Preliminary Results of the 2005 Montréal Urban Snow Experiment (MUSE-2005)

The MUSE field campaign took place in Montréal during 17 March-14 April 2005, with the main scientific objective to document the evolution of surface characteristics and energy budgets, at a location in a dense urban area in conditions typical of Canadian winter-spring transition, i.e. cold weather with the presence of a snow cover. Other objectives include a documentation of the evolution of snow in the urban environment (roofs, streets, and sidewalks) and its impact on the surface energy and water budgets. An urban site in Montréal has been instrumented with a 20-m telescopic meteorological tower to provide observations above the urban roughness sublayer of radiation budgets and turbulent fluxes, complemented with radiative observations of roofs, walls and streets, and of snow cover properties. The preliminary results of the energy balance are presented. Spatial variations in surface temperature and snow cover show the need to monitor, through automatic and manual observations, each component of the urban canyon.