Spatial Variations in Finnish Seasonal Snow Cover
Tari Oksanen1
The climate of Finland changes from the ephemeral (in south) to the subarctic taiga (in north) within
just 1000 km. Snow season varies from 100 to 260 days and the amount of snowfall from the yearly
precipitation varies from 30% to 50% on the way from south to north. Thereby observing the snow
stratification, physical and chemical properties of snow across the Finnish nature will give us a lot of
useful information about the effects of climate to the snow conditions. This is the first time that the
seasonal snow cover will be mapped in Finland. The research will be based on the small-scale struc-
tures of snow, such as crystal sizes and types. The fieldwork, consisting of 18 measuring points
across Finland, was done in January and March of 1998. The results from over 100 snow pits were
added to a database, which already included weather data and temperature gradients (air/soil) from
each point.
As a result, a map based on snow classification and physical properties of seasonal snow cover was
drawn. The boundaries between different classes remain still difficult to determine because they
correlate a lot with the winter weather pattern type (mild/severe). The database can also be a great
help for people dealing with the remote sensing problems considering physical characteristics of
snow. Results from this study can also be used as a database when running models predicting the
global warming and its effects in the snow stratification.
1
Department of Geophysics, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 4 (Fabianinkatu 24 A), FIN-00014 Helsinki,
Finland
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