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Concept

Blizzard

Related publications (15)

Turbulence in the Strongly Heterogeneous Near-Surface Boundary Layer over Patchy Snow

Michael Lehning, Dylan Stewart Reynolds, Michael Haugeneder

The near-surface boundary layer above patchy snow cover in mountainous terrain is characterized by a highly complex interplay of various flows on multiple scales. In this study, we present data from a comprehensive field campaign that cover a period of 21 ...

2024

CRYOWRF—Model Evaluation and the Effect of Blowing Snow on the Antarctic Surface Mass Balance

Michael Lehning, Varun Sharma, Franziska Gerber

The surface mass balance (SMB) of large polar ice sheets and of snow and ice surfaces in general are incompletely understood because of the complexity of processes involved. One such process, drifting and blowing snow, has only been considered in a very si ...

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION2023

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

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

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 depos ...

COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH2022

Considering snow depositions and transport mechanisms in meteorological analysis of predicting snow loads on buildings

Michael Lehning

The meteorological conditions determine snow evolutions on and around buildings. Those climatic impacts have been independently considered in the current design codes of buildings, namely the wind pressure and the snow load. But snow load estimates are onl ...

ELSEVIER2022

Mechanisms of slab avalanche release and impact in the Dyatlov Pass incident in 1959

Johan Alexandre Philippe Gaume

The Dyatlov Pass incident is an intriguing unsolved mystery from the last century. In February 1959, a group of nine experienced Russian mountaineers perished during a difficult expedition in the northern Urals. A snow avalanche hypothesis was proposed, am ...

SPRINGERNATURE2021

Radar measurements of blowing snow off a mountain ridge

Michael Lehning, Wolf Hendrik Huwald, Benjamin Andreas Walter, Josué Etienne Gehring

Modelling and forecasting wind-driven redistribution of snow in mountainous regions with its implications on avalanche danger, mountain hydrology or flood hazard is still a challenging task often lacking in essential details. Measurements of drifting and b ...

2020

Spatiotemporal dynamics of snow erosion, deposition and horizontal mass flux

Michael Lehning, Philip Crivelli, Enrico Paterna

The quantification of snow transport, both in wind tunnels and the field, apply particle counting methods limited to punctual sampling of relatively small volumes. Particle counting can only capture horizontal mass fluxes, failing to measure snow erosion o ...

2019

Investigation of a wind-packing event in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica

Michael Lehning, Charles Fierz, Nander Wever, Christian Gabriel Sommer

Surface snow in polar and mountainous regions is often mobile and this mobility influences surface mass balance and isotopic composition before final deposition, which is poorly understood thus far. In December 2016 and January 2017, during a field campaig ...

COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH2018

Interactions between drifting snow and surface dynamics

Philip Crivelli

In the cryosphere, the snow cover is the fastest changing component. Amongst other characteristics, the snow cover acts as a resource of water or has the ability to reflect the suns radiation and therefore significantly influence the climate on a global sc ...

EPFL2018

Wind-packing of snow: How do wind crusts form?

Christian Gabriel Sommer

Wind-packing of snow is the process responsible for the formation of wind slabs and wind crusts. These are hard layers of well-sintered snow often found in the snowpack in mountains as well as in polar regions. Wind-packing affects the local mass balance, ...

EPFL2018

Wind tunnel experiments: saltation is necessary for wind-packing

Michael Lehning, Charles Fierz, Christian Gabriel Sommer

Wind-packed snow in the form of slabs or crusts is an important part of alpine and polar snow covers. Yet, the formation process of such layers is poorly understood. For example, it remains unclear whether drifting snow is necessary for wind-packing or not ...

International Glaciological Society2017

Impact of climate change in Switzerland on socioeconomic snow indices

Michael Lehning, Charles Fierz

Snow is a key element for many socioeconomic activities in mountainous regions. Due to the sensitivity of the snow cover to variations of temperature and precipitation, major changes caused by climate change are expected to happen. We analyze the evolution ...

Springer Verlag2017

Quantifying Particle Numbers and Mass Flux in Drifting Snow

Michael Lehning, Philip Crivelli, Enrico Paterna

We compare two of the most common methods of quantifying mass flux, particle numbers and particle-size distribution for drifting snow events, the snow-particle counter (SPC), a laser-diode-based particle detector, and particle tracking velocimetry based on ...

2016

Wind slab formation in snow: experimental setup and first results

Michael Lehning, Charles Fierz, Christian Gabriel Sommer

Geophys . Res. Abstr. 18: EGU2016‐11274. The formation of wind-hardened surface layers, also known as wind slabs or wind crusts, is studied. Better knowledge about which processes and parameters are important will lead to an improved understanding of the m ...

2016

Decoupling of mass flux and turbulent wind fluctuations in drifting snow

Michael Lehning, Philip Crivelli, Enrico Paterna

The wind-driven redistribution of snow has a significant impact on the climate and mass balance of polar and mountainous regions. Locally, it shapes the snow surface, producing dunes and sastrugi. Sediment transport has been mainly represented as a functio ...

Amer Geophysical Union2016