TY - Generic T1 - The Influence of Forest Canopy Structure on Snow Interception: Design and Implementation of a New Model T2 - 85th Annual Western Snow Conference Y1 - 2017 A1 - C. David Moeser AB -

Seasonal snow in forested areas can account for 17% of total winter terrestrial water storage. Snow
interception ranges from 0 to 60% of the total annual snowfall in forested areas and creates large snow storage
differences between open and forested environments. Many snowmelt models have included interactions of canopy
with snow-cover, but these models included overly simplistic representations of interception processes and could not
reproduce the natural heterogeneity in under-canopy snow cover. This study developed and implemented an
interception model valid for discrete time steps, various scales, and heterogeneous canopy structure. New forest
structure metrics derived from aerial LiDAR data were developed and introduced into the new model to better
describe forest structure. Inclusion of these novel forest structure metrics allowed the new interception model to
mimic the heterogeneous canopy structure layout, while prior modeling efforts demonstrated homogenous
interception estimations even under highly heterogeneous canopy conditions. The large variance of estimated
interception between points from the new model were validated from ~84,000 manual measurements and translated
to approximately double the variance of under-canopy snow depth, snow-water equivalent, and canopy sublimation
compared to prior models.

JF - 85th Annual Western Snow Conference CY - Boise, Idaho UR - /files/PDFs/2017Moeser.pdf ER -