The Cryosphere www.the-cryosphere.net 1994-0416 1994-0424 2 1 2008 10.5194/tc-2-53-2008 http://www.the-cryosphere.net/2/53/2008/ http://www.the-cryosphere.net/2/53/2008/tc-2-53-2008.html http://www.the-cryosphere.net/2/53/2008/tc-2-53-2008.pdf 53 66 2008-05-23 Is snow sublimation important in the alpine water balance? U. Strasser u.strasser@iggf.geo.uni-muenchen.de M. Bernhardt M. Weber G. E. Liston W. Mauser Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU), Luisenstr. 37, 80333 Munich, Germany Comm. for Glaciology, Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Alfons-Goppel-Str. 11, 80539 Munich, Germany Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA In alpine terrain, snow sublimation represents an important component of the winter moisture budget, representing a proportion of precipitation which does not contribute to melt. To quantify its amount we analyze the spatial pattern of snow sublimation at the ground, from a canopy and from turbulent suspension during wind-induced snow transport for a high alpine area in the Berchtesgaden National Park (Germany), and we discuss the efficiency of these processes with respect to seasonal snowfall. Therefore, we utilized interpolated meteorological recordings from a network of automatic stations, and a distributed simulation framework comprising validated, physically based models. The applied simulation tools were: a detailed model for shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes, a mass and energy balance model for the ground snow cover, a model for the microclimatic conditions within a forest canopy and related snow-vegetation interactions including snow sublimation from the surface of the trees, and a model for the simulation of wind-induced snow transport and related sublimation from suspended snow particles. 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