Articles | Volume 10, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-1201-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-1201-2016
Research article
 | 
03 Jun 2016
Research article |  | 03 Jun 2016

Small-scale variation of snow in a regional permafrost model

Kjersti Gisnås, Sebastian Westermann, Thomas Vikhamar Schuler, Kjetil Melvold, and Bernd Etzelmüller

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Cited articles

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Short summary
In wind exposed areas snow redistribution results in large spatial variability in ground temperatures. In these areas, the ground temperature of a grid cell must be determined based on the distribution, and not the average, of snow depths. We employ distribution functions of snow in a regional permafrost model, showing highly improved representation of ground temperatures. By including snow distributions, we find the permafrost area to be nearly twice as large as what is modelled without.