Dependence of snow physical properties on climatic conditions

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Seasonal snow cover is one of the most extensive cryospheric phenomena, exerting significant climatic impacts not only in the high-latitude/ high-altitude regions but also in the mid-latitudes. However, Large-scale climate models such as global climate models (GCM), Earth System Models (ESM), or regional climate models (RCMs) on regional scales usually treat snow physical properties (e.g. density, thermal conductivity) to be independent of spatiotemporal fluctuation. In this study, spatiotemporal fluctuations of snow physical properties in Japan were estimated. The results demonstrate the spatiotemporal fluctuations of snow physical properties, and the dependence of the spatial distribution of snow physical properties on time. This study implies the problem to treat snow physical properties constantly in the GCM, ESM, RCMs models.