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

该奖项允许Delphis Levia教授和来自特拉华州大学的两名研究生与瑞士达沃斯瑞士联邦雪和雪崩研究所的两名瑞士同事Martin Schneebeli和Peter Bebi博士会面。规划访问是绝对至关重要的，因为研究小组将确定具体的森林地点，描述森林的特点，为小气候仪器寻找潜在的地点，并将现场初步数据整合到一个新的合作研究提案中，提交给国家科学基金会，以调查雪崩危险的雪冠相互作用。 Levia博士是森林水文学和雪冠相互作用方面的专家。Martin Schneebeli博士是SnowMicroPen的共同发明者，SnowMicroPen是拟议工作中的关键仪器，也是世界知名的雪科学家。Peter Bebi博士是森林雪崩相互作用方面的专家。我们的研究团队非常适合调查不同树距的林分中穿透雨和雪微观结构的影响，因为我们在森林水文学，雪水文学和物理学，森林生态学以及雪崩危害方面具有互补的专业知识。这次国际规划访问提出的建议特别重要，因为虽然许多雪崩都是在稀疏的森林中发生的，但还没有研究使用雪微重力仪（即，SnowMicroPen），以研究亚冠层积雪的微观结构特性。因此，这项研究的知识将大大推进雪科学的相关理论，并最终导致雪崩预报的改进。

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.