Project description
Modelling water’s flow through snow
The ability of water to move through snow impacts seasonal flooding and glacier hydrology, but it can vary greatly depending on the snow’s microstructure. Funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, the SnowMagnet project will increase our understanding of these variations by conducting the first studies on wet snow at pore scale using nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, along with lattice-Boltzmann simulations and pore-network models. Researchers will gain insight into liquid water displacement probabilities and diffusion measures. They will study melt and percolation in snow using 3D-printed porous replicas of snow geometries and produce data sets on unsaturated flow as a function of the capillary number in model media and snow. The goal is to provide new models resolving the transport of water in snow.
Objective
The effective hydraulic conductivity of snow is highly impacted by its microstructure, introducing a variability of at least three orders of magnitude, impacting seasonal flooding and glacier hydrology. Yet, the mechanisms of unsaturated flow and the impact of local phase transitions have never been investigated at the pore scale. This inhibits improving on the constitutive laws for larger scale models of snow hydrology using upscaling methods. Micro computer tomography is a very effective method for dry snow metamorphism but fails for wet snow because the transient flow and the accelerated change in microstructure cannot be resolved. We propose nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods in combination with Lattice-Boltzmann simulations and Pore-Network models to characterize water flow in snow. Applying these methods on unsaturated flow in snow, we can resolve local saturation, liquid water displacement probabilities and diffusion measures, quantitatively measuring mechanisms of water transport. These are essential for gauging modelling approaches of transport phenomena. Whilst NMR methods have been used extensively on saturated flow, it has found limited application in unsaturated media and is poised for significant advances. To target melt and percolation phenomena in snow, we start with 3D printed porous media (single pores and fully resolved snow geometries) to refine the experimental setup and provide novel data for unsaturated flow in porous media. Assisted by Lattice-Boltzmann simulations we can link pore-scale mechanisms to the NMR data. The action will produce unique data sets on unsaturated flow as a function of capillary number in model porous media and snow. This data will be used to calibrate dynamic pore network models aiming at quantifying the transient flow in snow. This leads to a parameterization of effective hydraulic conductivity for a wide range of snow microstructures providing a new standard for models resolving water transport in snow.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global FellowshipsCoordinator
7491 Trondheim
Norway