During blowing snow episodes, which occur frequently in Arctic and Antarctic environments, snow particle sublimation can be a significant boundary-layer sink of sensible heat and a source of latent heat. In this process, the latent heat needed to maintain the sublimation of blowing snow particles can be obtained from three sources: sensible heat diffusing down from above into the blowing snow layer, cooling of the air, plus the blowing snow particles, and solar radiation absorbed by the particles.

Time-dependent and fetch-dependent models of blowing snow (PIEKTUK-T and -F), which incorporate transfers through a particle size spectrum and the negative feedback of relative humidity increases and temperature decreases on sublimation rate, have been developed to understand the thermodynamic effects of sublimating blowing snow particles on the atmospheric boundary layer. The models predict that the sensible and latent heat fluxes have opposite signs under typical conditions, as we expected. For example, when the wind speed increases from 10 to 25 m/s under typical conditions, the sensible heat flux minimum changes from -12 to -162 W m^-2, and the latent heat flux maximum increase from 47 to 213 W m^-2. The heat flux perturbations associated with sublimation of blowing snow decrease with fetch or time because of the self-limiting process of sublimation due to increased relative humidity and decreased temperature. Comparisons with Arctic, Antarctic and Great Plain data will be discussed.