Spatial variance of snowmelt as a continental alpine site

We evaluated the spatial variance of snowmelt discharge during the 1995 melt season. We tested two hypotheses at Niwot Ridge, a continental alpine site located in the Colorado Front Range at an elevation of 3500 m: 1) meltwater discharge through snow is positively correlated at the scale of approximately 5 m, and 2) this characteristic lag distance will increase with time throughout the snowmelt season. In 1994, 16 small snowmelt lysimeters (each 0.2 m2 in area) were placed in a circular array with a 5 m radius; lysimeters were separated by a distance of 2 m along the circumference of the circle and drained by gravity into dedicated tip- ping buckets housed in a subnivean laboratory .The spatial variability in meltwater flux was large, with three tipping buckets over-topped during most of the snowmelt season, three tipping buckets receiving less than 5% of measured snow-water equivalence (SWE), and the remainder of the lysimeters showing a strong diurnal hydrograph. Not all hydrographs returned to near zero at night, in part because of a positive sensible heat flux. Analysis of the spatial variability of meltwater flux using geostatistics show positive correlations at distances of less than 6.5 m for the entire snowmelt cycle. This characteristic distance increased throughout most of the snowmelt season, from 2 mat the beginning of melt to 10 mat the end of the season.