| Abstract: | Four experiments were performed to examine the relationship between the meltwater flow field and ion release from melting snow. A 0.4 m3 volume of snow was placed in a Plexiglass box and melted from above using a heating plate. The meltwater and solute fluxes issuing from the bottom of the snow were monitored. In experiments with NaCl tracer added to the snow, the solute concentrations were generally lower in the flow fingers than in the background wetting front. Dye tracer experiments revealed contemporaneous areas of concentrated dye and dilute meltwater in flow fingers. This suggests that the meltwater in flow fingers is diluted by low concentration water from the top of the snowpack. Flow fingers contribute more meltwater flux primarily because the flow is maintained for a longer period of time than in the non-finger areas; however, the relative contribution of flow fingers to solute flux was apparently not as great as that of the background wetting front because of dilution of solute in the flow finger areas. |
