Objectives
The cryosphere forms an integral part of the climate system of the Earth. Measuring the properties of the seasonal and perennial snow cover properties is therefore essential in understanding interactions and feedback mechanisms related to the cryosphere.
Snow is a extremely complex and highly variable medium, and all essential properties of seasonal snow cover are challenging to measure. Diverse fields such as hydrology, climatology, avalanche forecasting and Earth Observation from space benefit from improved quantification of snow cover properties, in particular related to the snow microstructure.
The past 10 years snow science has seen a rapid change from a semi-quantitative to a quantitative science. Understanding physical and chemical processes in the snowpack requires detailed measurements of the microstructure.
The 2nd Snow Science Winter School will teach these advanced techniques, as micro-tomography, measurement of specific surface area by reflection and spectroscopy, near-infrared photography and high-resolution penetrometry.
Target audience
Any graduate student or post-doc working on snow or in some snow related field is welcome to participate. Those fields include Glaciology, Hydrology, Oceanography, Geography, but also Biology or Chemistry as well as Engineering or Material Sciences.
Course structure
The focus of this workshop lies on field and laboratory measurements, combined with theoretical lessons in the classroom.
Field and laboratory measurements will be done in small groups of 3-4 students. Each group of students will have to prepare a report describing the methods, results and interpretation. The laboratory measurements (micro-CT, thin section, fabric analysis) will take place in Davos.
The course corresponds to 3 ETCS-Points.
See the website for information about application and registration.