Keishi YOSHIKAWA

A Study of Compression Viscosity Coefficients of Wet Snow by Using a Multi-Layer Densification Model and a Snow Melting Model with a Heat Balance Method

Toshiro KUMAKURA

Calculating snow depth with a densification model strongly depend on a compression viscosity coefficient of wet snow which often exist in Hokuriku. We attempt to implement a melting-snow process including a snow-surface heat balance method and a water balance method for a bottom melt. Then, after estimating volumetric water content of each snow layer, compression viscosity coefficients of wet snow are validated by using snow depth in a winter season. It is found that the rate of the bottom melt in each day is 1.4mm which is almost similar to the observed value. It is also found that ‚Vcm in a root mean square error between the time series of the model output values and the observed values is calculated using newly developed calculating method for the compression viscosity coefficient, and the resulting density profiles of several time steps in the model have good agreement compared with snow pit observations.