The Nordic Snow Network (NordSnowNet): Arctic research and snow data from observations and models

Snow cover is an essential climate variable directly affecting the earth energy balance. Proper description and assimilation of snow cover information into hydrological, land surface, meteorological and climate models are critical to address the impact of snow on various phenomena, to predict local snow water resources and to warn about snow-related natural hazards. This induces a challenging problem of bridging information from micro-structural scales of the snowpack up to the grid resolution in models. 

These questions are included in the actions of the Nordic Snow Network, NordSnowNet, http://nordsnownet.fmi.fi/, a recent project launched in 2019 under the Nordic Arctic Co-operation Programme of the Nordic Council of Ministers, which is administered by Nordregio and contributes to enhancing knowledge about the Arctic region (https://nordregioprojects.org/arctic-programme/nordic-snow-network-nordsnownet/). The point of view of the network will be focused on snow in Nordic and related Arctic areas: making existing Nordic-Arctic research and snow data from observations and models (forecasts and assimilated observations by weather and hydrology models, projections by the climate models) visible for the researcher, data user and education communities. It supports snow-related research and development of applications by the exchange of information and data, arranging workshops, training and supporting also informal Nordic researcher contacts and meetings. For example, citizen observations will be collected on color snow and ice, to estimate the appearance of dirty snow due to deposition of atmospheric aerosols and algae existing on snow and ice, in co-operation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland’s project IBA-FIN-BCDUST (2019-2020, PI Meinander FMI, https://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/iba-project). The color of snow and ice has effect on the snow and ice albedo, which in turn influences snow and ice melt.

The project is managed by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) by Ali Nadir Arslan, and the steering committee with representatives from each partner country, including Finland (Outi Meinander, FMI), Denmark (Kristian Pagh Nielsen, Danish Meteorological Institute), Estonia (Marko Kaasik, University of Tartu), Greenland (Kirsty Langley, Asiaq Greenland), Iceland (Pavla Dagsson-Waldhauserova, Agricultural Institute of Iceland), Sweden (Patrick Samuelsson, Swedish Meteorological Institute), and Norway (Mariken Homleid, Norwegian Meteorological Institute). The partners are Nordic meteorological institutes and collaborative universities and research institutes. The first field work activity will be in the Arctic Space Centre in Sodankylä, Finland, in early April 2020. The network is open and welcomes collaborators to join by contacting the corresponding country representative.

We gratefully acknowledge the Nordic Council of Ministers Arctic Co-operation Programme and Nordregio for their support to the NordSnowNet.