gleb_2004.htm
Bulletin of Glaciological Research 21 (2004)
1-8
©Japanese Society of Snow and Ice
Stability of drifting snow-type perennial snow patches
G. E. Glazirin*, Y. Kodama and T. Ohata
Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0819
Japan
Abstract
Perennial snow patches exist one kilometer or more below the climatic snow line at the same places for many years and have very small sizes in autumn. They could not exist stably without powerful negative feedbacks in their sizes through ablation/accumulation. Those feedbacks were examined for snowdrift-type snow patches (Hisago, Kaigata and Hamaguri snow patches) in Japan. Data on these snow patches that were obtained over period of more than 7 years were used to obtain indexes of snow patch size, accumulation and ablation. The results showed that when the size of a snow patch in autumn was large (small), the accumulation in the following winter became small (large), and when the size of a snow patch at the beginning of ablation period was large (small), the ablation in the following summer became large (small).
