Multiphase flows and the modeling of drifting snow

Three categories of multiphase flow theories are commonly specialized for modeling drifting snow; the 'two-fluid' model, particle tracking schemes and kinetic gas theory type models. The resulting models of drifting snow have been used to simulate the transport and deposition of snow over mountain crests, in mountainous terrain at a meteorological mesoscale and around man-made structures. Though usually much denser than typical atmospheric dispersions, idealized snow avalanches have also been simulated with specialized multiphase flow theories. Future research in the area of geophysical multiphase flow modeling, of which drifting snow is one subset, will follow closely on the heels of efforts on single phase flow research in the same environments.