Description: Das Projekt "Weak snowpack layers: formation and detection" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft, Eidgenössisches Institut für Schnee- und Lawinenforschung durchgeführt. Snow avalanches are a major natural hazard in mountainous areas throughout the world. Avalanche forecasting, which aims at warning the public on the current and near future avalanche risk, relies on weather observations and forecasts as well as snow cover instability observations. Snow slab avalanches, which represent the vast majority of destructive avalanches,start with a failure in a buried weak snowpack layer. Such weak layers often form at or near the snow surface. Avalanche forecasters and researchers alike are therefore extremely interested in snow properties at the snow surface as well as within the snow cover. Traditional manual snowpack observations, which are still widely uised, are too time consuming and subjective to provide accurate measurements of the properties of the snow cover. Numerical models and modern measuring techniques, specifically the SnowMicroPenetrometer (SMP), have therefore been developed to improve avalanche forecasting. The SMP is a portable measuring device which records high resolution penetration resistance data of the snow stratigraphy. However, due to the difficult interpretation of the data, especially in relation to avalanche formation, thus far these modern technologies are not widely used to improve avalanche forecasting. This is in part because the physical processes leading to the formation of weak snowpack layers are not yet fully understood nor is the relation between SMP penetration resistance data and the physical properties of snow. The aim of the proposal is therefore to increase the knowledge on the formation of weak snowpack layers and to develop a signal processing method to automatically identify and characterize layers within SMP signals. This will be done by developing experimental procedures to study the physical processes governing the formation of near surface weak snowpack layers in the cold laboratory. Several experiments with different controlled boundary conditions will be performed, the changes of the physical properties of the snow will be tracked and the limiting conditions for layer reproduction will be identified. In parallel, systematic measurements on homogeneous as well as layered snow samples with the SMP will be performed in the cold laboratory. This will help relating SMP penetration resistance data to physical parameters of snow and lead to the development of a signal processing method to automatically identify and characterize layers within SMP signals. Additionally, field data will be collected to validate the automatic layer identification method.
SupportProgram
Origin: /Bund/UBA/UFORDAT
Tags: Messgerät ? Resistenzentwicklung ? Resistenz ? Blei ? Brunnen ? Messtechnik ? Stratigraphie ? Prognose ? Bildung ? Ackerland ? Daten ? Fortpflanzung ? Schnee ? Studie ? Technik ? Lawine ? Verwitterung ? Messung ? Naturgefahr ? Abdeckung ? Forschungseinrichtung ? Kenngröße ? Risiko ? Wetter ? Gebiet ? Physikalische Größe ? Physikalischer Vorgang ? VORSCHLAG ? BEWERTEN ? EINGESCHRAENKT ? ENTWICKLUNG ? EXTREM ? FEHLER ? FORMBLAETTER ? GRENZE ? HILF ? KAELTE ? METHODE ? NACHWEIS ? Naturgefahren und Naturrisiken ? OBERFLAECHE ? PROBE ? SCHICHT ? STEUERUNG ? TEIL ? VERARBEITUNG ? VERHAELTNIS ? VERWANDT ? VORSCHLAEGE ? BETRACHTUNG ? Vermehrung ? Zins ? Buchgrundstück ? EINDRINGUNG ?
License: cc-by-nc-nd/4.0
Language: Englisch/English
Time ranges: 2010-09-01 - 2012-08-31
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