Simulation of cold-powder snow avalanches considering daily snowpack and weather situations
<p>Snow avalanches are rapid gravitational mass movements that pose a significant hazard to both humans and infrastructure, including traffic lines. Risk management in mountainous regions usually relies on the experience of avalanche experts, observations in the field, weather and snowpack mea...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Copernicus Publications
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
| Online Access: | https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/25/2399/2025/nhess-25-2399-2025.pdf |
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| author | J. Glaus J. Glaus K. Wikstrom Jones P. Bartelt P. Bartelt M. Christen M. Christen L. Stoffel J. Gaume J. Gaume J. Gaume Y. Bühler Y. Bühler |
| author_facet | J. Glaus J. Glaus K. Wikstrom Jones P. Bartelt P. Bartelt M. Christen M. Christen L. Stoffel J. Gaume J. Gaume J. Gaume Y. Bühler Y. Bühler |
| author_sort | J. Glaus |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <p>Snow avalanches are rapid gravitational mass movements that pose a significant hazard to both humans and infrastructure, including traffic lines. Risk management in mountainous regions usually relies on the experience of avalanche experts, observations in the field, weather and snowpack measurements, and numerical simulations.</p>
<p>Ensuring road safety requires considering daily weather conditions, snowpack characteristics and terrain features. To include a numerical model in the decision-making process for road safety, it is essential to incorporate all these factors and utilize in situ measurements as input parameters for the simulations.</p>
<p>This study investigates the predictive capabilities of the numerical simulation model RAMMS::EXTENDED, an extended version of the well-established RAMMS (Rapid Mass Movement Simulation) software, to estimate avalanche runout distances along an important infrastructure corridor in the Dischma valley near Davos, Switzerland. Specifically tailored to cold-powder avalanche dynamics and taking into account the temperature of the snowpack and entrainment, our inquiry utilizes meteorological station measurements as an input to evaluate the model's performance.</p>
<p>In this paper, we begin by providing an overview of the model, examining its physical and practical aspects. We then conduct a sensitivity analysis on input and system parameters, focusing on avalanche dynamics representation. Leveraging drone-based observational data, we perform a comparative analysis to validate the simulation results.</p>
<p>In addition to recalculating avalanches due to the sensitivity analysis, we show that we achieve meaningful predictions of the avalanche runout distance for cold-powder avalanches by incorporating snow height and snow temperature measured by weather stations at two different altitudes near the avalanche release zone. In the future, a refined version of this approach could allow for near real-time hazard assessments, which has the potential to significantly improve the decision-making protocol for road closures and reopenings. Furthermore, we plan to calibrate the model for wet-snow avalanches to cover a larger range of weather and snowpack scenarios.</p> |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-8853b17c55d64a14b405452674fd1fa8 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 1561-8633 1684-9981 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | Copernicus Publications |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
| spelling | doaj-art-8853b17c55d64a14b405452674fd1fa82025-08-20T02:40:33ZengCopernicus PublicationsNatural Hazards and Earth System Sciences1561-86331684-99812025-07-01252399241910.5194/nhess-25-2399-2025Simulation of cold-powder snow avalanches considering daily snowpack and weather situationsJ. Glaus0J. Glaus1K. Wikstrom Jones2P. Bartelt3P. Bartelt4M. Christen5M. Christen6L. Stoffel7J. Gaume8J. Gaume9J. Gaume10Y. Bühler11Y. Bühler12WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandClimate Change, Extremes, and Natural Hazards in Alpine Regions Research Centre (CERC), Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandAlaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys, Anchorage, Alaska, USAWSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandClimate Change, Extremes, and Natural Hazards in Alpine Regions Research Centre (CERC), Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandWSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandClimate Change, Extremes, and Natural Hazards in Alpine Regions Research Centre (CERC), Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandWSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandWSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandClimate Change, Extremes, and Natural Hazards in Alpine Regions Research Centre (CERC), Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandInstitute for Geotechnical Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, 8057, SwitzerlandWSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Davos Dorf, 7260, SwitzerlandClimate Change, Extremes, and Natural Hazards in Alpine Regions Research Centre (CERC), Davos Dorf, 7260, Switzerland<p>Snow avalanches are rapid gravitational mass movements that pose a significant hazard to both humans and infrastructure, including traffic lines. Risk management in mountainous regions usually relies on the experience of avalanche experts, observations in the field, weather and snowpack measurements, and numerical simulations.</p> <p>Ensuring road safety requires considering daily weather conditions, snowpack characteristics and terrain features. To include a numerical model in the decision-making process for road safety, it is essential to incorporate all these factors and utilize in situ measurements as input parameters for the simulations.</p> <p>This study investigates the predictive capabilities of the numerical simulation model RAMMS::EXTENDED, an extended version of the well-established RAMMS (Rapid Mass Movement Simulation) software, to estimate avalanche runout distances along an important infrastructure corridor in the Dischma valley near Davos, Switzerland. Specifically tailored to cold-powder avalanche dynamics and taking into account the temperature of the snowpack and entrainment, our inquiry utilizes meteorological station measurements as an input to evaluate the model's performance.</p> <p>In this paper, we begin by providing an overview of the model, examining its physical and practical aspects. We then conduct a sensitivity analysis on input and system parameters, focusing on avalanche dynamics representation. Leveraging drone-based observational data, we perform a comparative analysis to validate the simulation results.</p> <p>In addition to recalculating avalanches due to the sensitivity analysis, we show that we achieve meaningful predictions of the avalanche runout distance for cold-powder avalanches by incorporating snow height and snow temperature measured by weather stations at two different altitudes near the avalanche release zone. In the future, a refined version of this approach could allow for near real-time hazard assessments, which has the potential to significantly improve the decision-making protocol for road closures and reopenings. Furthermore, we plan to calibrate the model for wet-snow avalanches to cover a larger range of weather and snowpack scenarios.</p>https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/25/2399/2025/nhess-25-2399-2025.pdf |
| spellingShingle | J. Glaus J. Glaus K. Wikstrom Jones P. Bartelt P. Bartelt M. Christen M. Christen L. Stoffel J. Gaume J. Gaume J. Gaume Y. Bühler Y. Bühler Simulation of cold-powder snow avalanches considering daily snowpack and weather situations Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences |
| title | Simulation of cold-powder snow avalanches considering daily snowpack and weather situations |
| title_full | Simulation of cold-powder snow avalanches considering daily snowpack and weather situations |
| title_fullStr | Simulation of cold-powder snow avalanches considering daily snowpack and weather situations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Simulation of cold-powder snow avalanches considering daily snowpack and weather situations |
| title_short | Simulation of cold-powder snow avalanches considering daily snowpack and weather situations |
| title_sort | simulation of cold powder snow avalanches considering daily snowpack and weather situations |
| url | https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/25/2399/2025/nhess-25-2399-2025.pdf |
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