Date

Special Session at 2004 Joint Assembly
H23: Surface and Subsurface Flow and Storage of Water in Cold Environments
American Geophysical Union - Canadian Geophysical Union Joint Meeting
Montreal, Canada
17 - 21 May 2004

Deadline for Submission: Thursday, 12 February 2004

For further information about the special session, please go to:
http://submissions6.agu.org/sm04/search/search_detail.asp?sessid=135


SESSION DESCRIPTION
Land surface processes in cold environments are of profound importance
with regard to the cycling and storage of water. Permanently and
seasonally frozen soils strongly affect the infiltration, storage and
drainage processes. The resulting variations in surface soil moisture
also greatly affect the flux of water between the ground surface and
atmosphere, and therefore the recycling of water within and export from
drainage basins.

Since these surface processes dominate over much of the circumpolar and
alpine regions, they have important and obvious affects on water
resources and regional and global climate. Developing a more complete
quantitative understanding of the flux, storage and transformation of
water and energy in cold land areas is a critical step toward improved
representation of these processes in soil-vegetation-atmosphere transfer
schemes, and development of appropriate scaling algorithms.

This session aims to improve process understanding in cold regions to
aid predictions in these poorly gauged basins and is a contribution to
the IAHS Decade for Prediction in Ungauged Basins, PUB for the Cold
Regions. To this end, a broad range of topics that are important to the
understanding of processes controlling the flux and storage of water in
cold regions and/or cold seasons will be addressed. Detailed field and
laboratory studies of processes are particularly welcomed, as are
modelling studies.

Deadline for Submission: Thursday, 12 February 2004

CONTACT INFORMATION
For further information about the special session, please go to:
http://submissions6.agu.org/sm04/search/search_detail.asp?sessid=135

or contact:
S.K. Carey (sean.carey [at] usask.ca)
M. Hayashi (hayashi [at] ucalgary.ca)
W.L Quinton (bquinton [at] sfu.ca)