Publ. no. 256, (1999) ISBN 1-901502-90-2, 282 + x pages, price £42.50
This volume consists of 30 papers selected for Symposium HS2 held during the XXII General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics at Birmingham, UK, in July 1999. The symposium was convened under the auspices of the International Commission on Snow and Ice and co-convened by two other IAHS Commissions and the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences. There were four main themes:
Many of the papers in the first theme consider snow cover distribution on both continental and hemispheric scales, and the feedback mechanisms between snow distribution, recent trends in climatic variation and major climatic events such as El Niño and La Niña. The papers demonstrate how satellite data have now become an essential tool for such large-scale studies. Satellite observations are also an integral part of the monitoring of snow cover—and by extension the prediction of snowmelt regimes—covered in the second theme. This theme also includes recent advances in the modelling of snow-cover evolution and snowmelt based on new knowledge of physical processes for snow redistribution, energy exchange and snow metamorphism. Ice mass variability is a comprehensive section on climate change, atmospheric circulation, energy exchange and the evolution of glaciers and ice masses in Europe, Asia, the High Arctic and Antarctica. The fourth theme includes papers on how changes in snow- and ice-cover distribution may impact on chemical weathering reactions and perturb atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The isotope chemistry (d 18O) of present and past precipitation and the role of snow cover in the emissions of N2O from soil is also presented.