A novel method for directly obtaining the water vapor isotope surface flux for evaluating snow-atmosphere exchange processes
- 1Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, Norway (sonja.wahl@uib.no)
- 2Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway (sonja.wahl@uib.no)
- 3Alfred Wegener Insitute for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany (azuhr@awi.de)
Water isotopologues offers a direct constraint on the physical processes controlling surface fluxes. A novel method is presented which enables in-situ measurements of the water vapour isotope flux between the snow surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the atmosphere.
These observations have become possible by combining a cavity ring-down laser absorption spectroscopy analyzer with high frequency latent heat flux eddy-covariance measurements.
This new method reveals an isotope flux driven by the diurnal cycle.
Water isotopes can thus act as a natural tracer giving information of the physical processes such as the influence of turbulent fluxes in the water cycle. This allows the assessment of sublimation and deposition processes in the low accumulation zone of the interior Greenland Ice Sheet.
Therefore, we can provide a strategy to benchmark the parameterizations of surface mass balance and surface fluxes in regional climate models.
How to cite: Wahl, S., Steen-Larsen, H. C., Zuhr, A., and Reuder, J.: A novel method for directly obtaining the water vapor isotope surface flux for evaluating snow-atmosphere exchange processes , EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-450, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-450, 2020.
