Abstract
Laboratory and field experiments on hardness of snow have shown that the free water contained in snow decreases its hardness, and that solar radiation further decreases hardness down to a value below the limit of that which would result only from the influence of the water content of snow. A quantitative relationship between the amount of solar radiation absorbed by snow and decrease in snow hardness was derived. Thin-section analyses of snow were used to reveal the mechanism of decrease in snow hardness which had been caused by solar radiation.

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