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Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout its life cycle, starting when, under suitable conditions, the ice crystals form in the atmosphere, increase to millimeter size, precipitate and accumulate on surfaces, then metamorphose in place, and ultimately melt, slide or sublimate away. Snowstorms organize and develop by feeding on sources of atmospheric moisture and cold air. Snowflakes nucleate around particles in the atmosphere by attracting supercooled water droplets, which freeze in hexagonal-shaped crystals. Snowflakes take on a variety of shapes, basic among these are platelets, needles, columns and rime. As snow accumulates into a snowpack, it may blow into drifts. Over time, accumulated snow metamorphoses, by sintering, sublimation and freeze-thaw. Where the climate is cold enough for year-t

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MATERIAL POINT METHOD A numerical evaluation for elastic problems

Mathilde Metral

Frozen, the movie, released in 2013, made a big impression on many people: some children were no doubt amazed by the talking snowman, others by the film’s music, the designers were probably more interesed in the reproduction quality of the snow modelled, by the Material Point Method (MPM). Many paperspraise the effectiveness of this method for simulating complex phenomena. However, very few studies have been carried out to verify the method on very simple academic problems; that is precisely what we will try to study throughout this paper. We will see that simple problem modeling is not so easy with MPM. We will try to present as well as possible the different factors influencing the results, before concluding on its advantages and disadvantages

2020

Snow avalanche hazard prediction for Longyear valley, based on avalanche run-out models and taking in account the prognoses for climate change

Claire Pellaud

Longyearbyen, the center for the main economic activities of Svalbard was partly developed on the slopes of Gruvefjellet and Platafjellet. A concern has been raised regarding the threat induced by avalanche runouts that could reach some of the building in the city. In this study the avalanche danger around Longyearbyen Barnehage, Lia and Nybyen is assessed using the Rapid Mass MovementS (RAMMS) dynamic 2D runout model developed by the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF) and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). Results are compared with the conclusions of Norwegian Geotechnical Institute reports. The Arctic region being highly sensible to climate change the induced precipitation and temperature variations in the next century, and the induced snow density and cohesion increase were taken into account in a scenario following a 25% solid precipitation increase and a 10 C temperature increase. Runout distances seem to be little affected by the followed scenario. An attempt at reconstructing a slush flow event that occurred on January 20th 2012 was made.

2014

Modeling the small-scale deposition of snow onto structured Arctic sea ice during a MOSAiC storm using snowBedFoam 1.0.

Océane Hames, Mahdi Jafari, Michael Lehning, Marc Schneebeli Zeugin, David Nicholas Wagner

The remoteness and extreme conditions of the Arctic make it a very difficult environment to investigate. In these polar regions covered by sea ice, the wind is relatively strong due to the absence of obstructions and redistributes a large part of the deposited snow mass, which complicates estimates for precipitation hardly distinguishable from blowing or drifting snow. Moreover, the snow mass balance in the sea ice system is still poorly understood, notably due to the complex structure of its surface. Quantitatively assessing the snow distribution on sea ice and its connection to the sea ice surface features is an important step to remove the snow mass balance uncertainties (i.e., snow transport contribution) in the Arctic environment. In this work we introduce snowBedFoam 1.0., a physics-based snow transport model implemented in the open-source fluid dynamics software OpenFOAM. We combine the numerical simulations with terrestrial laser scan observations of surface dynamics to simulate snow deposition in a MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary Drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) sea ice domain with a complicated structure typical for pressure ridges. The results demonstrate that a large fraction of snow accumulates in their vicinity, which compares favorably against scanner measurements. However, the approximations imposed by the numerical framework, together with potential measurement errors (precipitation), give rise to quantitative inaccuracies, which should be addressed in future work. The modeling of snow distribution on sea ice should help to better constrain precipitation estimates and more generally assess and predict snow and ice dynamics in the Arctic.

COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH2022

Precipitation

In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain,

Ice

Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 32 °F, 0 °C, or 273.15 K. Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it

Water

Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, and it is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and

ENV-525: Physics and hydrology of snow

This course covers principles of snow physics, snow hydrology, snow-atmosphere interaction and snow modeling. It transmits sound understanding of physical processes within the snow and at its interfaces with the atmosphere and the ground, including field, laboratory, and modeling techniques.

ME-476: Particle-based methods

This course provides an introduction to particle-based methods for the numerical resolution of partial differential equations describing continuum phenomena or for the simulation of particulate flows. Details are given for the Material Point Method (MPM) and the Discrete Element Method (DEM).

CIVIL-410: Fluvial hydraulics and river training works

Le cours donne aux étudiants des solides connaissances théoriques en hydraulique fluviale, et enseigne les bases de l'ingénierie fluviale dans le but de concilier la protection contre les crues et la protection de l'environnement. Le cours est illustré par des projets concrets.