Fig. 2: The optical shape of snow.
a, b Absorption enhancement parameter B and geometric asymmetry parameter gG (and combinations) of snow at 900 nm, retrieved with the macroscopic method. c, d Idem, retrieved with the geometric method. Note that albedo and light penetration depend on other factors than shape, in particular on grain size, so the representation in b, d must be interpreted at equal snow grain size. In every panel, the dark symbols correspond to geometric shapes reported in the literature (see Supplementary Table 2) and the two-phase random medium, labeled in a as Malinka (2014) (see Supplementary Methods 1). The colored ones correspond to the 33 natural snow samples, depending on the snow type4: Precipitation Particles (PP), Decomposing and Fragmented precipitation particles (DF), Faceted Crystals (FC), Depth Hoar (DH), Rounded Grains (RG) and Melt Forms (MF).
