Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 2, 2025

Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
A Lagrangian Snow-Evolution System for Sea-Ice Applications (SnowModel-LG): Part I-Model Description
Glen E Liston1, Polona Itkin2, Julienne Stroeve3,4
1Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) Colorado State University Fort Collins CO USA.
None:
A Lagrangian snow-evolution model (SnowModel-LG) was used to produce daily, pan-Arctic, snow-on-sea-ice, snow property distributions on a 25 × 25-km grid, from 1 August 1980 through 31 July 2018 (38 years). The model was forced with NASA's Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications-Version 2 (MERRA-2) and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ReAnalysis-5th Generation (ERA5) atmospheric reanalyses, and National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) sea ice parcel concentration and trajectory data sets (approximately 61,000, 14 × 14-km parcels). The simulations performed full surface and internal energy and mass balances within a multilayer snowpack evolution system. Processes and features accounted for included rainfall, snowfall, sublimation from static-surfaces and blowing-snow, snow melt, snow density evolution, snow temperature profiles, energy and mass transfers within the snowpack, superimposed ice, and ice dynamics. The simulations produced horizontal snow spatial structures that likely exist in the natural system but have not been revealed in previous studies spanning these spatial and temporal domains. Blowing-snow sublimation made a significant contribution to the snowpack mass budget. The superimposed ice layer was minimal and decreased over the last four decades. Snow carryover to the next accumulation season was minimal and sensitive to the melt-season atmospheric forcing (e.g., the average summer melt period was 3 weeks or 50% longer with ERA5 forcing than MERRA-2 forcing). Observed ice dynamics controlled the ice parcel age (in days), and ice age exerted a first-order control on snow property evolution.
Related Concept Videos
Eulerian and Lagrangian Flow Descriptions
The Eulerian method focuses on fixed points in space where fluid properties, such as velocity, pressure, and temperature, are observed as the fluid moves between these...
Isochoric and Isobaric Processes
Suppose 1000 g of water is heated from 40...
Isothermal Processes
An ideal gas can also undergo isothermal expansion or compression.
For example, consider 1 mole of an ideal gas inside an isolated cylinder at initial volume V...
Precipitation Processes
Polar Equations of Conics
Phase Transitions: Melting and Freezing

