Snowfields Research Articles

Buoyancy and Propulsion Mechanisms for Stable Movement in Snow Field

For small-sized mobile machines, moving on snow without sinking is challenging. Snowmobiles are often used to move on snow. However, in smaller-sized machines, the skis attached to the machine become small, so small snow bumps or soft powdered snow quickly cause the entire machine to be buried under the snow. Therefore, it is necessary for small robots moving on snow to give appropriate driving mechanisms for producing propulsive force and snow-floating force. To this end, we propose new driving mechanisms, a “passive wing wheel” and a “spiral screw,” for small mobility services that move on snow without sinking or getting stuck. The passive wing wheel has transformable wing-like paddles, which extend to behave like animal feet and shrink to form a wheel if necessary. The spiral screw is designed to produce propulsive force by pushing snow particles with the screw. Additionally, by combining two sets of screws having opposite threads, they gather snow underneath the body attached to them, which causes floating force. This report also proposes ways to prepare pseudo-snow, which resembles natural snow in hardness, viscosity, and property transformation due to deformation. We conducted experiments to measure the performance of the proposed design in both the pseudo-snow and natural snow. From experiments, we confirmed that the mechanism performs well in terms of propulsion and floating on snow.

Resolving abrupt frontal gradients in zooplankton community composition and marine snow fields with an autonomous Zooglider

AbstractAn autonomous Zooglider navigated across the California Current Front into low salinity, minty waters characteristic of the California Current proper in both summers of 2019 and 2021. Diving to 400 m depth, Zooglider transited another near‐surface frontal gradient somewhat inshore. These frontal gradients were generally associated with changes in intensity, size composition, and Diel Vertical Migration responses of acoustic backscatterers. They were also associated with pronounced changes in zooplankton community composition, as assessed by a shadowgraph imaging Zoocam. Zoocam detected a decline in concentrations of copepods, appendicularians, and marine snow in the offshore direction, and an overall shift in community structure to a higher proportion of carnivorous taxa (and, in 2019, of planktonic rhizaria). No taxon was consistently elevated at all the peak frontal gradients, but appendicularians, copepods, and rhizarians sometimes showed front‐related increases in concentration. Such frontal gradient regions represent relatively abrupt transitions to different communities of planktonic organisms and suspended marine snow particles, with consequences for predator–prey relationships and the dominant vectors of particle export into subsurface waters.

An Aerial Manipulator for Robot-to-Robot Torch-Relay Task: System Design and Control Scheme

Torch relay is an important tradition of the Olympics and heralds the start of the games. Robots applied in the torch-relay activity can not only demonstrate the technological capability of humans to the world but also provide a sight of human lives with robots in the future. This article presents an aerial manipulator designed for the robot-to-robot torch-relay task of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. This aerial manipulator system is composed of a quadrotor, a 3 degree of freedom (DoF) manipulator, and a monocular camera. This article primarily describes the system design and system control scheme of the aerial manipulator. The experimental results demonstrate that it can complete a robot-to-robot torch-relay task under the guidance of vision in the ice and snow field.

First records of a new Europe’s southernmost glacier found in Southern Albania

Several perennial snow and ice bodies have been recently studied and monitored in three mountain massifs across the Balkan Peninsula: Prokletije (Northern Albania), Durmitor (Montenegro) and Pirin (Bulgaria), the two glacierets in the Pirin Mountains until soon considered as southernmost of their kind in Europe. In September 2022 a relatively large snow field (about 1.5 ha) was discovered and described for a first time in the glacial cirque Gryka e Kazanit in the Nëmerçka Mountains of Southern Albania. The snow accumulation lies on 1550–1650 m a.s.l. below a vertical limestone cliff with a height of almost 1000 m. The site was visited again in November 2023, when the snow field diminished its size to less than 1 ha. At the same time, multi-annual firn layers were exposed under the last year snow, with depth at least several metres, and indications were observed of ice, buried in the debris cover below. Newest findings indicate that the studied snow-firn body is a glacieret similar to those found in the Pirin Mountains. On a longer-term, nine perennial snow/firm bodies on the Balkans resemble small glaciers rather than snow and ice patches at least under current climatic conditions. Situated on 40°08′ Northern latitude, the newly discovered Nemërçka Glacieret is nominated to be the southernmost glacier in Europe.

The power of nature (sports)? From anthropocentrism to ecocentrism

ABSTRACT Nature sports include pursuits such as paragliding, white-water kayaking, free diving, mountaineering, and surfing. Participants in nature sports interact with geographical features (e.g. mountains, rivers, oceans, snow fields, ice sheets, caves, rock faces) as well as the dynamic forces that produce them (e.g. gravity, waves, thermal currents, flowing water, wind, rain, sun). In this article, I engage a representational approach to analyze how participants in nature sports interact with nature. Anthropocentric representations privilege participants’ interests, wants, desires, and ends; they typically refer to claims of conquest/achievement in nature, or praise nature for its therapeutic qualities. In contradistinction, ecocentric representations recognize humankind as one entity in an interdependent world that comprises all living organisms and the geological processes and geomorphological features that sustain them. Ecocentric representations of nature sports highlight networks of participants and landforms that help preserve a balance between people and the environment. Yet, notwithstanding the allure of ecocentric representations, especially in the wake of evidence that human-induced greenhouse gases are predisposing environmental calamities, there is a substantial gap between the ontological concepts and categories of ecocentrism and lived sporting experiences and practices in nature.

Assessment of snow simulation using Noah-MP land surface model forced by various precipitation sources in the Central Tianshan Mountains, Central Asia

Accurate mountainous snow estimation is paramount for hydrological processes and water resources estimation in arid regions. Using Land surface models (LSMs) is a practical numerical approach for snow estimation in a complex orography region such as the Tianshan Mountains. However, the bias of precipitation forcing is a major source of uncertainty for snow simulation over scarce-data regions. This study evaluated the performance of 4 km snow simulations using the Noah-MP LSM driven by eight precipitation sources. They are retrieved from non-model products and climate model simulations during the 2018-2019 cold season in the Central Tianshan Mountains (CTS) region. Multi-source validation datasets (in-situ observation, field snow pits, and remote sensing products) have been used for evaluation and uncertainty estimation. The results showed that the difference in precipitation amount significantly affected the snowpack simulation performance. Compared with non-model products (Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), and Gauge-adjusted Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP)), the cold season precipitation from climate model simulations exhibited a better performance overall in the high-elevation regions (elevation > 1000 m) evaluated by in-situ observations. In addition, the 4 km convection-permitting modeling (CPM) precipitation (WRF-Morrison and WRF-WSM6) showed higher accuracy (RMSE: 23.48 mm/season and 18.94 mm/season, respectively) than gray-zone resolution simulations and ERA5-land driven runs in the high-elevation regions. The snow depth simulation driven by WRF-Morrison precipitation had the second smallest RMSE (4.67 cm/day) and lowest bias (-0.74 cm/day) value in the high-elevation regions compared with in-situ observation. Meanwhile, CPM precipitation-driven runs exhibited the smallest RMSE value based on the assessment of snow field pits. In addition, the CPM-driven simulation achieved the closest match to the elevation-based distribution of snow cover days in regions with elevation over 1000 m and duration over 60 days compared to the MODIS product. The findings of this study highlight that CPM with proper parameterization configurations has added values in producing realistic topographic precipitation for snow modeling using LSMs over data-scarcity mountainous areas.

Critical Period of Weed Competition in Curcuma Lanna Snow Field

The effects of weeds on crops can cause weed interference, which is the result of their competition with each other. The influence of weed interference periods on growth and inflorescence of Curcuma was investigated under field experiment. The critical period for weed control consists of the increased duration of weed competition period during the weed-infested treatment, and the increased duration of weed free period during the weed-free treatment. Weed-free and weed-infested treatments were used to identify the critical period for weed control with acceptable yield loss of 5 and 10%. The results revealed that weed infested periods at 10, 12, 14 and 16 weeks after planting and weed free periods at 0, 2 and 4 weeks after planting significantly reduced the leaf number, height of inflorescence, width of inflorescence and length of inflorescence of Curcuma, while plant height was slightly affected by weed-free treatment. In addition, the critical period for weed control with 5 and 10% acceptable yield loss was estimated to be between 6 to 10 weeks after planting and 5 to 8 weeks after planting, respectively. The critical period for weed control at 10% acceptable yield loss was shorter than the critical period for weed control at the level of 5%. However, the determination of appropriate critical period for weed control should be concerned to have better crop yield and reduce cost. Weed control estimation and recommendations can enhance more precise weed management, which is helpful in formulating appropriate weed-control strategies in Curcuma fields.

Improving High-Resolution Ensemble Forecast (HREF) System Mesoscale Snowband Forecasts with Random Forests

Abstract Mesoscale snowbands are impactful winter weather phenomena but are challenging to predict due to small-scale forcings and ingredients. Previous work has established that even deterministic convection-allowing models (CAMs) often struggle to represent these features with much precision and recommended the application of ingredients-based or probabilistic forecast strategies. Based on these recommendations, we develop and evaluate four different models for forecasting snowbands. The first model, referred to as the “HREF threshold probability” model, detects band development in High-Resolution Ensemble Forecast (HREF) system members’ 1000-m simulated reflectivities, then uses these detections to calculate a snowband probability. The second model is a random forest incorporating features explicitly linked to snowbands, such as the detection of bands in each HREF member and statistical summaries of simulated reflectivity and the categorical snow field. The third model is a random forest model incorporating snowband ingredients, such as midtropospheric frontogenesis, moist symmetric stability, and vertical velocity. Last, the fourth model combines the features of the explicit and implicit random forests. Binary band predictions based upon the HREF threshold probability model resulted in a critical success index 27% higher than the average HREF member. The explicit feature random forest model further improved performance by an additional 11%, with statistics of the reflectivity field holding the most predictive value. The implicit and combined random forests slightly underperformed the explicit random forest, perhaps due to a large number of noisy, correlated features. Ultimately, we demonstrate that simple probabilistic snowband forecasting strategies can yield substantial improvements over deterministic CAMs. Significance Statement Mesoscale snowbands have the potential for major societal impacts but are difficult to predict due to their small spatial scales. Previous work has shown that individual high-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) models struggle to predict whether or not a snowband will occur. In this work, we evaluate whether a probabilistic forecast strategy using high-resolution ensemble NWP output leads to improved snowband forecasts, and whether we can gain additional predictive skill by combining this output with artificial intelligence (AI) methods. AI can also help us understand the environmental factors associated with snowbands and compare environmental importance in forecasting to just using the model output snowfall forecasts explicitly.

Caring for melting glaciers

Melting glaciers and snow fields have become one of the strongest symbols of global climate change, instigating last-chance tourism and rallying cries for climate action from activists. In this sense, retreating glaciers act as charismatic entities, appealing to the public’s feelings and imaginations. The melting cryosphere is also a subject for scientific enquiry, providing the knowledge needed to establish the rates at which glaciers are declining and how they interlink and interact with other natural and human systems. Here, by applying a relational ontology rooted in human geography and science and technology studies, we show how melting glaciers and snow fields serve as charismatic boundary objects that enable tourism actors to raise awareness about climate change and push for action. Specifically, we conducted interviews and surveys with mountain guides and other actors involved in glacier tourism in local communities surrounding two of the major ice caps in Norway, Jostedalsbreen and Folgefonna, and found that the melting glaciers serve to reconcile different knowledge systems, allowing for the coexistence of affect, imaginaries, and scientific rationality. Thus, with mountain guides as the catalysts, melting glaciers contribute to a shift from a discourse of fear to one of care.

Diversity and Distribution of Carotenogenic Algae in Europe: A Review.

Microalgae are the richest source of natural carotenoids, which are valuable pigments with a high share of benefits. Often, carotenoid-producing algae inhabit specific biotopes with unfavorable or even extremal conditions. Such biotopes, including alpine snow fields and hypersaline ponds, are widely distributed in Europe. They can serve as a source of new strains for biotechnology. The number of algal species used for obtaining these compounds on an industrial scale is limited. The data on them are poor. Moreover, some of them have been reported in non-English local scientific articles and theses. This review aims to summarize existing data on microalgal species, which are known as potential carotenoid producers in biotechnology. These include Haematococcus and Dunaliella, both well-known to the scientific community, as well as less-elucidated representatives. Their distribution will be covered throughout Europe: from the Greek Mediterranean coast in the south to the snow valleys in Norway in the north, and from the ponds in Amieiro (Portugal) in the west to the saline lakes and mountains in Crimea (Ukraine) in the east. A wide spectrum of algal secondary carotenoids is reviewed: β-carotene, astaxanthin, canthaxanthin, echinenone, adonixanthin, and adonirubin. For convenience, the main concepts of biology of carotenoid-producing algae are briefly explained.

Ötzi, 30 years on: A reappraisal of the depositional and post-depositional history of the find

When Ötzi, the Iceman, was found in a gully in the Tisenjoch pass in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991, he was a huge surprise for the archaeological community. The lead initial investigator of the find argued that it was unique, preserved by serendipitous circumstances. It was hypothesised that the mummy with associated artefacts had been quickly covered by glacier ice and stayed buried until the melt-out in 1991. It is now more than 30 years since Ötzi appeared. In this paper, we take a closer look at how the find can be understood today, benefitting from increased knowledge gained from more than two decades of investigations of other glacial archaeological sites, and from previous palaeo-biological investigations of the find assemblage. In the light of radiocarbon dates from the gully and new glaciological evidence regarding mass balance, it is likely that Ötzi was not permanently buried in ice immediately after his death, but that the gully where he lay was repeatedly exposed over the next 1500 years. We discuss the nature of the ice covering the site, which is commonly described as a basally sliding glacier. Based on the available evidence, this ice is better understood as a non-moving, stationary field of snow and ice, frozen to the bedrock. The damaged artefacts found with Ötzi were probably broken by typical postdepositional processes on glacial archaeological sites, and not, as previously claimed, during conflict prior to Ötzi’s flight from the valley below.

Glacier blanketing: Two approaches in the European Alps

As a response to climate change, the use of glacier blanketing in the European Alps helps to slow the melting of snow and ice, and in turn, allays the impacts of global warming on recreational landscapes. The practice of laying geotextiles across glaciers and snow fields reveals important information about the capacity for human engagement and, ultimately, the role of design interventions in addressing the climate crisis. Blanketing efforts have been prominent in large-scale environmental art works and might be seen as acts of care for a broken planet. In this study, interviews with stakeholders and associated fieldwork underscored the significance of human values and agency in two adaptive management projects. The comparative study of an individual ski resort and an ice grotto demonstrate the ways in which glacier blanketing is used to slow the rate of ablation, the benefits and limitations of such interventions and the values that underpin this work. These decisions carry implications for design practice beyond the Alps, and make a case for foregrounding the role of human agency, values and decision making in global climate-adaptive design efforts.

Application of deep learning in the detection and practical evaluation of ski resort teaching area

SummaryThe teaching land of ski resorts provides learning sites for beginners of skiing. The teaching sites of different ski resorts are different. When selecting teaching scenes, we need to focus on the safety of the site. The focus of our research is to detect more suitable teaching land in the whole ski resort and evaluate its practical indicators. In order to accurately detect the teaching area in the snow field, we propose a method based on deep learning. The algorithm innovatively optimizes the convolution network. The experiment combines convolutional neural network with recurrent neural network for training, and uses the output of convolutional neural network to train recurrent neural network, so as to continuously predict the next optimal teaching area in the sequence. The purpose of training is to optimize the detection result area. The experimental results show that the model can better detect the sites suitable for teaching in the snow field.

Cover Feature: Tri‐ and Tetra‐Substituted Derivatives of [Fe2(CO)6(μ‐dithiolate)] as Novel Dinuclear Platforms Related to the H‐Cluster of [FeFe]H2ases (Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. 19/2022)

The Cover Feature shows that, as in a still immaculate snow field, new molecular bimetallic platforms afford several trails to explore, which helps us to understand the activation of small molecules at dinuclear sites. Tuning the metal coordination leads to original behavior thanks to metal-ligand cooperativity. The properties of novel carbonyl dithiolate diiron complexes inspired by a highly sophisticated archetype for bimetallic activation, the H-cluster of [FeFe]-H2ases, are preliminarily demonstrated by structural, spectroscopic, and electrochemical methods. More information can be found in the Research Article by C. Elleouet, P. Schollhammer and co-workers.

A systematic analysis of distribution and sources of various types of water on the earth

Water is essential part of nature because in nature all types of mechanism are proceeds by the use of water. It is a chemical substance which is made of by the chemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. It’s molecular formula is H2O with tetrahedral geometry. It is found in mainly three different physical state i.e. solid, liquid and gaseous state. Solid state is found as ice, liquid state is present as water and gaseous state is found in vapour form. These physical form of water are distributed in surroundings as oceans water, ground water and surface water. Oceans water is non-drinkable due to the presence of high concentration of salts containing Ca+2, Mg+2, Na+, K+ etc. There are many sources of water on earth like oceans, springs, well, gysers, artesian well, lakes, rivers, rain, snow fields, glaciers etc.. It is very necessary to know about the distribution and sources of water on earth so that we can usefully utilize and manage the very important part of nature i.e. water.

ПУШКИНСКОЕ ПРИСУТСТВИЕ В ТВОРЧЕСТВЕ С.А. ЕСЕНИНА: КУЛЬТУРОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ КОММЕНТАРИЙ

The object of the article is the archetype of the Moon in the Russian culture. The subject of the article is the variable images of the crescent and full Moon in the Russian poetry. The material of the article is represented by two poems – “The Demons” by A.S. Pushkin and “Through fields of virgin snow I roam” by S.A. Yesenin. The cultural and philosophical analysis focuses on the interrelation of two types of reality, the phenomenal and the noumenal, the rational and the spontaneous in art. Much attention is paid to the problem of transformation of the Moon image in poetry; the Moon’s hypostatic nature is analysed. The author traces the change in depiction of the Moon’s image within a single literary text. The author examines the text describing the blizzard and the demonic myth associated with the Moon’s archetype in the Russian literature. The research methodology represents a holistic ontological hermeneutic analysis of poetic texts by Pushkin and Yesenin aimed at highlighting the cultural potential of the problem of dualism in the Russian national world image, which makes it possible to describe the material from ontological positions and gain an insight into the poetic word. The work results can be of interest to philologists who include literature in the space of the great dialogue of cultures. The findings can also be used in teaching cultural studies and Russian philosophy courses.

Experimental study of the shear strength of a snow-mortar interface

Within the wide field of snow mechanics the shear strength of snow is paramount. In the scientific literature a wide number of experimental and theoretical works exist with reference to the progressive shear failure of snow-snow interfaces under different conditions of internal and external actions. On the contrary, to our knowledge, few studies are devoted to the shear behaviour at the contact between a snow layer and a solid stiff material, although this topic could have various fields of application (e.g., glide avalanches, snow removal, snow-structure interaction, etc.). Here, we analyze results of experimental direct shear tests carried out in displacement control on a snow-mortar interface at given conditions of temperature and sintering times. We additionally use the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion to represent shear strength along the interface both in failure and post-failure conditions.

P‐3.4: VR Scene Display of Emergencies in Snow Field

Avalanche scene simulation is an emergency method that can be used to experience panic in advance of emergencies and to respond to emergencies in medical treatment through virtual reality simulation. Therefore, for the emergencies of the avalanche of the Winter Olympics snow field, virtual reality simulation is of great significance.This article takes the Winter Olympics snow field as the main line to show the medical rescue simulation after the avalanche. The entire design relies on the Unity3D engine, and the final test.stage will use the HTC interactive device for 3D scene evolution testing. First, using Unity's own mountain processing software, based on the original terrain, on the whole, a realistic outdoor ski resort model can be realized. Secondly, based on the Unity3D software design, it is mainly to construct the 3D model of the snow mountain and the subsequent emergency rescue animation module. The entire project C # language used as the scripting language of the entire project. After the avalanche scenario, virtual emergency medical rescue be realized. Finally, regarding the formulation of emergency levels and different rescue measures taken at different levels, and make emergency medical emergency response basedon avalanche scenarios.

Remote Sensing Phenology of Antarctic Green and Red Snow Algae Using WorldView Satellites.

Snow algae are an important group of terrestrial photosynthetic organisms in Antarctica, where they mostly grow in low lying coastal snow fields. Reliable observations of Antarctic snow algae are difficult owing to the transient nature of their blooms and the logistics involved to travel and work there. Previous studies have used Sentinel 2 satellite imagery to detect and monitor snow algal blooms remotely, but were limited by the coarse spatial resolution and difficulties detecting red blooms. Here, for the first time, we use high-resolution WorldView multispectral satellite imagery to study Antarctic snow algal blooms in detail, tracking the growth of red and green blooms throughout the summer. Our remote sensing approach was developed alongside two Antarctic field seasons, where field spectroscopy was used to build a detection model capable of estimating cell density. Global Positioning System (GPS) tagging of blooms and in situ life cycle analysis was used to validate and verify our model output. WorldView imagery was then used successfully to identify red and green snow algae on Anchorage Island (Ryder Bay, 67°S), estimating peak coverage to be 9.48 × 104 and 6.26 × 104 m2, respectively. Combined, this was greater than terrestrial vegetation area coverage for the island, measured using a normalized difference vegetation index. Green snow algae had greater cell density and average layer thickness than red blooms (6.0 × 104 vs. 4.3 × 104 cells ml−1) and so for Anchorage Island we estimated that green algae dry biomass was over three times that of red algae (567 vs. 180 kg, respectively). Because the high spatial resolution of the WorldView imagery and its ability to detect red blooms, calculated snow algal area was 17.5 times greater than estimated with Sentinel 2 imagery. This highlights a scaling problem of using coarse resolution imagery and suggests snow algal contribution to net primary productivity on Antarctica may be far greater than previously recognized.

DNA barcoding of Austrian snow scorpionflies (Mecoptera, Boreidae) reveals potential cryptic diversity in Boreus westwoodi.

BackgroundSnow scorpionflies (genus Boreus) belong to a family of Mecoptera, Boreidae, that has been vastly neglected by entomological researchers due to their shift in seasonality to the winter months. Their activity during this time is regarded as a strategy for predator avoidance and regular sightings on snow fields suggest that this also facilitates dispersal. However, many aspects about snow scorpionflies, especially systematics, taxonomy, distribution of species, phylogenetics and phylogeography have remained fairly unexplored until today. In this study, we fill some of these gaps by generating a reference DNA barcode database for Austrian snow scorpionflies in the frame of the Austrian Barcode of Life initiative and by characterising morphological diversity in the study region.MethodsInitial species assignment of all 67 specimens was based on male morphological characters previously reported to differ between Boreus species and, for females, the shape of the ovipositor. DNA barcoding of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene was carried out for all 67 samples and served as a basis for BIN assignment, genetic distance calculations, as well as alternative species delimitation analyses (ABGD, GMYC, bGMYC, bPTP) and a statistical parsimony network to infer phylogenetic relationships among individual samples/sampling sites.ResultsMorphological investigations suggested the presence of both Boreus hyemalis and Boreus westwoodi in Austria. DNA barcoding also separated the two species, but resulted in several divergent clades, the paraphyly of B. westwoodi in Austria, and high levels of phylogeographic structure on a small geographic scale. Even though the different molecular species delimitation methods disagreed on the exact number of species, they unequivocally suggested the presence of more than the traditionally recognized two Boreus species in Austria, thus indicating potential cryptic species within the genus Boreus in general and especially in B. westwoodi.