Western U.S. snowpacks, soils, and climate

Analysis of environmental data, including snowpack, soil moisture, and soil temperature data, is posted here along with a log of research activities on this project.

Project begin date: 23 Feb, 2011

Relevant links:

Objectives

The objective of this project is to understand the influence of seasonal snowpacks on montane and subalpine soil temperature and moisture. Possible influences include:

  • Insulation of soil during winter, including air-soil temperature offsets and elevational gradients in air vs soil temperature.
  • Interannual variability in mean annual soil temperature, winter soil temperature, and spring soil temperature due to year-to-year differences in snowcover duration, snowpack size, timing of snowcover onset or snowmelt, and air temperature during these transitions.
  • Timing and amount of soil moisture recharge during snowmelt
  • Interannual variability of winter soil moisture due to fall conditions
  • Interannual variability in growing season soil moisture due to preceding winter snowpack size.

Hypotheses

Experimental Design

Methods

Results