Publications related to Snowmelt

Multi-year time series of daily solute and isotope measurements from three Swiss pre-Alpine catchments

Time series analyses of solute concentrations in streamwater and precipitation are powerful tools for unraveling the interplay of hydrological and biogeochemical processes at the catchment scale. While such datasets are available for many sites around the ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Influence of sun cups on surface albedo of wet Alpine snowpack

Michael Lehning, Mathias Thierry Pierre Bavay, Francesca Carletti

In high elevation Alpine areas, characterised by high snow accumulation and radiation-driven melt processes, the formation of peculiar ablation features called sun cups can be observed. Sun cups likely influence the energy and mass balance of the wet snowp ...

2024

Impact of intercepted and sub-canopy snow microstructure on snowpack response to rain-on-snow events under a boreal canopy

Michael Lehning, Adrien Michel, Nander Wever, Daniel Nadeau, Benjamin Bouchard

Rain-on-snow events can cause severe flooding in snow-dominated regions. These are expected to become more frequent in the future as climate change shifts the precipitation from snowfall to rainfall. However, little is known about how winter rainfall inter ...

2024

Hydrological trends and the evolution of catchment research in the Alptal valley, central Switzerland

Jana Freiin von Freyberg, Ilja van Meerveld

When the observation of small headwater catchments in the pre-Alpine Alptal valley (central Switzerland) started in the late 1960s, the researchers were mainly interested in questions related to floods and forest management. Investigations of geomorphologi ...

2021

A comparison of hydrological models with different level of complexity in Alpine regions in the context of climate change

Michael Lehning, Adrien Michel, Alice Marie Burri, Mathias Thierry Pierre Bavay, Francesca Carletti

This study compares the ability of two degree-day models (Poli-Hydro and a degree-day implementation of Alpine3D) and one full energy-balance melt model (Alpine3D) to predict the discharge on two partly glacierized Alpine catchments of different size and i ...

Copernicus Gesellschaft MBH2021

Dissolved major and trace geochemical dynamics in Antarctic lacustrine systems

Tyler Joe Kohler

Clearwater Mesa Uames Ross Island, northeast Antarctic Peninsula) provides a unique opportunity to study solute dynamics and geochemical weathering in the pristine lacustrine systems of a high latitude environment. In order to determine major controls on t ...

Elsevier2020

Carbon fluxes and productivity regimes in Alpine streams

Marta Boix Canadell

High-altitude catchments have a major role in the transport of organic matter to streams due to the storage of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in soils and glacier ice and the subsequent mobilization during the melting processes. Yet, stream function goes b ...

EPFL2020

Mountain snow: The source of the mother river—Study of multi-scale and multi-physical process of spatio-temporal evolution of snow distribution

Guang Li

Snow is one of the most active elements on the earth, which is an important mass source of polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers, as well as a main supply for the runoff. Its distribution and evolution have a great impact on global hydrological cycle, ecosy ...

2020

Stream Temperature Evolution in Switzerland: Recent past and future

Michael Lehning, Wolf Hendrik Huwald, Adrien Michel, Bettina Schaefli, Nander Wever, Tristan Jonas Brauchli

Climate change has already affected many components of our natural environment which are well described in the literature. Water temperature has received less interest despite the fact that it is recognized as key variable for assessing water quality of fr ...

2020

High‐resolution spatial sampling identifies groundwater as driver of CO 2 dynamics in an Alpine stream network

Tom Ian Battin, Amber Joy Ulseth, Asa Lovisa Viktoria Horgby, Marta Boix Canadell

Inland waters are major sources of CO2 to the atmosphere. The origin of this CO2 is often elusive, especially in high‐altitude streams that remain poorly studied at present. Here we study the spatial and seasonal variations in streamwater CO2, its potentia ...

2019

Spatiotemporal Drivers of CO2 Dynamics and Evasion Fluxes from Mountain Streams

Asa Lovisa Viktoria Horgby

Inland waters are key components of the global carbon cycle, emitting a substantial amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. Climate change and global warming affect mountain catchments significantly, leading to glacier retreat and changing precip ...

EPFL2019

Implications of observation-enhanced energy-balance snowmelt simulations for runoff modeling of Alpine catchments

Alain Michel Prenleloup, Tobias Jonas

Snow is an important component of the water balance of many mountain watersheds worldwide. In a warming climate, snowmelt modeling and consequent soil water input, is often challenged by complex conditions such as rain-on-snow situations. This is why detai ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2019

GRUN: an observation-based global gridded runoff dataset from 1902 to 2014

Gionata Ghiggi, Vincent Humphrey

Freshwater resources are of high societal relevance, and understanding their past variability is vital to water management in the context of ongoing climate change. This study introduces a global gridded monthly reconstruction of runoff covering the period ...

Copernicus GmbH2019

Snowpack runoff formation processes during rain-on-snow events

Sebastian Würzer

Rain-on-snow (ROS) events cause repeated flooding in many mountainous regions with a seasonal snow cover. The complex interaction of processes across spatial scales makes it difficult to accurately predict the effect of snow cover on runoff formation for a ...

EPFL2018

Wind-packing of snow: How do wind crusts form?

Christian Gabriel Sommer

Wind-packing of snow is the process responsible for the formation of wind slabs and wind crusts. These are hard layers of well-sintered snow often found in the snowpack in mountains as well as in polar regions. Wind-packing affects the local mass balance, ...

EPFL2018

Impact of Extreme Land Surface Heterogeneity on Micrometeorology over Spring Snow Cover

Michael Lehning, Sebastian Schlögl

The melting mountain snow cover in spring typically changes from a continuous snow cover to a mosaic of patches of snow and bare ground, inducing an extreme heterogeneity of the land surface. A comprehensive measurement campaign, the Dischma experiment, wa ...

American Meteorological Society2017

Influence of slope-scale snowmelt on catchment response simulated with the Alpine3D model

Michael Lehning, Wolf Hendrik Huwald, Ernesto Trujillo Gomez, Tristan Jonas Brauchli

Snow and hydrological modeling in alpine environments remains challenging because of the complexity of the processes affecting the mass and energy balance. This study examines the influence of snowmelt on the hydrological response of a high-alpine catchmen ...

2017

Cubic zirconia in >2370◦C impact melt records Earth’s hottest crust

Cyril Cayron

Bolide impacts influence primordial evolution of planetary bodies because they can cause instantaneous melting and vaporization of both crust and impactors. Temperatures reached by impact-generated silicate melts are unknown because meteorite impacts are e ...

Elsevier2017

Climate-Induced Changes in Spring Snowmelt Impact Ecosystem Metabolism and Carbon Fluxes in an Alpine Stream Network

Tom Ian Battin, Enrico Bertuzzo, Amber Joy Ulseth

Although stream ecosystems are recognized as an important component of the global carbon cycle, the impacts of climate-induced hydrological extremes on carbon fluxes in stream networks remain unclear. Using continuous measurements of ecosystem metabolism, ...

Springer Verlag2018