Investigations on physical properties and ablation processes of snow cover during the spring snowmelt period in the headwater region of the Irtysh River, Chinese Altai Mountains

To explore the effects of the underlying surface on snow properties and the “forest effects” on snow accumulation and ablation processes in the headwater area of the Irtysh River in the Chinese Altai Mountains, the physical properties of snow and certain snowmelt processes were investigated during the snowmelt period in 2014. Our observations showed that the diurnal and daily variations of air and snow temperatures, the liquid water contents (LWCs), and the densities of surface snow layers at 0–5 cm depths were in agreement, but differences in snow properties were obvious at the bottom snow layers. The LWCs were divided into three categories according to snow temperature ( T s ): LWC = 0, T s