Comparison of snow thermal conductivity simplices

The subject of the research was the snow cover, which largely determines the formation of the thermal regime of the active layer and the layer of annual heat turnover in the cryolithozone. In particular, the process of changing the thermal conductivity coefficient of snow depending on density, as a comprehensive indicator, was considered. The research is relevant for the problem of predicting and reconstructing the influence of climate change on the thermal regime of the cryolithozone, as well as the search for and development of new methods and means of snow melioration of soils. The aim of the research was to obtain formulas for determining the thermal conductivity simplex of snow based on traditional functional dependencies obtained by well-known researchers (Abels, Brecht, Schwander, Schwerdtfeger, Yen) and to compare the level of discrepancies in the results of calculating the thermal conductivity simplexes according to various formulas. The author paid great attention to comparing different simplexes for five types of snow: new, granular, rime, firn, and bubble ice. To achieve the goal, elements of the theory of natural scales were used, through which the main simplices (parametric criteria) for determining the thermal conductivity coefficients of snow were obtained. The scientific novelty of the work lies in obtaining computational dependencies for the thermal conductivity simplices as a function of the density simplex across the entire possible range of variation of snow types: new, granular, rime, firn, and bubble ice. As a result of a comprehensive analysis, a comparison of the consistency of calculations according to various simplices was conducted, compared with a reference simplex, for which the parametric criterion of Abels was adopted. It was found that the values of individual simplices for different types of snow sometimes differ significantly. Moreover, for denser types of snow, this difference is less noticeable and usually falls within the accepted confidence interval. An assessment of the consistency of various simplices with each other and with the reference simplex, taken as the Abels simplex, was made. It was shown that there is also a regularity for the paired comparison of simplices: the degree of disagreement between different simplices depends on the type of snow, and with the increase in the density simplex (firn, bubble ice), it decreases and falls within the accepted confidence interval.