Assessment of Bulk Snowpack Structure from Transient Barometric
Pressure Waves using Embedded Wireless Sensor Networks

Contents: Surface Melt Magnitude Retrieval over the Greenland Ice Sheet >> Assessment of Bulk Snowpack Tracking Alpine Snowpack Acquisition of Portalbe Radiometer for Cryoshphere Remote Sensing Research		Air movement by a time-varying surface pressure field or static pressure differential has been well documented in modulating snow processes such as heat and vapor transport, crystal growth and structural evolution (Colbeck, 1989). Advective flow within the snow pack can be driven by moving air interacting with a rough surface or persistent stationary or propagating atmospheric pressure field (Massman, 2006). A range of high and low frequency atmospheric phenomena can be responsible for forcing advective flux within the snow pack.
	High frequency atmospheric turbulence propagating over timescales between 10-1 to 103 seconds and spatial scales between 10-2 to 102 meters and low frequency, synoptic scale atmospheric fluctuations operating at 106 meters and over 106 seconds can induce barometric pressure pumping (Colbeck, 1989; Massman and Farrier, 1992; Auer et al., 1996; Massman et al., 1997). This work involves the use of a prototype wireless sensor network to improve monitoring of the barometric pumping process in alpine snow packs with the potential to retrieve snow pack structure (diffusivity, density) from quantifying changes in amplitude and phase of transient pressure waves.