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Liquid water flows by gravity and capillarity in snow, drastically modifying its properties. Unlike dry snow, observing wet snow remains a challenge and data from 3D pore-scale imaging are scarce. This limitation hampers our understanding of the water, heat, and vapor transport processes in wet snow, as well as their modeling.
Here, we explore a simulation-based approach, namely a pore morphology model (see e.g. [1]), to simulate the distribution of liquid water in the pore space of snow for various water contents. Liquid water is gradually introduced and then removed by capillarity during wetting (imbibition) and drying (drainage) simulations.
This model was applied to a set of 34 3D tomography images of dry snow of varied microstructures (see [2]). A series of 3D images of wet snow at different stages of drainage and imbibition was obtained. From these images, we examine key properties for the modeling of wet snow processes. First, we describe the water retention curves obtained for imbibition and drainage and for the different snow microstructures. The classical van Genuchten model is used to reproduce our simulated water retention curves. The obtained model parameters, i.e. the shape parameters (αVG and nVG) and the residual water content, are compared to the ones obtained from laboratory experiments from literature [3, 4, 5, 6]. New parametrizations of these parameters based on snow density, grain size, and the surface mean curvature are proposed.
Then, we present estimates of hydraulic conductivity, water permeability, effective thermal conductivity, and water vapor diffusivity of wet snow, computed on the simulated wet snow images. We study their evolution in relation to water content, density, and snow type. Our estimates are compared to existing parametrizations of the wet snow properties; new parametrizations are proposed when needed.
Our simulations are a first step toward a better characterization of the micro-scale distribution of liquid water in snow, and contribute to improving the modeling of the hydraulic and physical properties of wet snow.
| References | 1) M. Hilpert and C. T. Miller, 2001. Pore-morphology-based simulation of drainage in totally wetting porous media, Advances in Water Resources, 24, 243–255, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0309-1708(00)00056-7. 2) N. Calonne, C. Geindreau, F. Flin, S. Morin, B. Lesaffre, S. Rolland du Roscoat and P. Charrier, 2012. 3-D image-based numerical computations of snow permeability: links to specific surface area, density, and microstructural anisotropy, The Cryosphere, 6, 939–951, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-6-939-2012. 3) S. Yamaguchi, K. Watanabe, T. Katsushima, A. Sato and T. Kumakura, 2012. Dependence of the water retention curve of snow on snow characteristics, Annals of Glaciology, 53, 6–12, https://doi.org/10.3189/2012AoG61A001. 4) T. Katsushima, S. Yamaguchi, T. Kumakura and A. Sato, 2013. Experimental analysis of preferential flow in dry snowpack, Cold Regions Science and Technology, 85, 206–216, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2012.09.012. 5) S. Adachi, S.Yamaguchi, T. Ozeki and K. Kose, 2020. Application of a magnetic resonance imaging method for nondestructive three-dimensional, high-resolution measurement of the water content of wet snow samples, Frontiers in Earth Science, 8, https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2020.00179. 6) M. Lombardo, A. Fees, A. Kaestner, A. van Herwijnen, J. Schweizer and P. Lehmann, 2025. Quantification of capillary rise dynamics in snow using neutron radiography, The Cryosphere, 19, 4437–4458, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4437-2025. ================================================================================== Acknowledgements: This research has been supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the MiMESis-3D ANR project (ANR-19-CE01-0009). CNRM/CEN is part of Labex OSUG@2020 (Investissements d’Avenir, grant ANR-10-LABX-0056). The 3SR lab is part of the Labex Tec 21 (Investissements d’Avenir, grant ANR-11-LABX-0030). We thank the ESRF ID19 beamline and the tomographic service of the 3S-R laboratory, where the 3-D images have been obtained. |
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| Country | France |
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