The Development and Comparison of Two Snow Accumulation - Ablation Models

Abstract

A simple single layer finite difference snow model was developed and compared with the snow model in the Biosphere - Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS) land surface model. Both models were run from a constrained set of data and output from a simple solar radiation algorithm developed for the study. Dew point, wind speed, air temperature, precipitation, sky cover, and ceiling heights were the only meteorological data required. The models were tested on a two year time series of data from the NOAA-ARS research watershed near Danville, Vermont. The comparison of modeled and measured water equivalent during both the entire snow season and accumulation season showed that the BATS snow model performed better than the simple finite difference model.