Blowing Snow Transport Analysis for Estimating Drift Orientation and Severity
Publication: Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 33, Issue 2
Abstract
A methodology for performing a snow drift transport analysis is provided that considers the demonstrated dependency of snow transport on approximately the fourth power of wind speed, giving much greater weight to high winds transporting snow. Data that have long sampling intervals (e.g., 3-h data) do not capture short-duration winds and tend to underpredict snow transport. This study introduces a way to account for the fluctuating component of the wind by including turbulence-intensity estimates. Its use was demonstrated via several cases studies. Based on available data, including turbulence intensity in the transport equations improved the estimate of the snow transport using 3- and 12-h data by 50%–100%. This study also illustrated the error in determining the transport wind direction from a wind rose. In an extreme case, the dominant transport direction was 180° out of phase with the prevailing wind direction determined by wind rose analysis. In two other case studies, a 50°–80° difference between the prevailing wind and dominate snow transport direction was not uncommon.
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Acknowledgments
Funding for this research and the case studies was provided by the National Science Foundation Division of Polar Programs through “Monitoring and Managing Snow Drifting and Summit Station, Greenland,” Project No. EP-ARC-15-33, and “McMurdo Snow Transport Analysis,” Project No. EP-ANT-16-62 and a Memorandum of Agreement with the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of India.
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Published In
Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 33 • Issue 2 • June 2019
Copyright
©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 10, 2018
Accepted: Nov 16, 2018
Published online: Apr 15, 2019
Published in print: Jun 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Sep 15, 2019
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