Permafrost

The crucial factors dominating the modeling of alpine permafrost are: 1) topography and soil type heterogeneity, 2) snow insulating effect, 3) presence of ice in the ground and phase change 4) high thermal inertia. GEOtop seems the right model for alpine permafrost research thanks to its physically based approach and accurate topography characterization.

The 1D version has been tested to verify surface temperature on the steep walls of Aiguille du Midi in Mont Blanc, FR, by Paolo Pogliotti under the supervision of Stephan Gruber. The results are quite encouraging and show the potentialities of GEOtop to deal with complex mountain topography. Further information available here.


Tests on the soil-snow interactions have been performed to evaluate the insulating effect of the snow and the best type of snow discretization in order to obtain a better soil surface temperature. Further information available here. Other tests are now ongoing on the influence of initial conditions on soil temperature modeling.


Snow/Glacier

The snow cover evolution strongly controls soil energy balance through its high albedo and insulating properties. The importance of an accurate snow modeling entails the use of sophisticated models based on the solution of the snow energy balance, and, consequently, on a good parameterization of radiation and turbulent fluxes. GEOtop includes a model snow with a multilayer scheme, capable of describing snow metamorphism and water circulation and refreezing in the snowpack. More information on the snow-glacier module can be found in the PhD thesis of Stefano Endrizzi http://www.ing.unitn.it/~endrizzi/PhDthesis.pdf.

GEOtop can therefore:

  • simulate the snow depth;

  • simulate the snow water equivalent (SWE);


  • calculate the energy fluxes between the snow-atmosphere and snow-soil

  • calculate the mass balance of a glacier.

The model has been applied to simulate the mass balance of the Mandrone glacier in the Adamello massif in the italian central Alps with good results. In the image below is reported the mass of water lost in one season by the glacier (analysis: Endrizzi).