Articles | Volume 18, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1653-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1653-2024
Research article
 | 
09 Apr 2024
Research article |  | 09 Apr 2024

A rigorous approach to the specific surface area evolution in snow during temperature gradient metamorphism

Anna Braun, Kévin Fourteau, and Henning Löwe

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Cited articles

Adams, E. and Brown, R.: A model for crystal development in dry snow, Geophys. Res. Lett., 9, 1287–1289, 1982. a
Albert, M. and McGilvary, W.: Thermal effects due to air flow and vapor transport in dry snow, J. Glaciol., 38, 273–281, 1992. a
Barrett, J. W., Garcke, H., and Nürnberg, R.: Numerical computations of faceted pattern formation in snow crystal growth, Phys. Rev. E, 86, 011604, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.86.011604, 2012. a, b
Bouvet, L., Calonne, N., Flin, F., and Geindreau, C.: Snow Equi-Temperature Metamorphism Described by a Phase-Field Model Applicable on Micro-Tomographic Images: Prediction of Microstructural and Transport Properties, J. Adv. Model. Earth Sy., 14, e2022MS002998, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022MS002998, 2022. a, b, c, d, e, f
Braun, A., Fourteau, K., and Löwe, H.: Simulation parameters and outputs for a rigorous approach to the specific surface area evolution in snow during temperature gradient metamorphism, EnviDat [data set], https://doi.org/10.16904/envidat.492, 2024. a
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Short summary
The specific surface of snow dictates key physical properties and continuously evolves in natural snowpacks. This is referred to as metamorphism. This work develops a rigorous physical model for this evolution, which is able to reproduce X-ray tomography measurements without using unphysical tuning parameters. Our results emphasize that snow crystal growth at the micrometer scale ultimately controls the pace of metamorphism.