subnivian

MaryW commented on the word subnivian

In Yellowstone I have seen a dozen species . . . . Coyotes, ears cocked, pounce through the last bits of snow, trying to crash in on the voles that traveled unseen on subnivian runways.

John M. Marzluff, Welcome to Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods with Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, and Other Wildlife (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2014), p. 150

Is this just an alternate spelling of subnivean? Or is it now the preferred spelling?

What is the subnivian space and how does it form?

The subnivian space is a thin air layer found between the covering snow and the surface of the soil and its vegetative debris. This space forms especially well when the snow fall becomes established prior to the hard freezing of the soil and is particularly pronounced in complexly structured, "natural" soil-litter systems. Falling snow gathers on the surfaces of the irregular profile of the leaf litter and forms complex arches and domes over and above the dead plant materials. Heat from the unfrozen soil and also from the decomposition of the organic molecules in the leaf litter melts the contact snow layer which quickly re-freezes to form thin ice sheets which add to the structural strength and also to insulating potential of the forming snow pack. A winter with a continuous snow cover will allow a significant and continuous subnivian space to form.

The Trail in Winter: Subnivia, The Virtual Nature Trail at Penn State Kensington

Subnivian, subnivian,

That’s what we’ve all been livin’ in….

By we, I mean us little guys,

We’re hidden from the winter skies.

Down in between the snow and ground,

We insects and we mice have found

A habitat that’s kind of nice,

Protected from the wind and ice.

Deb Gerace, Subnivian Samba, Glacier National Park website

if we were to travel down under the snow, we’d find a busy highway of activity, with animals moving about in the relatively cozy world of “subnivian spaces.” Subnivian means “under snow.” It happens that snow flakes have air pockets in them which hold heat and provide roughly the same insulation value as wood chips or brick. Even when the surface temperature is subzero, below the snow it’s almost always above freezing. Snow also reflects the sun’s heat, keeping it from melting too fast deeper down.

So, many animals make use of the special protection snow offers them. Mice and voles dig mazes of tunnels through the snow to find the foods they eat.

Life in the Subnivian Zone, Welcome Wildlife

February 14, 2016

alexz commented on the word subnivian

to answer the 'what word is the right one', it depends.

If it's an informal word, or a word making news headlines, then searching twitter tends to give the latest usage and the number of results give a hint of which word is trendy at the moment.

If it's a formal word, then google's ngram viewer can graph out usage trends over centuries of books.
https://goo.gl/Q1e2IV

If the first two methods fail to give me the answer I want, I rely on googlefight to settle things.
It looks like subnivean kicks subnivian's butt. http://www.googlefight.com/subnivian-vs-subnivean.php

February 14, 2016