Isothermal metamorphism, snow

Figure 3 Extract (width 1 mm) of the map of Gaussian curvature G as computed from a snow sample submitted to a long isothermal metamorphism (3 months at —2 °C). Regions where G < 0 appear in dark gray.

During a snowfall, the snow crystals accumulate on the ground and gradually form a complex porous medium constituted of air, water vapour, ice and sometimes liquid water. This ground-lying snow transforms with time, depending on the physical parameters of the environment. This process, called metamorphism, can be divided into three main types the wet snow metamorphism, the isothermal metamorphism, and the temperature gradient (TG) metamorphism. 

In a preceding work on snow isothermal metamorphism, we introduced a simple numerical model based on this local equation (I). However, T = T was a constant and P C,T) was just the Kelvin equation. In our present case, we would like to obtain a similar expression, which also takes into account the temperature dependency. By combining the Clausius-Clapeyron and Kelvin equation, we have thus ... 

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