be well handled in climate models. However, increasing the vertical resolution of the sublimation model to that of climate scales can dramatically affect predicted sublimation amounts; how to properly account for sublimation then remains a difficult task.