Effect of Sintering on Aeolian Snow Erosion

The quantitative description of aeolian snow transport remains a challenging issue for theoretical modelling but also for environmental concerns. Drifting snow is crucially dependent on snow cover properties, including cohesive force and snow type. Snow transport is particularly impacted by cohesive processes in contrast to wind-blown sand. Our study explores in particular the effect of snow sintering on both the aerodynamic and impact erosion processes.We propose here an original experimental set-up to determine both the aerodynamic and impact erosion rate in the context of snow packs. The experiments were carried out in the cold wind-tunnel at the Cryopsheric Environment simulator in Shinjo with snow packs of various sintering times. Our results reveal that as sintering time is increased, impact erosion efficiency –which is determined by the number of particles ejected per impact– is decreased. Our preliminary findings are in line with recent experiments made with moist sand, suggesting similarities between snow and moist sand.