Developing time-series climate surfaces to drive topographically distributed energy- and water-balance models

Topographically distributed energy- and water-balance models can accurately simulate both the development and melting of a seasonal snowcover in mountain basins. The models require time-series climate surfaces of air temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, and solar and thermal radiation. If data are available, these parameters can be adequately estimated at time steps of 1 to 3 hours. Unfortunately, climate monitoring in mountain basins is very limited, and the full range of elevations and exposures that affect climate conditions, snow deposition, and snowmelt is seldom sampled. However, detailed time-series climate surfaces have been successfully developed using limited data and relatively simple methods. A synopsis of the tools and methods used to combine limited data with simple is presented.