Dynamics of river ice jams

河流冰塞洪水对人类生命和财产构成重大威胁，因为它们发生的速度很快。 在冰塞释放事件期间，我们在实地研究中测量到水位上升接近每分钟1米，与冰塞形成事件相关的洪水水位经常超过加拿大许多社区的夏季洪水水位。冰塞导致水位急剧上升的事实，沿着大量冰的河道堵塞，使得它们难以预测，测量起来也极具挑战性。 然而，经过十多年的专注研究，我和我的学生已经成功地开发了预测和测量冰塞形成和释放事件的技术，无论是在实验室还是在现场。 这些知识构成了我们冰塞洪水数值模型的基础，并为我们自己和其他人的模型提供了有价值的验证数据。

River ice jam floods present significant threats to human life and property, because of the speed with which they can occur. We have measured water level rises approaching 1m per minute in our field studies during ice jam release events, and the flood levels associated with ice jam formation events frequently exceed summer flood levels in many communities across Canada. The fact that ice jams cause such dramatic water level rises, along with the congestion of river channels with massive amounts of ice, make them difficult to predict and extremely challenging to measure. However, after more than a decade of focused research, my students and I have succeeded in developing techniques for predicting and measuring ice jam formation and release events, both in the lab and in the field. This knowledge has formed the basis of our numerical models of ice jam floods, and has provided valuable validation data for our own, and others', models as well.