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Capillary rise in snow
Author(s) -
Coléou Cécile,
Xu Ke,
Lesaffre Bernard,
Brzoska JeanBruno
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
hydrological processes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.222
H-Index - 161
eISSN - 1099-1085
pISSN - 0885-6087
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1085(199909)13:12/13<1721::aid-hyp852>3.0.co;2-d
Subject(s) - snow , capillary action , capillary pressure , porosity , materials science , geology , hydrostatic equilibrium , grain size , hydrostatic pressure , mechanics , mineralogy , porous medium , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , geotechnical engineering , composite material , geomorphology , physics , quantum mechanics
Snow is a complex porous medium where liquid water may rise to several centimeters high due to capillary rise. Previous experimental measurements in cold laboratory on wet snow samples allowed us to relate the capillary rise level with snow characteristics (porosity, grain size). In this study, a network model was adapted to snow to simulate this phenomenon. The pore texture of a wet snow block is simulated by a cubic lattice of cylindrical tubes. Tube lengths are the same, equal to the mesh size of the lattice. Their circular sections vary with the two dimensional pore size distribution, computed from image analysis of thin sections. At a given height, a tube contains water if the two following conditions are fulfilled: first, it should be thin enough in radius so that capillary pressure balances hydrostatic pressure at this level; second, there exists a continuous path of such links that connects the bottom of the lattice. Simulations are systematically compared to observations of the maximum level of capillary rise for ten different snow samples. Simulated profiles of liquid water content are compared to vertical thin sections of three refrozen samples of saturated snow. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.