The Cryosphere www.the-cryosphere.net 1994-0416 1994-0424 4 1 2010 10.5194/tc-4-99-2010 http://www.the-cryosphere.net/4/99/2010/ http://www.the-cryosphere.net/4/99/2010/tc-4-99-2010.html http://www.the-cryosphere.net/4/99/2010/tc-4-99-2010.pdf 99 113 2010-02-05 High resolution modelling of snow transport in complex terrain using downscaled MM5 wind fields M. Bernhardt m.bernhardt@iggf.geo.uni-muenchen.de G. E. Liston U. Strasser G. Zängl K. Schulz Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU), Munich, Germany Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Offenbach, Germany Institut für Geographie und Raumforschung, University of Graz, Graz, Austria Snow transport is one of the most dominant processes influencing the snow cover accumulation and ablation in high mountain environments. Hence, the spatial and temporal variability of the snow cover is significantly modified with respective consequences on the total amount of water in the snow pack, on the temporal dynamics of the runoff and on the energy balance of the surface. For the present study we used the snow transport model SnowModel in combination with MM5 (Penn State University – National Center for Atmospheric Research MM5 model) generated wind fields. In a first step the MM5 wind fields were downscaled by using a semi-empirical approach which accounts for the elevation difference of model and real topography, and vegetation. The target resolution of 30 m corresponds to the resolution of the best available DEM and land cover map of the test site Berchtesgaden National Park. For the numerical modelling, data of six automatic meteorological stations were used, comprising the winter season (September–August) of 2003/04 and 2004/05. 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