Many watersheds throughout the mountain west are snow-melt dominated. Recent studies suggest that climatic shifts throughout the 20th century have diminished snowpack around the west, a trend that may accelerate in the future. Loss of critical snowpack could negatively affect the ecosystems and communities that have come to depend on it. Process models offer a way to illuminate the effects of climate change on snowpack. BIOME-BGC, a well established eco-system process model, contains a simple snow melt model for predicting daily snow water equivalent (SWE). The model requires standard daily meteorological data and can, therefore, be extrapolated over long periods of record. This research evaluated the effectiveness of BIOME-BGC (v4.2) at predicting SWE, snowpack evolution, and soil temperature. Then, several physically based algorithms were incorporated into current model logic and model behavior was evaluated. Finally, a new degree-day algorithm was presented and assessed for inclusion into future versions of BIOME-BGC. The study concluded that the new degree-day algorithm should be investigated further as it offered the best results.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-01262009-124733 |
| Date | 26 January 2009 |
| Creators | DeWire, Deana Ann |
| Contributors | Joel Harper, Faith Ann Heinsch, Anna Klene, Ulrich Kamp |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-01262009-124733/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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