Optimization of over-summer snow storage at midlatitudes and low elevation

Weiss, Hannah S.; Bierman, Paul R.; Dubief, Yves; Hamshaw, Scott D.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-3367-2019

Articles | Volume 13, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-3367-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-3367-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 12

Research article

|

17 Dec 2019

Research article |

| 17 Dec 2019

Optimization of over-summer snow storage at midlatitudes and low elevation

Hannah S. Weiss, Paul R. Bierman, Yves Dubief, and Scott D. Hamshaw

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Final revised paper (published on 17 Dec 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 11 Apr 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Optimization of over-summer snow storage at mid-latitude and low elevation', Nina Lintzen, 05 May 2019
- AC2: 'Author Response to Nina Lintzen', Hannah Weiss, 09 Jul 2019
RC2: 'REVIEW OF "Optimization of over-summer snow storage at mid-latitude and low elevation"', Anonymous Referee #2, 06 May 2019
- AC1: 'Author Response to Anonymous Referee #2', Hannah Weiss, 09 Jul 2019
RC3: 'Comments and suggestions', Thomas Grünewald, 07 May 2019
- AC3: 'Author Response to Thomas Grünewald', Hannah Weiss, 09 Jul 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (25 Jul 2019) by Jürg Schweizer

AR by Hannah Weiss on behalf of the Authors (17 Sep 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (20 Sep 2019) by Jürg Schweizer

RR by Nina Lintzen (29 Sep 2019)

RR by Thomas Grünewald (30 Sep 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The paper has been improved considerably and most of the suggestions of the first review round have been addressed. Moreover, and additional data set obtained for a larger pile during 2019 has been added and confirms operational suitability of snow storage at the site.

What I am still missing are two points:
1) More details on spatial heterogeneity of snow melt at the piles
2) A comparison of measured melt for the different cover experiments.
These supplements should be added and would further increase the impact of the study. Some more smaller (mainly technical comments) below.

P 1 L21 Add interval of the TLS measurements

L21/22 If I understand correctly, in that context melt rate and snow volume change describe the same process; The different nomenclature is a bit confusing and I suggest to consistently use volume change (melt rate usually is given in mm water equivalent). Please be also consistent with the sign before melt rates/ snow volume change (- or +). One other thing is that geometry, volume and surface of the two piles are not identical, it is therefore hard to compare their volume changes; scaling melt rate to surface area (or to initial volume) would be a possible solution.

L24 please also mention here which other type of cover material was tested

Fig 1: typo 19 Nordkette Innsbruck; Kitzbühel (Austria) would be another place to add (for alpine skiing); it should maybe be added that these places performed snow storage at least once but that they are not necessarily still operating (e.g. Sochi was only for the Olympics…)

P3 L1 Short wave radiation also increases significantly with elevation

P4 L31 remove ) > (Riegel VZ 1000))

L31 in that context “digital surface model” would be the correct nomenclature

P5 L31 provide a reference for Riscan pro

Section 3.6 I think it would be good to include a table illustrating the different settings and properties of the cover experiments

L 25 why was the plastic layer removed for the experiment with wood chips? What about the reflective cover?

P6 L10 No plastic foil at the base for that experiment?

L 14 write TLS instead of Lidar – no reason to introduce an additional abbreviation

P7 Sect 4.2. Still missing is an analysis/discussion of spatial variability in melt rates of the two piles. Figure 6 shows large spatial and temporal variability. But it is hardly analysed in the text…

Figure 6: Please add a North-arrow as an indication of slope expositions.
P7 L33 How can you explain the huge temperature rise at the end of the period for panes c?

The rise to 23.8°C for panel e is not visible in the figure. Is it correct?

What is the measurement accuracy/precision of the temperature loggers? Is it really 0.01°C? If not I suggest to round numbers to less digits.

As already suggested in the first review, I still think it would be worth to analyse and compare snow-depth change of the different cover experiments. It would be interesting if these direct measurements of melt confirm you findings from the temperature loggers. Of course, the areas are quite small but it is worth a try.

Sect. 4.6 Many readers (including myself) would benefit from some more assistance in interpretation of Figure 8. I think you should add a sentence describing in more detail, how

Fig 8 needs to be interpreted and how frequency in the figure is translated to periodicy (24 h, 12h ….). For illustration, these peaks could be marked e.g with arrows in the Figure. Moreover, it is a bit confusing that Fig 8b refers to 4f and 8c to 4e – why not keep the order of Fig 4? One should also state more clearly, which covering method performed best. This is one of the most important findings of your study. If I understand correctly the order would be 8c -8a- 8b;

P8 L9/10: It might also be an option to add an axis to Fig 8, which already shows the translation)

Fig 8: add a label “depth of T-sensor” to the legends
Fig 8: From the legend and from the caption it is not clear which sensor belongs to which curve: caption: “depth in cm measured below uppermost sensor” - this means that 0 cm should be the uppermost sensor but the bold purple line is the “on snow” sensor if I understand correctly and if I compare to Fig 4…

L15 You should relate % daily loss for 2019 to 2018; Even though not the same year, the similar climatic conditions allow for a qualitative comparison and dare confirming the importance of storage volume for loss (as partly discussed in Sect 5.1).

P8 L 22,25,29 TLS instead of Lidar –also later in the text

P9 L 8: you should state here that the 2019-pile confirmed the suitability of snow storage at your place.

Sect 5.2 When talking about the most effective covering you should also consider and discuss the different costs. Cover materials have different prices and life spans, work load might vary considerably. If you use more cover material (e.g. deeper layers of saw-dust or additional covers) you will increase isolation (as also shown in Grünewald et al. 2018) but also costs. The optimal strategy is somewhere in-between. In the Conclusions you mention briefly that the cover material was changed for 2019. But more details would be appreciated.

Sect 5.3 The experiments of 2018 showed that reflective blanket+wood chips + concrete blanket performed best. In 2019 wood chips and a different blanket was used. It would be good to summarize here why the setting was changed – why not concrete blanket….?

Sect. 6: Some outlook on questions that remain open for further research on snow-storage might be added.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (06 Oct 2019) by Jürg Schweizer

AR by Hannah Weiss on behalf of the Authors (17 Oct 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (29 Oct 2019) by Jürg Schweizer

Post-review adjustments

AA: Author's adjustment | EA: Editor approval

AA by Hannah Weiss on behalf of the Authors (02 Dec 2019) Author's adjustment Manuscript

EA: Adjustments approved (02 Dec 2019) by Jürg Schweizer

Short summary

Climate change is devastating winter tourism. High-elevation, high-latitude ski centers have turned to saving snow over the summer. We present results of two field seasons to test and optimize over-summer snow storage at a midlatitude, low-elevation nordic ski center in the northeastern USA. In 2018, we tested coverings and found success overlaying 20 cm of wet woodchips with a reflective sheet. In 2019, we employed this strategy to a large pile and stored sufficient snow to open the ski season.