The BOREAS Information System

HYD-5: The Regional Representation of the Energy and Moisture Fluxes from Snow Covered Areas in the BOREAS Experiment

P.I.(s): Richard J. Harding -- Institute of Hydrology

Objectives: To characterize the energy and water vapor fluxes, as well as related properties (density, depth, temperature, melt) for forested and non-forested areas. Equipment was set up in the winter FFC and run through to the Thaw FFC. Two sites were operated in or near the Prince Albert Park area. One was above a mixed jack pine and aspen forest stand near Bear Trap Creek (this site was run in conjunction with the NHRI GEWEX experiment). The second site was near the centre of Namekus Lake (750 m from the western edge). Eddy correlation and full set of meteorological measurements were made.
An extensive program of meteorological and SVAT modeling is underway to investigate the problems of aggregation of surface fluxes in a snow covered landscape. One and two dimensional boundary layer models are being used to investigate scales from 100m to 10km. A three dimensional mesoscale model is being used to aggregate from 10 km to 1000 km. This latter model requires extensive meteorological and ground cover data from the BOREAS study region. Improved snow parameterisations for GCM's will be one of the important products of this research.

HYD-5 Data Sets