Snow and Firn Microstructure and Transport Properties: U. S. ITASE

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This award supports a project to measure snow and firn bulk properties and microstructure along the route of the U.S. International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (US ITASE) traverses in West Antarctica. These parameters are important because they control the air-snow-firn transport processes and thus the manner in which heat, vapor, and chemical species in air are incorporated into snow and polar firn. The objectives of the project are to obtain field measurements of near-surface (down to 2 meters) snow and firn properties, which include surface roughness, permeability, density, grain size, surface-to-volume ratio, and tortuosity. In addition microstructural measurements and measurements of the above properties will be measured in firn cores down to 20 meters back in the laboratory. These measurements will be used in a transport model to elucidate the nature of the air-snow-firn exchange and firnification process at the various sites along the U.S. ITASE traverse. Since many of the snow and firn properties also affect the interaction of radiation in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, these measurements will provide valuable ground truth to those efforts using remote sensing to map the spatial variations of snow, firn and ice properties.