CO2 in Arctic snow cover: landscape form, in-pack gas concentration gradients, and the implications for the estimation of gaseous fluxes
✍ Scribed by H. G. Jones; J. W. Pomeroy; T. D. Davies; M. Tranter; P. Marsh
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 240 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0885-6087
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✦ Synopsis
The physical characteristics and CO 2 concentrations of snow cover in the western Canadian arctic were examined at sites with dierent landscape forms (valley ¯oor, hillslope, plateau). The greater exposure of plateau snow cover to blowing snow results in dierences in the structure of the snow cover and dierent snow strata compared with snow covers on the other landscape forms. Both higher in-pack concentrations of CO 2 and the largest vertical CO 2 concentration gradients were found in plateau snow cover, the smallest in the deeper hillslope and valley snows. CO 2 gradients in all landscape snow covers followed two patterns, i.e. where concentrations at the soil±snow interface are higher than those just below (5 cm) and the snow±atmosphere interface and vice versa. The latter pattern is due to the transport of the gas from the lower levels to the upper levels of the snowpack by wind-induced advection (windpumping) and is indicative of non steady-state, nondiusive processes. These latter processes should thus be considered in any studies on CO 2 ¯uxes from Arctic soil where snow cover topography and winds are conducive to windpumping and where concentration gradients resulting from diusive processes have not been clearly identi®ed.