Studies related to Snow and Ice
Canada is a northern latitude country with significant seasons when the land and water is covered by snow and/or ice. This is a changing dynamic. The times when the landscape is covered by snow and/or ice and the depth of these layers have been changing with time. The amount of this change, the causes of this change and the rates of change are all subject to analysis and interpretation. What appears to be needed is more specific, site specific information to improve the information wee have about many aspects related the dynamics of the frozen landscape.
T. D. DAVIES in the paper on, "Snow and Ice Covers: Interactions with the Atmosphere and Ecosystems" (Proceedings of Yokohama Symposia J2 and J5, July 1993). IAHS Publ. no. 223, 1994. 3 ) states
"Snow cover is a critical component of the climate system (Robinson, 1987), interacting with the atmosphere over a range of time- and space-scales. Although the major changes in spatial extent of snow cover occurs on the seasonal scale, a single weather event can extend continental snow lines equatorwards by up to 1000 km (Cohen & Rind, 1991). Snow cover influences the thermal stability of the air immediately above it, but it also interacts on the synoptic, regional or hemispheric scales.
Snow cover is a radiative sink. Its high short-wave albedo is combined with a high thermal emissivity which increases the amount of infrared radiation lost near the Earth's surface. The radiative losses are not replaced quickly by heat fluxes from below because of the thermal insulating properties of the snow. It is a particularly good insulator at night when radiative exchange is concentrated in the surface layers of the snow. The temperature of the snow surface may drop by > 10°C overnight, but the soil surface underlying snow cover as thin as 10 cm may drop by < 1 °C. When the melt occurs, the snow cover is a sink for latent heat because of the large amounts of energy required to change water phase. The surface energy balance is, thus, very strongly influenced by changing distributions of snow cover. Surface exchange processes are further modified by the small aerodynamic surface roughness of snow cover (typically 0.5 to 10.0 x 10-4 m) which reduces turbulence and vertical transfer.
Additional impacts of snow cover include those on surface hydrology; earlier/later
snow cover melting influences river and soil-water regimes (which can have feedback effects on the atmosphere; see below). Given the important role of snow cover in the climate system, it is clear that change in this role (through, for example, enhanced greenhouse gas warming) may lead to further substantial impacts on the climate system and, hence, on biospheric systems. These biospheric systems may be impacted via climate or, if they are directly dependent on the presence of seasonal snow cover, by its changing distribution. It is, therefore, important to understand the nature of snow cover/ atmosphere interactions. The two-way interactions mean that snow cover is a useful index for detecting and monitoring atmospheric change (Barry, 1985; Schlesinger,
1986), as well as being a strong forcing factor in atmospheric change. Therefore, in this paper, some comments will be made on seasonal snow cover observations as well as presenting a review of some of the research on atmosphere/snow cover interactions.
From: http://voices.yahoo.com/top-5-reasons-scientists-study-snow-based-recent-5755728.html
Part 1: Snow Studies: In the past decade, a number of studies on snow improved our understanding of how a crystal of snow forms and how environmental effects alter that growth, as well the question of why scientists bother to pay so much attention to snow in the first place. The study of snow has continued since Descartes wrote about it in Les Meteors in 1637 with many scientists finding the ever changing patterns of snowflakes fascinating. But beyond the intricate beauty of their formation, the study of snow is often aligned with real world problems. Here's a list of recent studies and how they were used to further the knowledge of snow and the various effects of snow.
Scientists Study Snow to Understand Crystal Growth Patterns
A 2007 computer simulation study of snow crystal growth by Janko Gravner and David Griffeath [1] improved earlier computer models for where and under what conditions a snow crystal adds additional mass. A snowflake starts at the seed, often a dust particle or plant seed, then adds mass from either vapor or ice in layers, eventually growing six legs, some with plates, some with jagged edges. To see some of the various patterns from simple hexagons, stars, and enhanced stars with ribs, plates and firring, see Kenneth Libbrect's Snow Crystal Gallery .
The main science behind the growth of crystals is that at vapor-liquid boundary and at the vapor-ice boundary the effects of melting and freezing creates mathematically hard-to-model effects. The study added additional parameters that helped pull the boundary closer to every side of the snowflake and away from the more linear stochastic models.
The value of the study of how snowflakes form is that most snow research models use a crystal growth model at the center of their research regardless of whether it occurs within a cloud, falling to the ground, or lying within a snow bank.
Scientists Study Snow to Identify Atmospheric Pollution and Global Warming
When snow falls, the frozen water crystals also contain molecules of other gases including nitrous oxide and peroxide. In a 2001 study in the Antarctic on Ross Island, scientists used the fact that sunlight will trigger known reactions between various chemicals contained in snow to quantify how much nitrous oxide and peroxide are released, factors that can be used for predictions depending on the time of day and year. Nitrous oxide is known to play a role in the creation of the ozone layer, so understanding how much nitrous oxide is exchanged between the air and the snow bank aids work on global warming and the analysis about how to solve pollution problems.[2]
Scientists Study Snow to Understand the Origin of the Universe
Snow is present throughout the solar systems. In many cases, meteorites found on Earth called chondrites, read more about them in "Top Extraterrestrials and What Science Has Learned About Them", show how dust particles collect other dust particles and combine into larger pieces. A similar process occurs when ice particles in the rings around Saturn collide at a simplistic level. A 2008 study modeled larger Kuiper Belt type objects and Enceladus and allowed for the centers to contain water and flow outward with the purpose of using a mathematically simplified model. The results predicted two things seen in the Kuiper Belt-an ice depleted core and an outer layer of ice on the surface and one being investigated, whether or not such objects could have liquid centers. [3]
Scientists Study Snow for Improved Weather Prediction
In a 2006 study in France, scientists combined volunteer collection and measurement of hailstones with radar soundings of storm clouds to gather information that could improve the quality of hailstorm prediction and found evidence that supported the belief that night time hail storms were severe i.e. with larger hailstone size and number. It implies people might want to put their car under a roof at night. [4]
Scientists Study Snow to Make Transportation Operations Safer for Travelers
A 2007 study of road surface conditions compared to a long-term simulation of the road using satellites to remotely observe conditions. The difficulty of predicting road ice relates to the specific weather condition that might cause it-fog, sleet, surface water, snow and snow pack and the temperature at the time. The study compared results predicted by piece of software against sampled data with good validation that the software worked, and it could be a real savings over installing a lot of equipment all over France to measure similar results in order to provide warnings and road closures for travelers. The software under evaluation uses boundary level conditions calculated from surface and vapor fluxes along with variables for traffic and surface roughness, etc.[5]
Another study in 2008 looked at the ice buildup on surfaces like airplane wings from balloon born instruments at various levels and at various times of the year.[6]
Scientists Study Snow to Aid Ski Resort and Highway Pass Operations
Ski resorts require snow to operate and they need to ensure that skiers are safe from the effects of avalance. When snowflakes or particles fall to the ground, they tend to combine together without melting but note effectively. A 2002 study of snow looked at the size of snow particles in snow then applied test torque tests to blocks of that snow in order to obtain the elastic sheer modulus of snow, that remains independent of temperature. The elastic sheer modulus of snow is a factor that relates the triggering energy needed to cause the snow to avalanche or "twist apart and slide". [7]
[1] Janko Gravner, David Griffeath, "Modeling snow crystal growth II: A mesoscopic lattice map with plausible dynamics", Elsevier, Sep 8, 2009
[2] Cort Anastasio, Edward S. Galbavy, Manuel A. Hutterli, John F. Burkhart, Donna K. Friel, "Photoformation of hydroxyl radical on snow grains at Summit, Greenland", Atmospheric Environment 41, 2007
[3] Dina Prialnik, Rainer Merk, "Growth and evolution of small porous icy bodies with an adaptive-grid thermal evolution code", Icarus, March 24, 2008
[4] Dario B. Giaiotti, Fulvio Stel, "The Effects of environmental water vapor on hailstone size distributions", Atmospheric Research, Feb. 2, 2006
[5] L. Bouilloud, E. Martin, F. Habets, A. Boone, P. Le Moigne, J. Livet, M. Marchetti, A. Foidart, L. Franchisteguy, S. Morel, JNoilhan, and P. Pettre, "Road Surface Condition Forecasting in France", Journal of Applied Meteogology and Climatology, October 11, 2007
[6] Ben C. Bernstein, Christine Le Bot, "An Inferred Climatology of Icing Conditions Aloft Including Supercooled Drops, Part II: Europe, Asia and the Globe", Journal of Applied Meteorology, July 7, 2008
[7] Jurg Schweizer, Christian Camponovo, "The temperature dependence of the effective elastic shear modulus of snow", Cold Regions Science and Technology 35, 2002, 55-64
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Sheri works as a freelance writer, novelist and poet. She worked in the aviation industry at the Port of Seattle and Boeing Company for 20 years as a systems analyst/architect where she edited and wrote over... View profile
T. D. DAVIES in the paper on, "Snow and Ice Covers: Interactions with the Atmosphere and Ecosystems" (Proceedings of Yokohama Symposia J2 and J5, July 1993). IAHS Publ. no. 223, 1994. 3 ) states
"Snow cover is a critical component of the climate system (Robinson, 1987), interacting with the atmosphere over a range of time- and space-scales. Although the major changes in spatial extent of snow cover occurs on the seasonal scale, a single weather event can extend continental snow lines equatorwards by up to 1000 km (Cohen & Rind, 1991). Snow cover influences the thermal stability of the air immediately above it, but it also interacts on the synoptic, regional or hemispheric scales.
Snow cover is a radiative sink. Its high short-wave albedo is combined with a high thermal emissivity which increases the amount of infrared radiation lost near the Earth's surface. The radiative losses are not replaced quickly by heat fluxes from below because of the thermal insulating properties of the snow. It is a particularly good insulator at night when radiative exchange is concentrated in the surface layers of the snow. The temperature of the snow surface may drop by > 10°C overnight, but the soil surface underlying snow cover as thin as 10 cm may drop by < 1 °C. When the melt occurs, the snow cover is a sink for latent heat because of the large amounts of energy required to change water phase. The surface energy balance is, thus, very strongly influenced by changing distributions of snow cover. Surface exchange processes are further modified by the small aerodynamic surface roughness of snow cover (typically 0.5 to 10.0 x 10-4 m) which reduces turbulence and vertical transfer.
Additional impacts of snow cover include those on surface hydrology; earlier/later
snow cover melting influences river and soil-water regimes (which can have feedback effects on the atmosphere; see below). Given the important role of snow cover in the climate system, it is clear that change in this role (through, for example, enhanced greenhouse gas warming) may lead to further substantial impacts on the climate system and, hence, on biospheric systems. These biospheric systems may be impacted via climate or, if they are directly dependent on the presence of seasonal snow cover, by its changing distribution. It is, therefore, important to understand the nature of snow cover/ atmosphere interactions. The two-way interactions mean that snow cover is a useful index for detecting and monitoring atmospheric change (Barry, 1985; Schlesinger,
1986), as well as being a strong forcing factor in atmospheric change. Therefore, in this paper, some comments will be made on seasonal snow cover observations as well as presenting a review of some of the research on atmosphere/snow cover interactions.
From: http://voices.yahoo.com/top-5-reasons-scientists-study-snow-based-recent-5755728.html
Part 1: Snow Studies: In the past decade, a number of studies on snow improved our understanding of how a crystal of snow forms and how environmental effects alter that growth, as well the question of why scientists bother to pay so much attention to snow in the first place. The study of snow has continued since Descartes wrote about it in Les Meteors in 1637 with many scientists finding the ever changing patterns of snowflakes fascinating. But beyond the intricate beauty of their formation, the study of snow is often aligned with real world problems. Here's a list of recent studies and how they were used to further the knowledge of snow and the various effects of snow.
Scientists Study Snow to Understand Crystal Growth Patterns
A 2007 computer simulation study of snow crystal growth by Janko Gravner and David Griffeath [1] improved earlier computer models for where and under what conditions a snow crystal adds additional mass. A snowflake starts at the seed, often a dust particle or plant seed, then adds mass from either vapor or ice in layers, eventually growing six legs, some with plates, some with jagged edges. To see some of the various patterns from simple hexagons, stars, and enhanced stars with ribs, plates and firring, see Kenneth Libbrect's Snow Crystal Gallery .
The main science behind the growth of crystals is that at vapor-liquid boundary and at the vapor-ice boundary the effects of melting and freezing creates mathematically hard-to-model effects. The study added additional parameters that helped pull the boundary closer to every side of the snowflake and away from the more linear stochastic models.
The value of the study of how snowflakes form is that most snow research models use a crystal growth model at the center of their research regardless of whether it occurs within a cloud, falling to the ground, or lying within a snow bank.
Scientists Study Snow to Identify Atmospheric Pollution and Global Warming
When snow falls, the frozen water crystals also contain molecules of other gases including nitrous oxide and peroxide. In a 2001 study in the Antarctic on Ross Island, scientists used the fact that sunlight will trigger known reactions between various chemicals contained in snow to quantify how much nitrous oxide and peroxide are released, factors that can be used for predictions depending on the time of day and year. Nitrous oxide is known to play a role in the creation of the ozone layer, so understanding how much nitrous oxide is exchanged between the air and the snow bank aids work on global warming and the analysis about how to solve pollution problems.[2]
Scientists Study Snow to Understand the Origin of the Universe
Snow is present throughout the solar systems. In many cases, meteorites found on Earth called chondrites, read more about them in "Top Extraterrestrials and What Science Has Learned About Them", show how dust particles collect other dust particles and combine into larger pieces. A similar process occurs when ice particles in the rings around Saturn collide at a simplistic level. A 2008 study modeled larger Kuiper Belt type objects and Enceladus and allowed for the centers to contain water and flow outward with the purpose of using a mathematically simplified model. The results predicted two things seen in the Kuiper Belt-an ice depleted core and an outer layer of ice on the surface and one being investigated, whether or not such objects could have liquid centers. [3]
Scientists Study Snow for Improved Weather Prediction
In a 2006 study in France, scientists combined volunteer collection and measurement of hailstones with radar soundings of storm clouds to gather information that could improve the quality of hailstorm prediction and found evidence that supported the belief that night time hail storms were severe i.e. with larger hailstone size and number. It implies people might want to put their car under a roof at night. [4]
Scientists Study Snow to Make Transportation Operations Safer for Travelers
A 2007 study of road surface conditions compared to a long-term simulation of the road using satellites to remotely observe conditions. The difficulty of predicting road ice relates to the specific weather condition that might cause it-fog, sleet, surface water, snow and snow pack and the temperature at the time. The study compared results predicted by piece of software against sampled data with good validation that the software worked, and it could be a real savings over installing a lot of equipment all over France to measure similar results in order to provide warnings and road closures for travelers. The software under evaluation uses boundary level conditions calculated from surface and vapor fluxes along with variables for traffic and surface roughness, etc.[5]
Another study in 2008 looked at the ice buildup on surfaces like airplane wings from balloon born instruments at various levels and at various times of the year.[6]
Scientists Study Snow to Aid Ski Resort and Highway Pass Operations
Ski resorts require snow to operate and they need to ensure that skiers are safe from the effects of avalance. When snowflakes or particles fall to the ground, they tend to combine together without melting but note effectively. A 2002 study of snow looked at the size of snow particles in snow then applied test torque tests to blocks of that snow in order to obtain the elastic sheer modulus of snow, that remains independent of temperature. The elastic sheer modulus of snow is a factor that relates the triggering energy needed to cause the snow to avalanche or "twist apart and slide". [7]
[1] Janko Gravner, David Griffeath, "Modeling snow crystal growth II: A mesoscopic lattice map with plausible dynamics", Elsevier, Sep 8, 2009
[2] Cort Anastasio, Edward S. Galbavy, Manuel A. Hutterli, John F. Burkhart, Donna K. Friel, "Photoformation of hydroxyl radical on snow grains at Summit, Greenland", Atmospheric Environment 41, 2007
[3] Dina Prialnik, Rainer Merk, "Growth and evolution of small porous icy bodies with an adaptive-grid thermal evolution code", Icarus, March 24, 2008
[4] Dario B. Giaiotti, Fulvio Stel, "The Effects of environmental water vapor on hailstone size distributions", Atmospheric Research, Feb. 2, 2006
[5] L. Bouilloud, E. Martin, F. Habets, A. Boone, P. Le Moigne, J. Livet, M. Marchetti, A. Foidart, L. Franchisteguy, S. Morel, JNoilhan, and P. Pettre, "Road Surface Condition Forecasting in France", Journal of Applied Meteogology and Climatology, October 11, 2007
[6] Ben C. Bernstein, Christine Le Bot, "An Inferred Climatology of Icing Conditions Aloft Including Supercooled Drops, Part II: Europe, Asia and the Globe", Journal of Applied Meteorology, July 7, 2008
[7] Jurg Schweizer, Christian Camponovo, "The temperature dependence of the effective elastic shear modulus of snow", Cold Regions Science and Technology 35, 2002, 55-64
Searching for why study snow?
• ca.indeed.com/Research Research Jobs One Search. All Jobs. Indeed™
• Searching for why study snow?
• CDICollege.ca/Career-Training Cdi College Canada Full & Part-Time Diploma Programs. Request Free Information Today!
• eLearnCanada.com/CareerTraining Distance Learning Courses Career Development HealthCare- Counseling-Psychotherapy & Psychology
• Winportal.com/Snow Download Snow Download Latest Version 100% Free! Download Snow Now
Sponsored Results
Published by Sheri Fresonke Harper
Sheri works as a freelance writer, novelist and poet. She worked in the aviation industry at the Port of Seattle and Boeing Company for 20 years as a systems analyst/architect where she edited and wrote over... View profile