Patrick D Broxton

Accounting for Fine-Scale Forest Structure is Necessary to Model Snowpack Mass and Energy Budgets in Montane Forests

Accurately modeling the effects of variable forest structure and change on snow distribution and persistence is critical to water resource management. The resolution of many snow models is too coarse to represent heterogeneous canopy structure in forests, and therefore, most models simplify forest effects on snowpack mass and energy budgets. To quantify the loss of snowpack prediction from simplifications of forest canopy-mediated processes, we applied a high-resolution energy balance snowpack model at two forested sites at a fine (1 m2) and coarse (100 m2) spatial resolution. Simulating open and forested areas separately, as is done in many land surface models (LSMs), leads to biases between the coarse and fine-scale...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation

Estimating the Effects of Forest Structure Changes From Wildfire on Snow Water Resources Under Varying Meteorological Conditions

Modeling forest change effects on snow is critical to resource management. However, many models either do not appropriately model canopy structure or cannot represent fine‐scale changes in structure following a disturbance. We applied a 1 m2 resolution energy budget snowpack model at a forested site in New Mexico, USA, affected by a wildfire, using input data from lidar to represent prefire and postfire canopy conditions. Both scenarios were forced with 37 years of equivalent meteorology to simulate the effect of fire‐mediated canopy change on snowpack under varying meteorology. Postfire, the simulated snow distribution was substantially altered, and despite an overall increase in snow, 32% of the field area displayed...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation