VIDEO: How much mountain snowpack water disappears into the atmosphere through sublimation?

To better understand and quantify how snow sublimation happens, the Sublimation of Snow (SOS) Project deployed over 100 instruments and 16 instrument types at a research site at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory near Crested Butte, Colorado. This intensive study was conducted by Dr Jessica Lundquist and collaborators at the University of Washington, Aspen Global Change Institute and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and funded by the National Science Foundation.

Together, these 100 instruments collected approximately 10 million individual data points per hour, providing extremely high temporal resolution data at the Kettle Ponds study site in Gothic, Colorado, to better understand the phase transition from snow to water vapor.

Sonic anemometers

Temperature and relative humidity sensors

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For more of the top cryospheric insights into the world’s water supply, read Meteorological Technology International’s exclusive feature, “How experts are measuring climate change’s effect on data-sparse mountain cryosphere regions and global water availability”, here.