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Nick Rutter

Bio: Nick Rutter is an academic researcher from Northumbria University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Snow & Snowpack. The author has an hindex of 20, co-authored 46 publications receiving 1290 citations. Previous affiliations of Nick Rutter include Remote Sensing Center & University of Sheffield.
Topics: Snow, Snowpack, Environmental science, Glacier, Tundra


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, three snowpack models of varying complexity and purpose were evaluated across a wide range of hydrometeorological and forest canopy conditions at five Northern Hemisphere locations, for up to three months.
Abstract: Thirty-three snowpack models of varying complexity and purpose were evaluated across a wide range of hydrometeorological and forest canopy conditions at five Northern Hemisphere locations, for up t ...

334 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Snow Model Intercomparison Project (SnowMIP2) as mentioned in this paper was designed as an intercomparisons of surface mass and energy balance simulations for snow in forested areas, and participants in 11 countries contributed output from 33 models, and the results are published here for sites in Canada, United States, and Switzerland.
Abstract: The Northern Hemisphere has large areas that are forested and seasonally snow covered. Compared with open areas, forest canopies strongly influence interactions between the atmosphere and snow on the ground by sheltering the snow from wind and solar radiation and by intercepting falling snow; these influences have important consequences for the meteorology, hydrology, and ecology of forests. Many of the land surface models used in meteorological and hydrological forecasting now include representations of canopy snow processes, but these have not been widely tested in comparison with observations. Phase 2 of the Snow Model Intercomparison Project (SnowMIP2) was therefore designed as an intercomparison of surface mass and energy balance simulations for snow in forested areas. Model forcing and calibration data for sites with paired forested and open plots were supplied to modeling groups. Participants in 11 countries contributed output from 33 models, and the results are published here for sites in Canada, the United States, and Switzerland. On average, the models perform fairly well in simulating snow accumulation and ablation, although there is a wide intermodal spread and a tendency to underestimate differences in snow mass between open and forested areas. Most models capture the large differences in surface albedos and temperatures between forest canopies and open snow well. There is, however, a strong tendency for models to underestimate soil temperature under snow, particularly for forest sites, and this would have large consequences for simulations of runoff and biological processes in the soil.

177 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the field, density cutters overestimate (1 to 6 ǫ%) densities below and underestimate densities above a threshold between 296 to 350 m−m−3, depending on cutter type.
Abstract: . Density is a fundamental property of porous media such as snow. A wide range of snow properties and physical processes are linked to density, but few studies have addressed the uncertainty in snow density measurements. No study has yet quantitatively considered the recent advances in snow measurement methods such as micro-computed tomography (μCT) in alpine snow. During the MicroSnow Davos 2014 workshop, different approaches to measure snow density were applied in a controlled laboratory environment and in the field. Overall, the agreement between μCT and gravimetric methods (density cutters) was 5 to 9 %, with a bias of −5 to 2 %, expressed as percentage of the mean μCT density. In the field, density cutters overestimate (1 to 6 %) densities below and underestimate (1 to 6 %) densities above a threshold between 296 to 350 kg m−3, dependent on cutter type. Using the mean density per layer of all measurement methods applied in the field (μCT, box, wedge, and cylinder cutters) and ignoring ice layers, the variation between the methods was 2 to 5 % with a bias of −1 to 1 %. In general, our result suggests that snow densities measured by different methods agree within 9 %. However, the density profiles resolved by the measurement methods differed considerably. In particular, the millimeter-scale density variations revealed by the high-resolution μCT contrasted the thick layers with sharp boundaries introduced by the observer. In this respect, the unresolved variation, i.e., the density variation within a layer which is lost by lower resolution sampling or layer aggregation, is critical when snow density measurements are used in numerical simulations.

90 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, aerial photography and airborne laser scanning are used to map tree locations, heights, and crown diameters for a lodgepole pine forest in Colorado as inputs to a spatially explicit radiative transfer model.
Abstract: Solar radiation beneath a forest canopy can have large spatial variations, but this is frequently neglected in radiative transfer models for large-scale applications. To explicitly model spatial variations in subcanopy radiation, maps of canopy structure are required. Aerial photography and airborne laser scanning are used to map tree locations, heights, and crown diameters for a lodgepole pine forest in Colorado as inputs to a spatially explicit radiative transfer model. Statistics of subcanopy radiation simulated by the model are compared with measurements from radiometer arrays, and scaling of spatial statistics with temporal averaging and array size is discussed. Efficient parameterizations for spatial averages and standard deviations of subcanopy radiation are developed using parameters that can be obtained from the model or hemispherical photography.

89 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, detailed physical snow measurements within the radiometer footprints were made to relate the microwave signatures to the seasonal evolution of the snowpack, and provide inputs for model simulations with the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) snow emission model.

74 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A copy of the Guangbo jiemu bao [Broadcast Program Report] was being passed from hand to hand among a group of young people eager to be the first to read the article introducing the program "What Is Revolutionary Love?".
Abstract: A copy of Guangbo jiemu bao [Broadcast Program Report] was being passed from hand to hand among a group of young people eager to be the first to read the article introducing the program "What Is Revolutionary Love?" It said: "… Young friends, you are certainly very concerned about this problem'. So, we would like you to meet the young women workers Meng Xiaoyu and Meng Yamei and the older cadre Miss Feng. They are the three leading characters in the short story ‘The Place of Love.’ Through the description of the love lives of these three, the story induces us to think deeply about two questions that merit further examination.

1,528 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) as discussed by the authors is developed from the Met Office Surface Exchange Scheme (MOSES) and can be used as a stand alone land surface model driven by observed forcing data, or coupled to an atmospheric global circulation model.
Abstract: . This manuscript describes the energy and water components of a new community land surface model called the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES). This is developed from the Met Office Surface Exchange Scheme (MOSES). It can be used as a stand alone land surface model driven by observed forcing data, or coupled to an atmospheric global circulation model. The JULES model has been coupled to the Met Office Unified Model (UM) and as such provides a unique opportunity for the research community to contribute their research to improve both world-leading operational weather forecasting and climate change prediction systems. In addition JULES, and its forerunner MOSES, have been the basis for a number of very high-profile papers concerning the land-surface and climate over the last decade. JULES has a modular structure aligned to physical processes, providing the basis for a flexible modelling platform.

1,083 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Prediction in Ungauged Basins (PUB) initiative of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) launched in 2003 and concluded by the PUB Symposium 2012 held in Delft (23-25 October 2012), set out to shift the scientific culture of hydrology towards improved scientific understanding of hydrological processes, as well as associated uncertainties and the development of models with increasing realism and predictive power as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The Prediction in Ungauged Basins (PUB) initiative of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), launched in 2003 and concluded by the PUB Symposium 2012 held in Delft (23–25 October 2012), set out to shift the scientific culture of hydrology towards improved scientific understanding of hydrological processes, as well as associated uncertainties and the development of models with increasing realism and predictive power. This paper reviews the work that has been done under the six science themes of the PUB Decade and outlines the challenges ahead for the hydrological sciences community.Editor D. KoutsoyiannisCitation Hrachowitz, M., Savenije, H.H.G., Bloschl, G., McDonnell, J.J., Sivapalan, M., Pomeroy, J.W., Arheimer, B., Blume, T., Clark, M.P., Ehret, U., Fenicia, F., Freer, J.E., Gelfan, A., Gupta, H.V., Hughes, D.A., Hut, R.W., Montanari, A., Pande, S., Tetzlaff, D., Troch, P.A., Uhlenbrook, S., Wagener, T., Winsemius, H.C., Woods, R.A., Zehe, E., and Cudennec, C., 2013. A d...

848 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A publicly available, long-term (1915-2011) hydrologically consistent dataset for the conterminous United States, intended to aid in studies of water and energy exchanges at the land surface, is described in this article.
Abstract: This paper describes a publicly available, long-term (1915–2011), hydrologically consistent dataset for the conterminous United States, intended to aid in studies of water and energy exchanges at the land surface. These data are gridded at a spatial resolution of latitude/longitude and are derived from daily temperature and precipitation observations from approximately 20 000 NOAA Cooperative Observer (COOP) stations. The available meteorological data include temperature, precipitation, and wind, as well as derived humidity and downwelling solar and infrared radiation estimated via algorithms that index these quantities to the daily mean temperature, temperature range, and precipitation, and disaggregate them to 3-hourly time steps. Furthermore, the authors employ the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model to produce 3-hourly estimates of soil moisture, snow water equivalent, discharge, and surface heat fluxes. Relative to an earlier similar dataset by Maurer and others, the improved dataset h...

591 citations