Earth’s Cryosphere, 2017, Vol. XXI, No. 3, p. 55-61
EFFECTIVE THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY OF SNOW
AND ITS VARIATIONS
N.I. Osokin, A.V. Sosnovskiy, R.A. Chernov
Institute of Geography, RAS, 29, Staromonetniy per., Moscow, 119017, Russia; a_sosnovsky@mail.ru, osokinn@mail.ru
Various empirical relationships of thermal conductivity vs. density and temperature are compared and analyzed in terms of applicability to estimation of the ef-fective thermal conductivity of snow. The contributions of water vapor diffusion and air convection to the effective thermal conductivity of a snowpack of different temperatures and densities are estimated by mathematical modeling. Experimental estimates of the effective thermal conductivity of snow are reported for mid-latitude European Russia. The experimental results are compared with those obtained by other authors.
Water vapor diffusion, effective thermal conductivity, snow, density, temperature, heat and mass transfer