Publication Date:
2014-06-12
Description:
Mountain snowpacks directly and indirectly influence soil temperature (T soil ) and soil water content ( θ ). Vegetation, soil organisms, and associated biogeochemical processes certainly respond to snowpack-related variability in the soil biophysical environment, but there is currently a poor understanding of how snow-soil interactions vary in time and across the mountain landscape. Using data from a network of automated snowpack monitoring stations in the interior western U.S., we quantified seasonal and landscape patterns in T soil and θ , and their dependence on snowpack characteristics over an eleven year period. Elevation gradients in T soil were absent beneath winter snowpacks, despite large gradients in air temperature (T air ). Winter T soil was warmer and less variable than T air , but interannual and across-site variations in T soil were likely large enough to impact biogeochemical processes. Winter θ varied between years and across sites, but during a given winter at a site it changed little between the start of snowpack accumulation and the initiation of spring snow melt. Winter T soil and θ were both higher when early-winter snow accumulation was greater. Summer θ was lower when summer T air was high. Depending on the site and the year examined, summer θ was higher when there was greater summer precipitation, a larger snowpack, later snowpack melt, or a combination of these factors. We found that snowpack-related variability in the soil environment was of sufficient magnitude to influence biogeochemical processes in snow-dominated ecosystems.
Print ISSN:
0043-1397
Electronic ISSN:
1944-7973
Topics:
Architecture, Civil Engineering, Surveying
,
Geography
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