U.S.-Switzerland Planning Visit: Seeking a Better Understanding of Canopy-Snowpack Interactions in Relation to the Avalanche Hazard

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This award permits Professor Delphis Levia and two graduate students from the University of Delaware to meet with two Swiss colleagues, Drs. Martin Schneebeli and Peter Bebi, of the Swiss Federal Snow and Avalanche Institute in Davos, Switzerland. The planning visit is absolutely critical as the research team will identify specific forest sites, characterize the forest stands, scout potential sites for the microclimatological instrumentation, and integrate in situ preliminary data into a new collaborative research proposal to be submitted to the National Science Foundation to investigate snow-canopy interactions in relation to the avalanche hazard. Dr. Levia is an expert in forest hydrology and snow-canopy interactions. Dr. Martin Schneebeli is co-inventor of the SnowMicroPen, a key instrument in the proposed work, and a world renowned snow scientist. Dr. Peter Bebi is an expert in forest-avalanche interactions. Our research team is ideally suited to investigate the effects of throughfall and snow microstructure in stands with variable tree spacing as we have complementary expertise in forest hydrology, snow hydrology and physics, and forest ecology as well as the avalanche hazard. The proposal stemming from this international planning visit is especially important because, while many avalanches are initiated in sparse forests, no studies have yet employed a snow micropenetrometer (i.e., SnowMicroPen) to examine the microstructural properties of subcanopy snowpacks. Thus, knowledge from this study would greatly advance relevant theory in snow science and ultimately lead to improved avalanche forecasts.