About Snow - Ice
The LATICE group aims to enable refinement of current snow parameterizations in land-surface models with the intention to develop new more efficient physical or hybrid statistical representations of snow distribution.
Two areas of specific interest are:
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Snow hydrology
In order to develop new snow parameterizations, better measurements of the evolution of snow packs, including changes in stratigraphy and the overall snow water equivalence are required. Snow also is a critical store of water throughout the year.
Through the LATICE research on snow we will seek novel methods for calibrating hydrologic models that treat the snow pack equally to discharge.
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Snow distribution and permafrost/carbon dynamics
Variability in snow cover drives feedbacks on biogeochemical cycles. A LATICE objective is the characterization of snow distribution in ESMs, and to explore sensitivity of permafrost distribution in order to evaluate impacts to carbon turnover (GHG emissions) within the ESMs.
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Water isotopes
LATICE collaborates with the SNOWPACE project to investigate stable water isotopes. Stable isotopes in water is parameter used to investigate a number of different topics, and snow is especially useful for this as it acts like a pseudo-sediment which can be sampled. However, natural processes such as warming, re-freezing, rain-on-snow and wind can disturb this signal. By making use of the sensor measurement suite at Finse, the goal is to untangle the isotopic signal of the snow pack in order for values of a given snow sample to be traced back to when it fell.
Cooperation
- Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo
- Department of Informatics, University of Oslo
- The Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
Related Projects
- COUP - Constraining uncertainties in the permafrost-climate feedback
- ESA GlobPermafrost initiative
- PERMANOR - Permafrost landscapes in trasformation
- CryoWall - Steep permafrost slopes in Norway
- SatPerm - Satellite-based permafrost modelling across a range of scales
